Holy Hungarian Haircuts!

Karen asked me how I managed to communicate my wishes with the half hunky/half prancy Hungarian hairdresser. She asked if I showed him a photo, which would have been a far better option come to think of it.

Instead, I pretty much just point at my hair, shrug my shoulders, pull on the frayed ends with a scowl on my face, and make cutting pantomime with my fingers. In about that order. As for the bangs, I think I sort of pull them over my eyes look at him inquisitively, then push them to the side and repeat the same expression - a mixture of befuddle, anxiety, and desperation, with a touch of hope that he, in all his hunky pranciness will have the answer to my prayers. He then repeats the same process of moving my bangs to and fro, with a look of focussed, calm contemplation not unlike a zen master. Zen master hunkyprance ends up pushing them to the side and nodding the final nod. Well, that and the fact that he has the undaunting task of 'fixing' the 'trim' that I took upon myself in Zagreb when facing a particularly bad hair day on the road.

In short, the whole haircut experience is a total trust situation. The best part is there is no pressure to buy some over-priced hair straightener palmade. The worst part is that I need to learn the key word 'only' before I dare enter the salon again. nd when I say only, I mean only as in I 'only' want a haircut that will take under 1 hour and I don't want to go into the strange seemingly hyperbolic chamber of fancy hair wash where you get the head massage and timeout while you wait for the hair masque to work its magic under the strains of soft euro rock. Tho I love a good head massage, it was not what I had in mind, or in my pocketbook, when I walked in for a simple cut. It is of course an extra service fee, and apparently one you must actively decline. Especially if you walk in speaking broken Hungarian. I like to call it the foreigner tax.

The only other downside is that no amount of arm waving and head shaking was going to deter him from a one can assault of hair spray in the end. My modest Hungarian language skills had not prepared me for that. So just sat back and let him spray me into the 1970s.