These are the people and places in my neighboorhood

I've been here just over 5 weeks and am settling in for the year. These are people and places that are a part of my life.

Viterbo-Porta Romana Station

Trenitalia leaves every hour (every other hour on weekends) for Rome and the entire journey takes about an hour and 45 minutes because it's a local train and stops 15 or so times.

Generic looking architecture...

....houses a new pool. It opened in the past two years. The pool is outside the walls about a 15 minute walk from my apartment.

The cafe I go to each and every morning at 630AM. Often I'm the first customer of the day.

The proprietor, Massimo, is a master of customer service. He knows everyone's drink and says hello to everyone and is sincere. I don't even need to order anymore. I walk in, am handed my chocolate croissant and my morning has started.

Right now, my Italian is lacking, but I find that I learn most by reading the sports page. I can figure out what's going on in the pictures and then read the captions and learn words that way. By the way, steroid in Italian is, "steroid."

My morning habit. Massimo puts chocolate in my drink every morning. I get the caffe latte and then he squirts chocolate sauce, always in some funny picture. The seltzer water is key as it cleanses the palate after all that sweetness.

This is my bakery of choice. It's closed for the afternoon, like most stores in Italy.

Fruits and Vegetables!

Here's the inside of my local fruit and vegetable shop.

The owner is nicknamed "the jeweler." Why?

Because he doesn't let you touch the produce. He's such a charming man and is patient with me to teach me the names of all the produce. I can now go in there and do all my shopping in Italian and it's not even a stretch. He's also really good and getting me to buy more than I originally ask for.

The wine store is simply 12-15 vats of wine. You can taste test.

The choice is made.

Full bottle (which lasts me about two and a half weeks as I have one class a night and its watered down) is 1.70 Euro ($3)

Gigi and Mena's is my meat guy. Mena is his wife.  FYI, their son, Alessandro is best friends with Italian Serie A, national team defenseman AND Viterbese, Leonardo Bonucci.

Here's Gigi. He too is all about the charming customer service. My only problem here is that I can't get my porchetta and pancetta. I always want the former (ham) but ask for the latter (bacon). Every time, I get it wrong.

But Gigi's specialty is for me, his sausage.

We take our recycling and trash to bins that are located every few blocks. It's hard NOT to drink bottled water here as it's so inexpensive and the variety is incredible. The grapefruit soda isn't yellow, but made from real grapefruits. Yum.

This is my cheese and yogurt guy. Don't know his name yet, but we do the Italian thing too.

I have tasted fresh yogurt for the first time. A revelation as the cultures almost leave a burning sensation but is unbelievably addictive.

Here's my chosen gelateria. I am systematically trying each flavor. But as it has become fall, they've cut their choices in half. I wasn't done.

One of my two grocery stores. It's where I go to buy museli and bottled drinks and cookies, etc. The other grocery store I go to is called, get this, Emmy Piu.