All roads definitely do not lead to Rome.
If ever there was a city or a even an entire country where you could hope to find yourself during a natural disaster, might I recommend Hong Kong, that small point at the civilised end of the People’s Republic of China. Stuck in petrifaction like a starfish upon the sweaty isle, midway between my old home and my new home, for an entire week during the 2010 Iceland Volcano Explosion, I subsequently praise their organisation, their hospitality and their ability to inform the stranded millions of our potential fate. Rallying the troops and moving a sea of humanity from point A to point B is certainly one of the advantages of such a humungous population.
The place you never want to find yourself during any kind of crisis is Italy. Italy, the country whose government is held together with primitive glue made from flour and water, pasta.
Shrouded in a whole 10 cm of snow (I hear the Scandinavians giggling), the city that gave birth to modern man, aqueducts and a profusion of black leather came grinding to an icy halt. Romans can withstand the 30-year rule of a slimy, corrupt, sex-addicted president and they can smile through the cliff dive of their economic vitality, but sprinkle a layer of frozen water over them and their already vivacious hand gestures become positively epileptic.
Milano Marshmallow
This week, for the first time in 20 years, it snowed in Rome.
Having already travelled through the mountainous northern regions of Lombardy and Piedmont in the few days preceding my Roman Holiday, I had become accustomed to spying the fresci, the stucco and the handsome uomini through a veil of up to 50cm of freshly dumped white powder. In the North, so used to snow they’ve even hosted a Winter Olympics, the inclement weather did nothing more than slow down a bus or two. The cars moved, the roads were clear; there was enough salt and grit to keep everyone walking briskly on the streets in their bespoke Italian leather pumps. I even noticed that their platinum blonde heat-straightened hair holds up excellently in the ice.
A day later, two hours to the south, I disembarked at Roma Termini. In an instant, I thought myself walking onto the set of The Day After Tomorrow. Ancient monuments were poking out from under a marshmallow layer of thick white frosting. Deprived of a ready supply of salt to prevent crunchy layers of ice coating the filth of twenty centuries of man, the pavements became impromptu skating rinks. The only thing missing from the scene was the syrupy baritone of Morgan Freeman calling out the rhythmic announcements of further delays, further cancellations and heightened chaos.
Roma Termini or Dante's Inferno
In the station hall, women and children clung to each other like the polar Inuit for warmth. The drunks, usually happy to lie in the street, had gathered inside were singing jolly songs to each other in the hope of encouraging a coin or two from the pockets of the passing commuters. Especially entertaining were the employees of Trenitalia, the public train company. Instead of offering aid, advice, support or random scraps of information to the thousands of stranded travellers, they amused themselves by laughing at the lost groups of Japanese, they shared coffee while ignoring the locals shouting over their shoulders. In short, they did absolutely (insert appropriate curse) nothing. At least the now infamous Captain Schettino did something, if only to “accidently fall” into a lifeboat.
Despite the trauma of a week with no sensation in my left hand and thigh cramps from too much time spent sitting in a train, my love for Italy has only waned ever so slightly. Offsetting the glacial travel experience is a newfound love affair with a tall, dark and handsome man. Before you all start buying wedding gifts, this is happening entirely within the confines of my own cranium. However unlike my passionate pas-de-deux with Michael Fassbender, this new man actually exists in my actual world, actually knows who I am and has even touched my actual skin.
What is it that gets me so hot and heavy about Italian men? Being as I am, of Pinkish-White European origin, my speckled complexion must be magnetically drawn to their olive cocoa skin, creamily moisturised so much better than any woman. Their dark curly locks, drooping seductively over a dark eye, framed with long black lashes and an arched question mark of an eyebrow. The overall chocolatiness of the Latin man is no comparison to the bronzed Aussie surfer stereotype so favoured by female visitors to Australia and so vanilla to my bored blue eye.
