Class was a long ways from the villa I was staying at. The villa was at the top of a hill that overlooked the town, and the town, was, on top of the neighboring hill. Class was held in the library in town, at the very top of the hill. To get to class, I had to walk down the hill the villa was, then walk up the hill into town. The walk up was hard, steep hills and little shade. The one thing that made the walk better was a little café by the name of Tebros.

Tebros is a small café that serves Danishes, gelato, and most importantly, coffee. As soon as you walk in, you are greeted by a bustling atmosphere, with two women behind the L shaped counter trying to take as many orders as possible. When I finally get up the counter, I order the first thing on the coffee menu that I recognized, a café latte. A café latte is just a small shot of espresso and frothed milk. It immediately became my new go to drink after drinking it for the first time.

In Italy, it is common to order coffees at the counter and drink it right there, right away, then pay. It is especially common to just order espresso shots to take while on the go. The coffee drinks are also really cheap, usually around 1 euro. My café latte that I always order is a bit more expensive, but not by much, like 1.5 euros.

After getting coffee for a few days, I learned that is was not customary to order a café latte/cappuccino after a certain time in the day. You are supposed to get an espresso shot or americano (a watered down espresso shot) later in the day. That did not stop me though. Every time I went out to dinner I got a café latte, but I got even more weird stares. Waiters would often asked me if I was sure I wanted a café latte that late in the day, but I knew what I wanted, so I got it every time. One thing that surprised me was the coffees are much cheaper than sodas. Sodas run from 3-4 euros in restaurants, so I would also order coffees to save on money since they were less than half the price of a soda. Water also isn’t free. When you order water in restaurants in Italy, they bring out a little bottle that you share with everyone at the table. Each liter runs around 2 euros, and it quickly adds up if everyone is thirsty.