It was a couple of days after arriving in Spain. Denise and I were strolling down a beautiful tiled walkway, restaurants and cafes to our left and the Mediterranean on our right. People were walking towards us, and also in and out of the adjacent businesses. Denise looked at me and said, “These Spanish women are gorgeous.”
“Really?” I arched a quizzical eyebrow. “I hadn’t noticed.”
That was, of course, the only permissible response.
What I could admit to noticing was that Spanish people are, in general, more fit than Americans. To be sure, beach sightings will include old men proudly displaying huge bronzed bellies. But one rarely sees a man or woman under 40 with excess fat. Perhaps not coincidentally, fast food restaurants are few and far between. Thus far we have seen two.
We live in a tourist area where the grocery stores are small. They offer very little in the way of sugary snacks. One might suspect this is due to limited shelf space. However, we once shopped at CarreFour, which might be compared to a Super Target. Even this store, with its large grocery department, offered only a small fraction of the junk food that would be standard fare at a Kroger’s or Safeway.
I have spent an entire lifetime honing my bad habits to a sharp edge. Arby’s may not have survived without my patronage. However, I’m sure its unavailability will not alone be enough to reveal the six-pack abs lurking beneath my pudgy desk jockey torso. Our local grocery store may have limited junk food selections, but it has ice cream. I would willingly walk out of Eden for that forbidden fruit.
Ironically, laziness may be the attribute which helps me shed a few pounds.
We don’t own a car. There is no Uber. No Lyft. The grocery store is a half mile away. I take a backpack there and for each purchase I must run an internal algorithm. The decision whether to purchase an item must factor weight, need, and desire. I don’t much desire salad but those fixings weigh very little and I need the nutrition. They go in the bag. I don’t need bread, but I like it, and it is very lightweight. It goes in the bag. I very much desire ice cream but I don’t need it and the weight per square inch is significant. Alas, ice cream must stay in the store.
I digress. You don’t care whether I have a fat butt. I was going to say something useful about Spanish bureaucracy. The uninformed will not realize how interesting, how fascinating, how downright weird is the Espania immigration process. Hold on to our hats, folks. My next post will blow your minds.