Understated Italian design including Gold Chair
Latin men dress in real clothes, pants and shirts that fit snugly against their muscled torsos, not oversized t-shirts and baggy shorts. They dress well enough to be manly but not appear gay, a balance that David Beckham is yet to strike. They talk about food and wine with as much energy as they argue about football. During one memorable dinner, the men at the table spent ten minutes discussing a brand of couch, commenting on the quality of the leather and how the colour complimented the carpet. My female friends and I don’t talk about furniture with as much vigour as these guys do.
And then the Latin man speaks…the rolling of their R’s as they intone English vaguely reminiscent of something like cunnilingus. His voice is always deep and rich, the bass of his vowels evokes the heroic strength of Atlas and, excuse my French, it is quite simply, pants down, out of breath, call the doctor, f**king sexy. Yes indeed, I love Latin men. Antonio, Al, Gael, that guy in Love Actually; all macho and leather and long hair and broad shoulders and tight jeans and sultry sexuality.
So back to the story…
David - Uomo Perfetto
The latest object of my affection, will be known here as David. David as in Michelangelo’s stone ode to the ultimate perfection of masculinity, David as in “I’ve got more of a chance of kissing a giant cold slab of carved white marble than I do of getting anywhere near this guy” David.
David is someone that has been in my life for a little under two years, someone with whom I’ve recently been obliged to spend increasing amounts of time, someone who has arms like oak tree branches that could break a woman’s back (*sigh*), someone who stares into my eyes with a dark intensity, a stare that I’ve cerebrally decided to define as uncontrollable instinctive desire. Although it is most certainly acute concentration as he doesn’t speak perfect English and is not accustomed to Australian accents, especially Australian accents thrown forth into the ears humanity from within the lungs of the loudest most emotionally volatile woman in Europe since Maria Callas.
David thinks I am really funny. Funny like a comedian. Perhaps funny like a clown.
The reason I am funny around David is because I am paralysed with anxiety. Every time I talk to him, I nervously resort to talking non-stop in repetitive staccato like some sort of bouffant-headed Uzi gun. Taut nerves in the company of a man are not the most attractive of my feminine traits. My constant embarrassment at myself is only heightened by the fact that he must think of me as some sort of sideshow in a street fair.
Roll Up! Roll Up! Come one, come all and marvel at the wonder of the elastic mouthed spring-jawed woman who never shuts up!
Annoyingly, he is quite a tactile man is this David. Could be a trait native to all Italians? Could be that he seeks out every available opportunity to touch me? Let’s go with the latter. He is one of those men who drape his arm across the back of your chair while he turns to talk to you. He grabs at my hand to get my attention; he brushes his shoulders against me to underline a particular point in his conversation. And every time he does this, I have to breath quietly and deeply to myself trying in vain to keep my pulse down at a non-audible level.
Finally, David has a particularly provocative way of sitting. I wasn’t sure if it was a display of attraction intended only for me, or something he does to everyone. In my head, which naturally favours me, I’d like to go with option one. He sits with one leg draped high over the arm of the chair, the other on the floor, legs spread at 180 degrees, showing off all the angles of his manly accoutrements. Unlike Michelangelo’s David who stands to attention with his gear at the ready, my David sits much in the way that a lion might, hips splayed, in front of his pride of lionesses showing off just how he plans to draw them in to the circle of life. My eyes, circles of life widening at each of these phallic exhibitions, struggled to stay focussed above his neck.
Did no one realise the tower was off-centre until AFTER it was finished?
My head, frozen out from the layers of wool protecting me from the sub-zero Siberian air, is a perfect Petri dish for fantasy. Suffering from the affects of chronic fatigue, alcohol and shoulder-crushing stress, all kinds of wonderful things happen as my grey matter is charged with electricity.
I am at least two sizes smaller, I have unlimited financial backing, I have Miranda Kerr’s legs, and David is in love with me. He is waiting only for the right moment to paint his chest in dark chocolate with two magic words that will see us run off into the sunset of Portofino, his muscled arm around my waist, my hair bouncing in the breeze behind me, no humidity drenched frizzy fly-away hairs at all.
The words… I hear them now…in my head… Ti amo.
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