Little town slow down

We got up a little later today and made it down to the hotel breakfast around 9:30. It was fairly crowded with tourists from all countries (the little Amalfi town is all tourism and so far the people here have been fluent in english and willing to speak it - a much different approach to foreigners than their big city urban compatriates). Turned out the food was pretty lousy - milk, yogurt, meats were left out not chilled, there was a bug in the cereal - not good. After eating the prepackaged stuff we decided to head down to the "beach." The hotel has a section of the harbor for themselves in which they put a dock covered it in artificial turf and set up chairs and umbrellas. We sat down there and watched the people swimming in the water next to the docked motorboats (water was still kind of clear). Around 1, we headed out for lunch. We sat down at the first sandwich shop which turned out to be a (my) bad idea. I ordered a salami and artichoke sandwich and Jadine got a caprese sandwich (edible but not so great). We left the shop heading for the hotel, but first stopping at an internet point so that we could book the train tickets to Rome. Luckily, on the way back to the hotel, we ran into a pastry shop (Andrea Pansa's) to make up for the lousy lunch. We grabbed a delicious lemon cake and ate it on the pier. We decided to relax and head over to one of the public beaches a little later. While relaxing in the hotel room, we read about the nearby town Atrani in Rick Steves guide. We decided to go there. Following the Rick Steves instructions, we traversed the sidwalk until it ended and went up some stairs; however, it wasn't just some stairs -- it was a lot of stairs. Turned out to be a bit of a hike, but there were some great views. Amazingly, we ran into some older folks who seemed to have no troubles with the stairs (my guess some kind of Darwinian thing - all the people who hated the stairs moved away). We reached Atrani and it was just as described a nice town with a beach and no tourists - actually eeriely so. With only locals around and no one in the water, it seemed a little wrong for us to go in. In any case we stuck our feet in. The water was warm. We were getting a little hungry so we headed back to Amalfi this time along the road like everyone else (the Rick Steves way is nice but a little impractical). We first went to the supermarket and picked up some water, milk, and a snack. Then we found a nice restaurant next door. We ended up getting one of the best meals here (in the Piazza dei Dogi). We had eggplant parmesan, artichoke and mushroom salad, and spaghetti alla bolognese. At the end of our meal, we found out the waitress was going to Japan on a work exchange program as they were hosting some one from Osaka right now. We told her about our trip and met the lady from Japan. Amazingly, the people at the restaurant speak english so well (from a town that has maybe 10000 residents)! This small town with its major tourist pulse still has quite a bit of charm. Tomorrow we're off to Capri.