Mike's New Haircut

So I realize that I talk a lot about my trips and excursions but to be honest, my favorite part about living here in Italy is the local interactions and cultural nuances, so I think I'm going to talk quick about that. I've got some time to kill today, all alone in my apartment since my roommates already left for their spring break trip.
First of all, today started early, at 6:30am, taking Maria down to the train station and wishing her bon voyage back to America, thanks for visiting me, hope you enjoyed Roma!

So now, I just got a haircut, my first haircut here in Rome, and it was definitely a blogworthy experience (I literally just walked back in the door and was thinking about it the whole time that I was sitting in the chair). So it started out poorly, not going to lie. I went to the bar downstairs for my lunch and as I was sitting there at the bar eating, I asked my guy who works there every day and knows me well by now, where I could find a good barber. After repeating myself a few times he finally understood what I was asking because I was butchering the word barber apparently. Anyways, he told me where two were right up the street next to the post office, so I finished my lunch, flipped him a 1 euro coin and was on my way.

I walk into the first place I tried (oh yes, that means there was more than one) and I immediately felt like they didn't take kindly to my kind around there. The whole place stopped moving when I walked in (I know, I'm used to having that effect on places back home, but here, it's not a good thing) and everyone just stared at me. So the barber closest to me said "dirmi" - tell me what you want - so I said "I would like a barber" and then used my fingers to make a scissor shape and snipped at my hair ( I figured that would get the point across - guess I should've looked up the word for 'haircut' before I went..) . Anyways, he cut me off short and said "reserva?" asking if I had a reservation, so I said no and then he just kind of frowned at me. I shamefully walked back out the door assuming that everyone was talking about the dumb American before the door even shut behind me. Strike 1.

Let's try this again. A 10 second walk away, there was another place that looked more upscale but whatever, I just wanted a haircut. I creepily peered through their window to look inside at the price board, because I wanted to learn what the word for haircut was. Common sense told me it'd be the first one at the top and cheapest but that word just said "shampoo" - apparently people go there just for a shampoo? So the next item under that on the board was "Taglio", bingo. Found my word. So I walk in and was greeted by a 'Salve' (which is really fancy word for saying hello, no one has said it to me yet here) which immediately told me I was at a place too fancy for me. I did manage to ask them for a haircut without having to put on a charades show again so that was good but then there was a list of people ahead of me and there was no free slot until after 3pm (it was Noon at this point). Strike 2.

Now, I know all of you aren't baseball lovers, but one more strike, and them I'm out. Spoiler alert: Michael never strikes out. So, I left the second place, feeling defeated and still with all my hair on my head, not how the day was supposed to be progressing. Now I was just in aimless-wandering mode trying to find another barber, which is hard because they don't exactly look like barber shops until you get real close (where's that red and blue twirly pole thing when you need it? Oh right, it's back in the 1950's..) Finally, I found a place. Now this place was completely empty which I guessed was a bad sign considering every place down the street was packed but whatevs, maybe I just had found a diamond in the rough.

So I go in and ask for a haircut using my new vocab word and this young guy says okay and takes me back to start shampooing my hair. We sat in silence, apparently Americans are intimidating. After that 5 minutes was over, we went to the chair and he kind of just stared at me and finally spit out the words "Me, no..speak English, she no too (gesturing at the only other barber in the shop). " It's okay, I came to save the day. After telling him that I actually spoke Italian, he cheered up well and became one of the friendliest people I've ever met. I talked to him, in Italian, more than my barbers back home talk to me in English. Somethings not right about that.

So after doing the 'icebreakers' and telling him where I'm from, why I'm in Rome, what I'm studying here, etc.. we got into a few neat conversations. After telling him I live in Washington D.C. (Sorry, B-More, but I gave up telling people I'm from there, because no one has ever heard of it) he then said to me in Italian "ha-Oh, that's where Obama lives too!" Haha. So first we talked about Rome, what I like about it, what he likes about it, what we don't like about it. Then we moved on to soccer talk. I told him about the game I went too, turns out he's a huge AS Roma fan, so I just agreed with him every time he said something bad about Lazio. Then we talked about places to travel to around here, I told him about my spring break plans. The most important part of the conversation came at the beginning where I told him to cut it short, but not too short, but to more importantly make me look like an Italian guy. I was pretty impressed that I was able to do all this in Italian, granted I had to repeat myself once or twice because I phrased something wrong, it was still pretty neat. He was excited to make me look Italian.

Pre-Shower: How he did my hair

One of the funniest parts came when we were talking about music. Now I don't have a radio here, and I just discovered how to work our TV here a few days ago, so I don't really know what they listen to on the radio here. I know what they play at bars or clubs but that's not normally typical radio music. So, of course, they had the radio on in the shop so I said to him that I found it interesting that every song it played was an English song, I hadn't heard any Italian ones yet. Then he went on to say how music played everywhere here is from America because even though they can't always understand it, they still like it. Right after that conversation died down, 'She Will Be Loved' by Maroon 5 came on the radio. He started trying to sing to it but clearly he doesn't know the actual words so he ended up just doing a mix of humming and muttering words slurred together to sound like they were right for the whole song. Then I noticed he was doing the same for all the rest of the big popular songs that came on throughout the rest of the haircut but occasionally he would get a whole phrase right. It was funny because his accent was so think and poor when he initially told me he didn't speak English, but he had no problem echoing lyrics from Top 40 songs. One point to Ne-Yo for teaching him the lyrics to "One in a Million".

Post-Shower: My take at it

So apart from the chit-chat, this was one of the best haircut experiences I've ever had because of how detailed he was, I almost wanted to laugh at a few points he was being so particular. I was in that chair for about 30-40 minutes. Listen, my hair isn't complicated, he basically just gave me a regular haircut. But, he seemed to care about every single hair being perfect, he seriously would pull one little strand out, cut it, and stare for a few seconds to determine if that was right. Now, nothing against you, Hair Cuttery, you've always had my business, and you will when I get home, but this guy put you to shame. You just try and get me in and out as quick as you can to move on the next person but this guy here actually put his whole effort to it and seemed like an actual professional barber. He did a real cool thing with my sideburns too that I'm anxious to keep up and of course put some product in my hair to make it look cool. He finished by saying to me with a huge grin, "Adesso, sei italiano!" (Now, you are Italian!). Mi piace. :)


Okay, time to start packing for the Canary Islands!! So excited! Leigh and I have some great stuff planned, scuba diving, sailing, camel rides, potholing in volcanoes(third largest in the world), laying on the beach anddd I found on the internet a water park in Tenerife that's supposed to be the best water park in the world! Soo excited! I won't have my laptop and I'll probably have my cell phone off so I'll be completely disconnected from the world, it's going to be awesome. I can't wait to see what great Charlie Sheen quotes I missed while I was away. Anyways, I'll miss you all and I look forward to getting back and blogging all about it before I forget all the fun stuff I did. Also, by the time I get back here next Sunday night, my parents will be in town so I'm excited for that too! Clock is winding down for visitors, come while you can!