Favorite cafe

 

After a month fully living here it seems like we are settled in. But we probably aren't as much as I think we are. There is a lot to discover here and wild enthusiasms for new things may or may not translate a way of life. 

Our relationship to cafes offers a case in point here.

When we were in the process of moving here, through day trips and brief overnight trips, we found a cafe down the street called Umi. This is a modern style of cafe that makes very good, albeit not perfect, coffee drinks. We went there a lot when we first moved here and thought it would surely be a regular place for us, so convenient and of a kind with many of the cafes we've loved in the past, in a modern, new wave style.

But now we haven't been back for weeks. This is partly because, one day, we discovered going to the grand old street cafes. These are the large, old world, sprawling and lovely cafes pouring out onto sidewalks in the busiest, usually pedestrianized areas. They are often crowded, and very charming. Oddly no more expensive than a more practical cafe like Umi, there are a couple of these down the street from us, and these suddenly captured our imagination and became the go to style of place for us for a week or two. We thought we would just go to these old world European places all the time going forward.

But those places have a lot of theater to them, and fancy waiters, and a lot of bustle, which can be exhausting at certain times. Also, it is cold here sometimes in the Winter, and these places can get a little short on charming indoor seating. At which point we discovered back of the house cafes or tearooms.

Backroom cafes are super quaint rooms at the back of what are usually sweet shops or chocolate shops. A perfect example of one of these is Canet, which has a couple of very different shops down two different streets from us. We went in just to peep at the pastries, or chocolates, or macarons, I forget which, and noticed a little super charming tearoom, almost fussy, but not quite. We sat. A patisserie showpiece, a macaron, and two coffees later, we were fully committed to this kind of cafe. It immediately seemed like that's where we'll be going from now on. 

I even have a few pictures for once (well, I mean, I often have pictures, but not so often of what I happen to be talking about). These are from Canet number one:

You may now have noticed how everytime I described a new kind of cafe I also said it was just down the street from us. This might hold the key to the matter. 

Everything is just down the street from us! Places that we might describe as "far" here would be the closest possible places we could walk to where we lived in Saint Minneapolis. I don't know how to say this without seeming like I'm being ridiculous, or exaggerating, but I do believe it is not outlandish to say that within an easy ten or twenty minute walk from our apartment are, I don't know, 500 places that could be considered in some way a cafe.

A thousand?

It's absurd. We've been to what, 30 or 40? I don't know. We liked most of them.

Today, after a week rather full of administrative tasks and doctors and bank accounts we were released again into our accustomed freedom. We had not particularly planned to go to any cafes, but we went to three! 

One was in a large, beautiful sweet shop specializing in rather pricey but delicious fruit gels in the middle of the old city. In the back of the store, up some stairs was a lovely and empty balcony seating area (we are now at peak low season here). We had two hot chocolates and part of a raspberry fruit gel. Later, after buying a Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin album, we popped in to a small cafe in an interesting neighborhood we're fond of. This was a small, modern cafe and might have been the best coffee we've had here or close to it. On the way home, as night fell, we went to one of the grand old cafes on the main tram pedestrian street, primarily inspired by the tiresome weight of the shopping bags we were carrying (I had bought some french olive oil). There we had a prosecco and a Negroni.

So what then does this mean?

Will we be going to three cafes a day from now on?

What is our way of life here now?

I don't know.

But so far, it seems to be working out.