Beauty School Dropout
This post will be a good judge of the readership of my blog because today I don't have stories of riots or foreign countries, only a trip... to the barber. So if you endure the next 600 words, I commend you for your dedication.
As you know, two things that I love to do are save money and go on adventures, so when I saw that I could get a haircut, which I needed badly, at the Copenhagen Beauty School for 50 kr I decided to go for it. I've heard some horror stories about Danish haircuts, and seen some of the damage on some kids here, so I was ready for anything. After a couple of rescheduled appointments and some random alleyways I finally made it to the beauty school. There was not a lot of English flying around at this place, but the guy at reception told me to go upstairs and find Jasser (pronounced ya-SAIR), and so it started.
Jasser started by shampooing my hair, which is an enjoyable experience, except that I felt like I was going to get whacked, Sopranos style, lying back with my head in the sink.
Next he brought me out to one of the chairs and disappeared, I got to pass the time by staring at myself in the mirror. Jasser finally returned with a tool belt of barbering equipment. Barbering equipment doesn't do justice to this arsenal he had on his waist. He must have been packing 25 different implements of hair follicle destruction.
Now if you've ever been in a barber shop you understand the difficulty that can arise in trying to put into words what kind of hair cut you need. I think this is why guys go back to the same barber shop like homing pigeons, they know their own barber is familiar with how they want to look. Anyways, Jasser and I were having a little difficulty with this. His head had a style going that involved lots of gel and hair combed at weird angles, so I couldn't compare it to his. He spoke a little english, but after a lot of hand waving he disappeared again... this time he came back with a book full of pictures of male models with very fashionable haircuts. Now, I'm not going to lie to you, I don't get mistaken for a male model all that often, so this was an exercise in futility--- lots of pointing and nodding ensued. .
Jasser then went to work on my overgrown mane of thick, freshly washed hair. And this is the most impressive part, he did it all with scissors! No buzzer until the very end! It was unbelievable, and took quite a long time. He must have clipped my hair 78,000 different times, I was truly impressed.
Since this was beauty school and Jasser was just a student, every couple of minutes one of the "teachers" would come over to inspect and make sure he wasn't butchering my hair. I was fine with this, except for one woman who came over and just started laughing hysterically... I was not amused.
Jasser paid very close attention to detail, and made sure every single strand of hair was at the appropriate length... as you can tell this was not a short haircut. What defied logic was that after he spent all this time inspecting each follicle, he whipped out a new pair of scissors from his batman-utility belt and just started clipping at seemingly random spots at a furious pace. I was confused.
The final step of this process was when the head teacher came over and inspected his handy work, running a comb through my hair until he was satisfied. I felt like a paramecium in a 9th grade science experiment at this point.
And that was it! I was out of there with what seems to be a perfectly acceptable hair cut. Mission Accomplished.
***
Just some loose ends:
As you know, two things that I love to do are save money and go on adventures, so when I saw that I could get a haircut, which I needed badly, at the Copenhagen Beauty School for 50 kr I decided to go for it. I've heard some horror stories about Danish haircuts, and seen some of the damage on some kids here, so I was ready for anything. After a couple of rescheduled appointments and some random alleyways I finally made it to the beauty school. There was not a lot of English flying around at this place, but the guy at reception told me to go upstairs and find Jasser (pronounced ya-SAIR), and so it started.
Jasser started by shampooing my hair, which is an enjoyable experience, except that I felt like I was going to get whacked, Sopranos style, lying back with my head in the sink.
Next he brought me out to one of the chairs and disappeared, I got to pass the time by staring at myself in the mirror. Jasser finally returned with a tool belt of barbering equipment. Barbering equipment doesn't do justice to this arsenal he had on his waist. He must have been packing 25 different implements of hair follicle destruction.
Now if you've ever been in a barber shop you understand the difficulty that can arise in trying to put into words what kind of hair cut you need. I think this is why guys go back to the same barber shop like homing pigeons, they know their own barber is familiar with how they want to look. Anyways, Jasser and I were having a little difficulty with this. His head had a style going that involved lots of gel and hair combed at weird angles, so I couldn't compare it to his. He spoke a little english, but after a lot of hand waving he disappeared again... this time he came back with a book full of pictures of male models with very fashionable haircuts. Now, I'm not going to lie to you, I don't get mistaken for a male model all that often, so this was an exercise in futility--- lots of pointing and nodding ensued. .
Jasser then went to work on my overgrown mane of thick, freshly washed hair. And this is the most impressive part, he did it all with scissors! No buzzer until the very end! It was unbelievable, and took quite a long time. He must have clipped my hair 78,000 different times, I was truly impressed.
Since this was beauty school and Jasser was just a student, every couple of minutes one of the "teachers" would come over to inspect and make sure he wasn't butchering my hair. I was fine with this, except for one woman who came over and just started laughing hysterically... I was not amused.
Jasser paid very close attention to detail, and made sure every single strand of hair was at the appropriate length... as you can tell this was not a short haircut. What defied logic was that after he spent all this time inspecting each follicle, he whipped out a new pair of scissors from his batman-utility belt and just started clipping at seemingly random spots at a furious pace. I was confused.
The final step of this process was when the head teacher came over and inspected his handy work, running a comb through my hair until he was satisfied. I felt like a paramecium in a 9th grade science experiment at this point.
And that was it! I was out of there with what seems to be a perfectly acceptable hair cut. Mission Accomplished.
***
Just some loose ends:
- The riot I wrote about last week apparently did take off at night. I was in Amsterdam so I missed it all, but a few of my DIS pals were in the area and tasted some tear gas. Fortunately nobody I know was arrested, even though there were a ton of foreigners locked up.
- I got my bike up and running at full speed, Lily's brother Martin took a peek at it and did something so now I have all 3 speeds functioning. Before two of the gears weren't working, which usually isn't a problem, but on a 3 gear bike it's not fun.
- I've started to get mail! Woo! If you want to send anything, here's my address.
- DIS keeps track of blogs run by their students, and last week I was named "Blog of the Week." It was a big day for "Exploring the Old World." There's also a blogging contest going on, so hopefully I can win the 1000 kr prize at the end of the semester.
- Here's the DIS blog page, I'm sure you'll enjoy that they took the picture of me in a viking helmet as my photo.
posted by Alex Garlick | 6:01 PM
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