Hair today, gone tomorrow

“SHE’s asking how many fingers you want…?” Jacky explained to me as I sat perplexed in the beauty salon chair.

“Er, can you tell her it’s very kind of her to offer, but I’d rather just a 'short back and sides' for now…” I replied.

My British humour was once again lost in translation here in Mexico.

Of course the young hairdresser was asking how much hair I wanted cut off, and referred to ‘fingers’ as her guide.

I’d never been asked that in a hairdressers’ chair before, so of course I resorted to comedy to at least get a laugh.

Epic fail.

*Anyone else see that tumbleweed roll past?

As many travellers know, it’s the seemingly innocuous things that provide the greatest confusion and hilarity.

Back home if I want a haircut it’s normally easy.

“Hi, trim please…”

Twenty five minutes later – done.

But in a foreign land everything is a challenge if you don’t speak the language.

And maybe a little more off the other side...?!

Due to me being a giant here (most Mexicans are very short) even the process of positioning me in the hairdressers’ chair provided hilarity.

Imagine someone getting a ladder to trim an overgrown bush and you’ll have some idea.

Due to my height – and the vertically challenged nature of the hairdresser – she deflated the chair to its lowest form, and then asked me to slump down as far as I could so she could reach the top of my head.

I ended up sitting about two inches off the floor with my arms on the armrests so my shoulders were actually level with my ears.

And while some of the people waiting to get their haircuts chose to read the magazines strewn about the salon, others just stared at me and laughed for alternative entertainment.

“Trim please,” I said finally in position.

“Que?” came the reply.

“Um… t-r-iiiiimmm…?” Just in case I needed to emphasize what I’d said prior.

“Que?”

“Short back and sides? A little off the sides and top? Er… like now but shorter than?!”

*Hairdresser points to her fingers.

“Okay, dos um… fingers” I added confidently.

About 25 minutes later the hairdresser had made her way round to the back of my head, and began asking Jacky – now in hysterics – something in Spanish.

“She wants to know how you have your hair at the back?” Jacks told me.

“Uh… shorter…?”

“I can’t see the back of my head so it’s difficult to know how I usually have it.”

Cue more Spanish discussion.

“Level or rounded?” Jacks then asked me?

“Oh, whatever,” I replied now tired of the unexpected fuss.

Eventually I walked out of the salon feeling confident I had something which resembled something my regular English hairdresser usually creates.

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized the Mexican hairdresser had somehow forgotten to cut one side of my head.

“Awwww… you can’t blame her, she was nervous!” Jacks pleaded.

“Nervous?! I was terrified! And now I look strange!”
AND my English hairdresser (Jon) is going to throw a fit when he sees me!

Needless to say I won’t be going back there again.

Jim Morrison of The Doors fame once (reportedly) said: “some of the greatest mistakes in my life have been made in this [hairdressers’] chair”.

I can emphasize with him.

As much as I try I will never truly blend in, here in Mexico.

But I do try and avoid anything which makes me look even more foreign or weird than I know I am.

Apparently my nickname is ‘el guero’, translated as ‘the blonde’.

Take from that as you will.

Oh, before I forget... thanks again for all our birthday messages. Can't tell you how weird it is to share your birthday with your fiancee!

Oh, and oh... I'm on Twitter to... 'tristan_nichols'.
Shameless plug yes, but lots of banter and other funny observations from an Englishman (or 'idiot') abroad.

'hat's about it...

I DON’T know about you but I simply can’t take someone who wears a cowboy hat seriously.

Here in Mexico I’d say that about one in 10 men you meet will be wearing one. Proudly too.

They even do the tip of the cap thing when saying ‘hola’ in true Clint Eastwood style.

And I can’t help but smile or worse still, laugh uncontrollably.

I just want to call them “pardner” or say “yee har” when I agree with what they’re saying.

Sometimes I actually have to stop myself from asking “what have you come as?”

Seriously, it’s weird – simply because if you saw a man wearing a traditional cowboy hat walking down the street in England, he’d probably have a gang of tooled-up chavs behind him in close pursuit.

If you're really lucky you could get the chance to see someone wearing not only the hat, but also the boots, belt and hideously over-sized buckle, and leather waistcoat.

Oh, and of course the magnificent moustache.

I’m guessing that the cowboy thing stems from the ‘Wild West’ way of life here in Baja California.

The Western films were based on that way of life so now, is life imitating art, or is art imitating life?

I’m not sure.

Play it again Sam...

Behind the sombreros (sombrero means ‘hat with a brim’ in Spanish Mexican) is also the deep-rooted love of traditional Mexican music.

It’s called ‘banda’ or ‘nortena’,  and it’s the type of music which makes Jacky pull the most extreme unappreciative face I’ve ever seen on a person.

Eighty per cent of the Mexicans here seem to love it. Like a religion in fact.

They drive around in their cars day and night with windows down blasting it out like they’re the coolest people on the planet.

When they pull up within eye shot they give you that cocky look as if to say “yeh, you know it”.

And I think “yep I certainly do”.

That style of music should be used as a weapon in war.

It incorporates acoustic guitars, drums, possibly trumpets and, of course accordions.

Click on this link and you’ll get some idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1uipWnRvEA.

Now, it would be unfair to say that I ‘hate’ it because that’s a strong word.

To me, it’s not big and it’s not clever. I’d rather listen to AC/DC.

I don’t mind it, but when you hear it all day every day you can’t help but begin to despise it.

The fact that the music goes hand in hand with the sombreros, and the fact that someone like me - who is clearly not from round here - is targeted by the traditional musicians on the street several times a day when out and about, only adds to my feeling of discontent.
It is worth pointing out that people also listen to American or English music (notably British rock music) and Mexico does have some pretty cool rock bands, but most people seem to listen to banda or nortena.

