There is no shortage of flour in Italian cuisine. From pizza and bruschetta to pasta and pastries, every staple food of Italy contains flour with no sign of whole wheat in sight. Yet despite the carbohydrate-dominated cuisine, the Italian population enjoys slimmer bodies and active elders.
I learned a lot from my recent Italian escape, like how automatic cars might as well be aliens and that you would be out of luck if your car didn’t take diesel fuel. The differences are endless and something I expected with a different culture, but while some things should remain unique to a certain culture, some things can be learned from.
After coming back and noticing things I didn’t notice before, I became somewhat ashamed. Americans are bigger than other countries’ populations, which became strikingly obvious after landing back in Philadelphia. But it’s not like the Italian population is the next health guru with their huge amounts of white bread, endless variety of cheeses and cured meats and sausages. These aren’t foods you might associate with a weight loss diet, yet at least one of these was present at every single meal. This doesn’t mean people spent hours in gyms either because fitness centers were as alien as automatic cars. The population simply seems to understand how to stay away from a sedentary lifestyle. They walk, they bike, they relax a little and let life slow down and enjoy the simpler things.
Flour is usually something people here try to cut out of their diet in order to lose weight but, in all honesty, you should never have to truly eliminate anything from your diet. It’s a lifestyle choice, not a diet and exercise regime. People in the United States take cars for granted and abuse them. The distance some college students use a car for is laughable, but like any foreign culture, things are simply different. Cities and towns in Italy are closer together, which encourages more walking and biking while cities and towns in the U.S. are more spread out with less access to public transportation. The U.S. can’t change in the blink of an eye and neither do I expect it to change because we’re different. The Italian culture is different, the Chinese culture is different and that is what makes this world unique.
Nonetheless, traveling enables you to gain a perspective that you might not have had before, to see how other people live their lives and maybe adopt a few new ways of thinking. Unfortunately I am here to say you will never like everything about one culture. While the Italian culture had a lot of fun differences, I didn’t realize peanut butter was a scare commodity! A minor hiccup, but not the only one because bathrooms were as variable as the different cheeses.
I can never be completely unbiased. People usually like anything that is different from their own way of living because it is a fun change. However, if you try to imagine living with these changes for a prolonged period of time, you might begin to realize what even the smallest differences will mean to you.
I am still a novice traveler with much more to learn about the world, but I am glad I’ve taken the first few steps. Get out, eat something strange and live differently for a while. There is no better season than summer and there is no better time than now when your commitments are at an all-time low.
