this is what i have learned:
"culture shock" manifests itself in different ways.
sometimes i get overwhelmed in large groups.
sometimes i sleep for ten hours and still have dark circles under my eyes.
sometimes i feel extremely obvious and obnoxious and clumsy.
but always, always, ALWAYS, i am hungry
i mean consistantly, 24/7, i-haven't-eaten-in-days FAMISHED. i might as well be eating my way through my italy guidebooks, for all the nourishment i feel i'm getting from the food here. but i would rather be eating the following: mozerella and tomato sandwiches, kiwis, big oranges, oreos and nutella, bruschetta, hunks of random cheeses, pears. i would rather be eating an entire foccacia dipped in olive oil (which is what i just did).
and yet i am still STARVING.
my body is like, what the fuck's up? for one, i started running. i sort of promised my legs months of rest, only to wrest them from their peaceful slumber for the past few days and pound them on cobblestones. and secondly, i've honestly consumed more gluten in the last week than in my entire life.
it's amazing.
thirty percent of sicilians have celiac disease, as opposed to one percent of americans (or less). every kid gets tested when they turn 7. sooooooo there is a gluten-free restaurant right in ortigia (the island we're on) and today i found gluten-free pasta at the supermarket. problem: it costs 5 euros. fuck that. i would rather spend .50 on hunks of fresh bread (FUCK I'VE MISSED BREAD) and just tell my body to suck it up.
it's around 6 pm right now, which means i will be getting into my bed in front of my space heater in approximately two minutes, getting up in a few hours, eating again (duh), chilling, eating, chilling, eating. my plan is NOT to gain 200 pounds, so we'll see...
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Do you have celiac's disease? One of my campers this summer did, which made cooking on the trail esp un-user friendly. We'd boil her shitty pasta first so none of the starchy water from our pasta would be left in the pot. One time, on their group solos, I left Take 5 bars (which have pretzels in them) at the top of a peak for them to all find and she ate hers anyway. I worried she was going to be puking or something, and we'd have to pack it out (LNT, you know), but she was fine. How does this work with ceiliacs? Can you just eat gluten whenever and then pay the price later in life?
ReplyDeleteAnyway. When I studied abroad, I was also living alone, in this flat with all these Samoan girls (from the S. Pacific) and all the ppl from my program lived like 10 mins away via bus. So my flatmates all grocery shoped together and spoke Samoan around the flat, and I was never invited to do anything or knew what they were talking about. So I ate my meals seperately, alone, for the first time in my life. I ended up just buying a shit ton of New Zealand knock-off Ramen and never even bothering to cook it (I didn't have any pots and pans), just crunching it up in the bag and pouring that salty flavoring packet on it and shaking it up. I was always hungry there too. I think it was cuz I was training for a marathon though. Drink beer. Beer is filling.
Miss you.
xoxo
omg...girl scout cookies are here. I would rather be eating good bread and cheese. relax and enjoy. and keep running. ily
ReplyDeletebeer has gluten too, huh? damn.
ReplyDeleteI love Cara's comments... they're cracking me up. Eat lots of bread and cheese and wine and run along the ocean side for me. I miss you dearly! Lovelovelove, efo
ReplyDelete