Shop of horrors.

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Today was my first day back in lessons, after staying away from them for a little more time than I was allowed. In Lyudmila Giorgevna's class we watched the news, with reports from both Finland and England, then we talked about the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 as wednesday will be the 20th anniversary.

In the afternoon I walked around Tver for three hours looking for a barbers shop. I went to every street that I know at least once, and found only a beauty salon for women and a sign saying 'parikmakherskaya', pointing to a basement which was almost pitch dark and where the dirty brick staircase was falling apart. When I got back to obshezhitie Kolya told me there was a good one one on the way from university to the post office, so I went there.

After sitting in the waiting chair for half an hour, with the usual feeling of "my hair doesn't look so bad in their mirrors, why did I come in the first place?" my turn came. I had prepared exactly what to ask for to avoid confusion, and told the lady twice. What she did was nothing like what I wanted. After my voice gave me away - I was Russian for the initial combing and a few snips at the back - she became transfixed on asking me questions about Britain and almost forgot about my hair, just running her hands through it. When I said I wanted more taken off at the sides she completely shaved the part around my right ear - which of course meant I had to sit in a helpless cold sweat and watch her do the same on the left side too. The back was styled into a mullet until I made her get rid of it. She then took me to a corner of the room separated from the 'cutting space' by a curtain, shoved my head into the sink, soaked my jumper and head with water and shampoo then put some gel on my new 'do'.

I hate it. It's a haircut for stupid macho boys and makes me look the very opposite of how I would like people to see me. I went to a café with Karin in the evening and tried to forget my self-consciousness.

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