The very first place I ate at in my neighborhood is one that I frequent often now. It’s called “Caffe di Roma” and is a simple little Italian eatery with very friendly staff. I usually eat Chinese food for lunch and then balance it out with a western style dinner. On my first night in China, I was trying to find a place. I wandered up the promenade and this Chinese man came up to me speaking in perfect English. This was Sandro, the owner. He’d picked the name “Sandro” from living in Italy fairly recently for three years. He’s a former IT professional turned Italian food and cappuchino afficionado and now has his own restaurant. I’ve become a loyal customer due to his and the staff’s friendliness, not to mention the excellent pizza, my favorite dish there.

Here’s a shot of me n’ Sandro. He frequently comes out and sits w/ the customers. I’ve been wearing this shirt a lot. It just so happens to be a very lucky shirt this time of year – red with yellow stripes, you know?

There’s also a tiny staff of four waitresses, usually only two at once. Of the four, only one, Pearl, can speak decent English, and she’s quite good. I’ve learned a good bit from her. She was the one who taught me the subtle difference between “to eat” and “to go”. I recall having a hard time with the two verbs, but it’s much easier now. I guess there is some progress. The chef, who’s name I don’t recall, is a funny guy who looks the role. He comes up to me and talks a lot but I almost never understand him. He seems to think I’m fluent in Chinese ’cause I can say a couple of phrases. I reckon all the girls help me speak to one extent or another, but the chef just sends words flying into one ear and out the other. He and Sandro often can be found playing Chinese Chess. Here they are:

I usually carry around a raggedy piece of paper for impromptu lessons. When I hear a significant new word, I have the person write it out in PinYin, the English phonetic language for Chinese. Here’s a shot of Pearl writing down something for me (I do this multiple times a day, every day):

A typical sheet of paper of mine w/ PinYin and English:

A little dog w/ another party at the caffe:

On the day I took these pictures and wrote up this post, I actually hung around the caffe for two meals: breakfast and lunch. Activities in between: writing emails or blog posts, learning Chinese, showing the folks various pictures from the US. Because it was the first day of the Zhu nian (“Year of the pig”), folks take it easy. So, even though I have a lot of work to do (tomorrow), I’m taking it easy today. Also, it feels like a little cold, flu, or something has been trying to grab hold of me the past two days. So, I’m going to take it very easy today and focus on staying healthy.