What's with all the Nutella?

Here are a few odd bits and pieces of my observations on Rome, having been a "resident" here for two weeks now.

Where have all the good looking Romans gone?

Seriously. They must all have been deported. Someone some day had the brilliant idea of shipping off a considerable portion of Rome's men to different countries around the world, for the greater good of civilization.

Following my last stay in Rome, I would tell people that in the three weeks I spent here, I saw two ugly Italian men. That was it. I felt very sorry for them.

I am reading a book - many people may be familiar with it - Eat, Pray, Love, an excellent book in which the author tells numerous tales of her voyages abroad. She spent four months in Rome, and writes that the men here are "achingly beautiful" (or something to that effect). I know what she's talking about; I saw them repeatedly the last time I was here. So what happened in the last very few years? I just don't see them anymore. They have mysteriously vanished.

When I was 17, I met a very handsome military man in Rome named Carmine. I bet Carmine is now pot-bellied and balding.

It is a fact commonly known that Western women are gawked at and whistled at and flirted with continuously in Rome. When I was 17, it was very, very true. Now, obviously, this fact has been transformed into myth. Is this true only for me? Because I am 32 years old and traipsing around Rome pushing a baby stroller? Or is it because, as Elizabeth Gilbert mentions in her book, Roman men have decided to fight against their stereotype and prove to the world that they can be gentlemen as well? Perhaps. And yet, there is the odd one or two who refuse to change and proudly flaunt their talent for awkward flirtation. Like the typical middle-aged man who, moving aside to let me cross the street with my stroller, says behind my back: "Ciao bella!" Or the man behind the counter at the gelato place who asks me where I'm from and tells me I am very beautiful (unfortunately, I could not say the same for him. Poor man.)

So, to recap, the head-turningly handsome men in Rome I remember appear to have vanished. Or, perhaps, as I do have the most good-looking man in the world for a husband, every other man, whether he be Canadian or Italian, now looks to me like he has scrambled eggs for a face. Or something like that.

Why all the ugly little dogs?

Everywhere you go, you come across someone walking a little dog. Most times, it's an ugly little dog. With short legs, hopelessly tangled and greasy, brownish grey fur, and sometimes even a touch of mange; this is an accurate description of most dogs I have seen here. Why? And where do they come from?

Tourists are, after all, the very worst.

And they have single-handedly ruined Rome. I mean, there are more tourists than Romans in Rome, I am sure of it. The Fontana di Trevi has been turned into a veritable Disneyland, the Piazza di Spagna is a haven for people selling fake jewelry, fake purses, and pointless, very noisy toys for all the annoying tourists' kids. Finally, visiting Saint Peter's Basilica has become about as fun as wandering around an airport, with guards, gates, and security checkpoints everywhere.

Rome does not look like itself anymore. Where, for example, are all the pickpockets and gypsies? The professional purse-snatchers? The children walking around with a board that they put in tourists' faces to distract them while they relieve them of their belongings? They have probably given up any attempt to make a living in this city, thinking that if they were to try their hand at stealing someone's purse or wallet, they would risk the common indignation of a mob of tourists. Suppose that their intented victim is part of one of the very many tour groups that dominate the streets of Rome. If a member of such a group was to be targeted for the riches on his person, the result would certainly be a concerted effort of some twenty or thirty men, women and children wearing matching hats or handkerchiefs, to come to the rescue of their fellow vacationer and collectively fall on the head of his attacker.

Finally, what's with all the Nutella?

It is everywhere. Stuffed inside croissants, smothered between layers of cake, piped into the center of cookies, or proudly displayed in huge containers in shop windows, Nutella has taken Rome by storm. It is even featured as a gelato flavour. At the grocery store, you have your pick between three or four different kinds of Nutella. Every café, bakery, or patisserie has a great big tub of nutella sitting on a top shelf, often right by the window, as if to say to every passer-by: "Look! We have Nutella here!" It is even used in carefully contrived plots of deceit. Chocolate croissants and cookies are actually Nutella croissants and cookies. You may think you're ordering a piece of chocolate cake, when what you're actually paying 7 euros for is Nutella cake. At least I haven't seen a Nutella tartuffo. Yet.

Needless to say, I do not think I will be ordering any hot chocolate. I just might get a hot Nutella.