I Shall Not Walk Alone...

My friend Clare is my first official visitor in Rome. AND the first to see my apartment. AND the first to smell the horrible, stale sewer smell that seems to drift out of my bathroom drain everyday. I tried opening the bathroom window, using air freshener, burning matches but nothing seemed to help. BUT on Saturday, we went shopping and I happened to buy about 100g of black-green mint soap from Lush, which I put in my bathroom. Funnily enough, the smell of the soap is so strong that it seems to have overpowered the sewer smell. Nice.

While we were exploring the shopping on Via Del Corso, I had to stop at the Farmacia to buy razors so that I could shave my legs and pits (because there ARE limits to how much I'll assimilate to European culture). The store was pretty small and there was only one other family shopping in the store with us at the time. The woman was a tall, well dressed blonde (Clare noticed her dress right away) and she was at the counter buying something, while her husband and son stood beside her, having a conversation in English:

Son: Why are there butterflies on that package?
Dad: Because that's what the marketing company decided they wanted on the package.
Son: Why would the marketing company want butterflies on their packages?
Dad: Because they thought the people might like the butterflies and want to buy their product…
And so it went...

The father was so patient with his son. He answered the questions at a level the son could understand, but didn't talk down to him either. It was pretty darned cute, I tell ya, and my heart melted right there. I fell in love with a married stranger in a Farmacia in Rome. Then his wife finished her shopping and he walked out of my life.

WELL! When we got outside, a crowd had gathered around the man, asking for his autograph. Turns out the total stranger that I fell in love with was BEN HARPER. He and his wife (who my friend Annie later informed me was LAURA DERN) and their son were shopping on Via Del Corso too! I suck at recognizing celebrities, and never would have realized who they were if it hadn't been for the group of fans and the news camera crew waiting outside the store to follow them down the street.

For the record, Ben Harper is now on my list.

Dans l'cul, cafards!

When I was in Bermuda on vacation last month, I was introduced to a new product called Baygon. Apparently, cockroaches in Bermuda are huge, by Montreal standards, and are very difficult little buggars to kill. So the locals in Bermuda usually keep a can of Baygon handy. I was told that when you spray a Bermudan cockroach with Raid or any other insecticide, the vermin actually laugh in your face. But when you spray them with Baygon, they shrivel up and die on the spot. (Note: According to my sources, Baygon is supposedly banned in most countries because IT'S PRETTY MUCH NERVE GAS, but can be purchased on the black market).

Fast forward to Sunday, when I moved to Rome and took possession of my new apartment. I was happily unpacking my things, when what did I notice on the top shelf of my new closet? Yupper. A bright green can of Baygon.

So if the Italian police find an unidentified, red-headed Canadian twitching in the fetal position outside the Coliseum, please, someone claim me.