A World Away from Great Clips

Most days now, the fact that I am living in the Balkans doesn't register high on my level of consciousness, but today I got my semi-annual haircut and it all seemed so very Balkan. First of all, the salon I go to is decked out entirely in harvest gold, from the countertops to the exterior, and it looks like it gets cleaned about once a year. Now I'm not very squeamish about cleanliness, which is good because the 3 or 4 times the hairdressers dropped hair clips on the floor and then picked them right back up to use in the clients' hair might have really bothered some folks. The guy who cut my hair was wearing a track suit, the Balkan man's uniform, and Stereo Love, the anthem of my arrival in Macedonia, played on the radio as he slowly and deliberately re-layered my hair. I happily paid $4 for this reminder that I'm so not in America anymore.

On a somewhat related note, I have a fascination with the local barbershops which to me look as though they haven't changed since the 1950s. See for yourselves...