It was a tight fit. Everyone was squeezed together like the crush of a hallway during a class change. I was sweating before I walked in and I wasn’t the only one. After noticing the sweat dripping off of our faces a short man in white whisked into action. He snatched a remote off a counter, mumbled some Italian, and I heard the beeps of an AC unit start up in some corner of the ceiling. As our group settled I heard our tour guide Francesca rapidly muttering a string of words to a woman behind the counter. Try as hard as I could, I understood nothing. So I focused on their facial expressions. Antonella’s smile was flashing. Her dark teeth would peek out from between her lips with every gush of laughter that Francesca caused. Her wild stories caused her hands to wave around as much as her eyebrows. My gaze swung over to the air vent to see if it was still churning, and below it the man in white caught my eye again. Francesco was a little man with big glasses, and he was moving. Pacing up and down the singular short hallway I could feel his energy. It was like the panic of a person who invited friends over to their house, only to remember that their bedroom was still messy. I was surprised he seemed so worried. I thought that his chocolate shop looked impeccable. It was small, but the shelves held packaged chocolate of all sizes like presents. The case in the front being manned by his wife Antonella, held at least twenty different chocolates that I heard through whispers we were about to try. I was spending the next few minutes deciding which one I wanted first when our was called and group got split into two. Before I knew it, I was at the head of a line being directed down that short hallway into a back room. It opened up into a kitchen and my eyes immediately got drawn to a vat of chocolate being stirred in a tall silver container. As Francesco described the process of how they made their own chocolate, my eyes darted around the room. I saw trays and spoons and big metal machines and the room smelled bitter sweet. As we shuffled out the room back to the front, I got ready to sample the pieces that I just saw him make. My eyes were stuck on a key shaped piece of dark chocolate. They had a special technique of making molds from vintage tools and using the molds for making chocolate. I wanted that one so I could feel like I was tasting the history they were telling of their shop they had started when they got married. I wasn’t let down.