Two things of note have happened since I got to Cordoba.

First, three days ago, I moved into my new room in an apartment with an older couple in the center of Cordoba. Today, for the first time, I actually recognized my front door when I walked by. Everything in time. Second, I got a haircut. It took me awhile to summon up the balls to do this. This is not necessarily because of the language barrier. It’s been over two years since I paid for a haircut and I’m universally terrified of hairdressers. I much prefer having my friends cut my hair. Friends, it turns out, are much more likely to listen to what you want. If you say, “please buzz my head” or “please give me a faux hawk” or “please just chop off all my hair,” they’ll say, “okay, that’s weird but whatever.” Hairdressers however, tend to listen to what they think you want. I imagine it’s a liability issue but it tends to result in lots of primping, fussing, blow-drying and watermelon scented gunk. You can’t tell a hairdresser to “please chop off all my hair.” They will say “okay, but what do you want me to do with this bit around your ears?” and “how would you like the angle from here to here?” and “should I layer this bit or that bit?” All while they wave sharp objects in your face. It’s kind of a lot to ask one person to handle. And trust me, it doesn’t matter how you layer this or that, my hair does it’s own thing and generally the less of it the better.

But still, I was fast running out of options. My hair was starting to resemble a BMX helmet and it felt like one too, especially in hot, sticky Cordoba. It had to go. And so I resolved to get a haircut. After this resolution, I delayed for another two days, thinking, okay maybe I’ll be more in the mood tomorrow…or tomorrow.

Yesterday, I sucked it up, used the 8 keys necessary to get out my front door and went in search of a peluquería. There were a couple false starts as I wandered confusedly into a beauty school and later a wig shop. Once I found one, however, the process was relatively painless–unless of course, you count the fact that the lady put the bib/apron thing on so tight I couldn’t breathe. I spent the entire time trying to think of how to say “Can you please loosen this? I’m choking” in Spanish. The phrase escaped me, due, I imagine, to the decreased supply of oxygen to my brain. Near suffocation aside, I avoided the watermelon flavored gunk and the whole procedure only cost 30 pesos ($8) so menos mal.