Haircut

Well, I finally reached my breaking point.  I had to get a haircut.  Originally, the plan was to get one right before I left Boston, so I'd be fresh for a while and my Spanish would be as strong as possible before having to tell some Chilean how I like my hair to look.  Unfortunately, I ran out of time in Boston, and already had a good 3+ weeks on my last haircut when I took the flight down here.  At first I told myself that it was possible that the "Adult Bieber" haircut could be a fad, depending on what neighborhood I moved into.  Then I told myself that I'd just look like an american emo kid, and maybe I'd be less likely to be harassed on the streets if I had longer hair.  But then I woke up one day without time to take a shower before class (thanks to my roommate, king of the 45 min showers at 8 AM), and had to just wet it down before I got there.  I checked myself in the bathroom after class, and I looked like I slept outside in the streets.  Whoops.

After wandering around my neighborhood for a good hour one day, I stumbled across a peluqueria - named "Peluqueria Dario's".  Armed with the spanish words for "sides, short, longer, top, and 'how much'", I took a deep breath and went into battle.  There were 2 chairs inside, one was currently in use by a barber/patron, and the second, MUCH older barber was sitting down, smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine.  In my best spanish, I asked him "cuanto vale por un corto de pelo?"  To which he responded by holding up 4 fingers.  I said fine.  4,000 roughly translates to about 8.50 USD, which seemed like a good deal to me.


I took my seat in the chair, and told him "short on the sides, and a little longer on top."  He then looked at me quizzically, and asked me a question in Spanish of which I understood about 1/3.  I responded by more or less repeating the same thing I said the first time.  He shrugged, and then reached for the clippers.  Probably not a good sign, but I didn't have much of a choice at this point.

I don't think I've mentioned it here before, but I would describe Santiago as what I imagine a major US city would have looked like in the 80s.  Nothing looks really "new", and people just sort of do what it appears that they've always done.  The Chileans are much farther from the technological singularity than the US appears to be.  That said, I think their barber shops are stuck in the 50s.  Honestly, I don't think the inside of this building has changed in 60 years, and that includes the clippers they used.  Half of the metal plates along the sides of them had worn through, and the guy ended up using about 4 different pairs to do the back of my head.  Also, there was no clippercide, no hot water to dunk the scissors in, or even a brush to get the last person's hair off of.  In a weird way, it's refreshing how nobody panics about germs or anything down here.  Of course, I'll feel this way until I get my first fungal infection.  Then this whole down can suck down a couple gringo lawsuits.

After a good 45 minutes in the chair (not kidding), I ended up walking out of there with a haircut that can best be described as "buzzed mushroom".  The sides were very neat and trim (he spent 35 of the 45 mins on those), and the top was barely blended in at all.  It wasn't noticeable the first day, as my hair was still laying flat from when it weighed more.  But the next day, after a shower, my hair returned to its natural state of fuzzy, and it's clear that the space between the "sides" and the "top" were not handled well.  I think now I understand why so many Chileans wear thick hair gel - it's to cover up the mistakes of their sub-par barbers.

It was also after this, that I made the first personal-alterations to my haircut since kindergarten, when I trimmed my own bangs before a riveting presentation to the class on poisonous snakes.  I am pleased to say that these alterations were more successful than the previous attempt.  However, "more successful" still leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I met my friend Jocelyn afterwards, and in my broken Spanish I asked her what she thought of my haircut.  She just shook her head and grimaced.  Whatever, my hair grows quickly. 

Ok, ok, fine.  One picture.  Who's hungry for some KFC?   

They should call it "Kentucky Frozen Cream".  Boom!