Gorditas

Today we had a big gathering with our host families at Cafe Futbol, and we all at too many churros with chocolate. World travelers or not, we're still college students, and as such can't resist free food--especially when it's as tasty as churros. All of us girls are very conscious of what we're eating lately, and trying to calculate whether we're walking enough to work off the bollerias (rolls and croissants), pasteles (pastries) and of course, the churros. We do walk a lot, as does everyone here in Granada. It's a 20 minute walk to school from our apartment, and in addition to that we've been spending several hours wandering around every day, just getting to know our new city. I'm not usually one to worry much about what I eat, but still. The pasta. The sweets. The white bread at every meal. I'm also not one to abstain from good food when I'm on vacation, but I keep reminding myself this isn't a vacation--a vacation is a week, maybe two weeks. This is a whole semester, and all those carbs are going to add up.

It doesn't make us feel much better to try on clothes in Spanish stores--my size 4 butt just barely fits into a medium dress here. An extra-large pair of pants looks more like it would probably be about an American size 8. (Plus the fact that I'm really tall here, and my shoe size hardly exists--which is a very good thing, when you come down to it.)

On Sunday mornings it's very easy to spot who's American and who's Spanish--the Spanish women are in fur coats and beautiful shoes, having a little paseo (stroll) through the quiet streets, arm in arm with a friend or husband; and the American girls are out in running shorts and blonde ponytails, taking a jog. (which I should still do.) But it's not just that there's fewer fat people--I was ready for that--but nobody seems particularly worried about exercising or watching what they eat. Forty-year-old women unabashedly eat fried dough dipped in chocolate. (I mean I was used to that from working at Canobie, but those women weighed 300 pounds and were wearing Gretchen Wilson tour T-shirts.) Spanish women enthusiastically ooh and ahh over how good it is, without any of those jokey "diet starts tomorrow!" comments American women make--and they're mostly thinner than Americans, too. Looking at them, I'm not too worried. The food we eat at home is delicious and very healthy, we walk everywhere, and a treat here and there is okay. What a concept.


dear julia: buying new pants is not the answer. paseos are. also this movie sucked, except for the "eat" part.