So anyway today marks the 13^th date since I ran out of Golden Virginia tobacco.

It also marks the 13^th day since I last had a cigarette.

Cold turkey….? No sweat (literally), which is strange after 16 or so years as a full-time smoker.

Sure I could go and buy some horrible pack of smokes but I like what I like, so I’ve decided to quit until I get some more tobacco back home.

I live in Tijuana, why would I want my sense of smell back?!

Well, I’d rather wait.

Eight days until Jacky meets my mum and dad!

The edge of reason

I’M not going to lie to you, the last couple of months have felt like an extract from Bridget Jones’ diary – only with me as the lead character.

A). Finally finish doing up house in England creating perfect living space and awesome batchelor pad – check.

B). Book random holiday to meet beautiful Mexican girl I met randomly online seven years ago – check.

C). Accidentally fall in love with beautiful Mexican girl in a moment’s glance – check.

D). Seemlessly lose level-headed nature, quit job, rent house and move to Mexico to be with beautiful Mexican girl – check.

Seriously, all the craziness of the last 15 or so weeks is not lost on me.

As I write this I’m sat in the bedroom of my new home in my new life in Tijuana Mexico.

I have no job, no car, and a very vague grasp of the language which surrounds me.

But you know what, as I've said before, all those things I held dear – aside of course from my family and real friends – bear no real significance to what I feel now.

It’s true what they say, your possessions start owning you.

So giving up the iPhone, the car, the HD TV, the all-singing all-dancing stereo surround system, the Sony PS3… the list goes on… was the single-most liberating thing I’ve ever done.

Some people have suggested that, at the age of 34, I’ve had some sort of mid-life crisis.

That’s crazy. I mean, those people in the throws of a mid-life crisis buy a car – they don’t move to Mexico! Love makes you crazy right? In my case I think it just accentuated it.

I’ve never been happier.

Things have been difficult at times. And there has been a pretty large sense of Groundhog Day on more than one occasion.

My life at the moment consists of me waking up late, taking breakfast, playing guitar, watching a movie and greeting Jacky when she returns from work (repeat x 7).

My plan has always been to take a break from work, throw caution to the wind and see what comes up.

During the course of my new-found life of leisure I have of course been attempting to find work. But christ, bureaucracy over here is interesting to say the very least.

I’ve been trying to ‘volunteer’ my journalistic services to a large international event which is coming up in October.

To ‘volunteer’, unpaid, it transpires that I need to have a special visa.

This visa is apparently only obtainable in Mexico City, which is a good three-hour flight from here. And it costs some serious money.

We contacted the immigration office here in TJ and they said – because they’re ‘friends’ with the international event organisers – that they’d ‘waive’ the necessity for me to get the visa.

Only snag is that they also said they aren’t prepared to give me a letter supporting this.

So it seems I can’t even volunteer legally without spending a chunk of money flying to central Mexico.

They did however offer me a ‘tourist’ visa for $15 which will allow me to stay here for 180 days as a holiday-maker. That’s the same passport stamp which I got for FREE on arrival in Mexico.

I tell you, someone really needs to set up a website for tourists which has valid visa information. They’ll make a mint.

You phone the British Embassy in Mexico and they say they ‘don’t deal’ with visa enquiries and pass you on to an $18 a minute hotline.

I do miss working for The Herald. Working at the paper you couldn’t help but feel a kind of responsibility to its readers.

The stories we wrote had an impact on people’s lives. They kept people informed of what was going on and what was right, and wrong, with society.

More often than you’d actually believe ‘Brian’ from Tamerton Foliot would be one of my biggest supporters – if only to help him publicise his monthly table top sale in the village.

“Hi Tristan, great work in Afghanistan… how long were you there?” he asked in the first phone call I received in the office after three months on the frontline.

“Well, actually it was…”

“Anyway,” Brian said interrupting.

“I need you to put something in the paper for me…”

"Get me the President.... oh, hi Brian"

Each to their own I guess. It was a good reminder that what you do is only important to those that find it important.

And that’s why – regardless of what a great many people in that newsroom thought – I always had my feet on the ground.

As I said in my somewhat emotional leaving speech at The Herald, I loved every single minute working there. I loved my job.

However in March within minutes of meeting her, I found something I loved more.

So now I find myself in Mexico, which I actually find hard to believe, is apparently a ‘third-world’ country.

I mean, what’s a ‘second-world’ country?!

The other weekend Jacky’s family took me to Pancho Villa which is a Mexican outdoor swap-meet or market.

Pancho Villa swap-meet/market

Jacky’s dad said it was important for me to go as it was the ‘real Mexico’.

What he failed to mention was that I needed to go in disguise as a ‘real’ Englishman in that market was going to get charged three or four times the price a Mexican would.

Puppies, furniture, medicine, fruit, fishing rods, pirated DVDs, car parts – you name it and it was being sold.

By the look of it I’m pretty sure a few people actually emptied their vaccum cleaners onto a table and tried to sell their contents.

I walked away with a squash racket for £2, a picture frame for £0.70 and some nail clippers for about £0.80. Result.

On the way back I was also surprised to see a sort of car rally going on on a stretch of wasteland.

This is apparently the weekly car sale where private sellers bring their vehicles to sell.

Did I mention that things are somewhat different round here…?

Anyhow, I’d best get back to doing um… nothing I guess.

I’ve actually got it down to a fine art, and I reckon that in four years time I’ll be entering the Olympics competing against other lads of leisure. At least then I might find it more interesting.