
I've gained about 6 pounds since I've arrived in Italy, and I'm trying to understand how. I guess it's not terrible, but I thought that when someone suddenly starts to walk everywhere and eat fruit and pasta and guzzle down wine instead of driving to the corner grocery store and feeding exclusively on Cheetos and Taco Bell and Mountain Dew, well, call me crazy, she or he was supposed to lose weight. Ok, maybe losing weight was not a good idea for me, but that's neither here nor there. It's just that when everyone around you is losing weight, you don't want to be the one gaining it. This "Mediterranean Diet", as they call it here (not cuisine, mind you, because it's a diet. A diet.), fails just about anyone on it. Why do I say that? Because it's 57 degrees outside and these waif Italian women are all bundled up in what they think is appropriate cold weather gear. More on that later. They have no fat on their little bodies and they act as ridiculous as me when I go out for five minutes to scrape snow off my car in pajamas on a thirty degree morning. It all makes me feel like Paul Bunyan. On the plus side, though, my hair is really shiny. Mediterranean Diet: 1. Taco Bell: 1