Yeah, I too was a little surprised…but after two weeks of bad photos and the need for excessive hair product to make my mop of hair behave for a few hours in a day, a cut was required.

I was a little excited, and a little nervous.  It’s been almost 11 years of going to the same hairdresser, every 4-6 weeks, so to venture outside of the practice of that regular trimming seemed like it might almost be unfaithful.  Sure a man can go 12 weeks without a haircut, but seeing me after 8 usually has passersby looking for the hat I should have laying out in the street seeking a few coins to fill it’s torn headliner.

Melanie and I spotted this place while on our way to the train station this morning for yet another day trip.  Listed in the window was a series of prices, and descriptions of services that we couldn’t make heads or tails of…but we assumed one had to refer to short hair and the other to long.  As for the rest of the services…who knows, but the prices just seemed to keep going up.  Figuring this might be the place to finally get a trim to this hair mess made acceptable for the remainder of this trip, and if it turned out for the worse…well I would have another few weeks to grow some hair back for Stephanie to really fix it up.

18:00.  We depart the hotel in search of this newly discovered parruccheri, down dark streets with scooters zipping by next to pedestrians ready for a night out on the town.  It’s Friday after all, and we being the wet blankets that we are were only in search of a haircut for our entertainment.  We finally find the place and enter.

They call it Pino & Vito, my guess is after themselves.  One patron, a guy that reminds Melanie of her uncle…just more Italian, having his hair cut by a guy in a white coat and neon reading glasses.  A third seated in the back corner of the well lit place jibber-jabbering with the other two about who knows what.  The radio was blaring.  Two TV’s were on, with the volume a little higher than required, and different programming on each channel.  How an intelligible conversation between those three was sustained was beyond me.  Stopping that conversation in it’s tracks though was Melanie and I walking in.

Now up to this point, simply greeting people with a ‘buena sera’ or ‘ciao’ has worked out well for us.  Restaurants would then start in Italian, and finish in English when we were obviously not understanding a word of their statement of the daily specials.  This was a bit different though, as the only english words effectively communicated were ‘long’ and ‘short’.  Asking for a couple centimeters to come off wasn’t making it through.  Shaving the sides with a No. 1 or 2 cutter also wasn’t understood.  I guess I could have also asked for a “Patrick Swayze from Dirty Dancing” haircut in jest, but that likely would have made it’s way through that language barrier resulting in remorse on my end for even suggesting it.  Best to keep it simple and let this guy ‘fix’ me.

Did I mention the excessive use of unflattering fluorescent lighting in this country?  Surely I have mentioned the lingering cigarette smoke that seems to drift in through doorways, from those lined up for a bus, but it might also be from that ashtray in the back room.  Maybe the smell of baby powder mixed with a little BO and cheap deodorant suggesting Friday was a busy haircutting day in the shop.

Well, a full hour or more of sitting in the chair soaking up the complete environment.  Every time I thought the guy was done, it was time for some mousse and a hair dryer.  I can’t even remember the last time a hair dryer hit this head, unless you count the hand drying thing in the men’s room which we used to use to dry our hair before heading out into sub-zero temperatures.  Twice the dryer came out, straight razor of the neck beard, and additional thinning and shaping of those tufts on the side of my head.  Made me think that the diploma on the wall must also qualify him as an apprentice sculptor.

I am guessing hair cutting pays better though.  30 euro for one hour in the chair of having a guy primp and preen a head of hair that really just needed a cut.  As for how it turned out…we’ll you’ll just have to wait until we’re back.  Next time I’ll just look at a set of shears to trim this down to a simple even length.  If there are any complaints from a photo standpoint…I’ll wear a hat.