And so last Friday I decided to get a haircut. I knew this was going to be difficult to accomplish eventhough there were only two objectives involved: First, I had to find a barbershop. I only go to barbershops for haircuts because, you know, I´m not gay. And, second, I had to tell the barber what kind of haircut I wanted in Spanish.

Objective No. 1: Finding A Barber Shop

Barcelona´s a fairly large city. It´s got five subway lines. The population´s about 1.5 million. I live and work north of the city but have gone down to the port area and the beaches down south. I´ve traveled the stretch of Diagonal which is the main road that cuts through the city east to west. I´m thinking that my chances were fairly good in finding a barbershop on my own, right?

Wrong.

I didn´t have an inkling on where to look. I asked a colleague, who´s also on temporary assignment here from Singapore, where he gets his haircut here. He said that he´s had a haircut once at this barbershop on a street off La Rambla done by a Filipino. He only paid EUR6. Great, I thought. A Filipino barber would absolutely negate objective no. 2.

And so armed with his directions, I proceeded to go to La Rambla. Fucking shit. I spent a whole day looking for that barbershop but never found it. I went inside this Filipino restaurant and asked but they had no idea where it was. (More on what happened at the lone Filipino restaurant in Barcelona soon)

Walking around some more I did finally accomplish objective no. 1 when I found a barbershop on this street just off the Le Meridien hotel.

Objective No. 2: Telling the Barber What Kind of Haircut I Wanted in Spanish

I walked into the barbershop and there were these two really old Spanish gentlemen wearing the traditional barber´s outfit which is that white short-sleeve shirt with the Chinese collar – kinda like what a mad scientist wears. I go to the first geezer near the cash machine at the door and ask in English, “Do you speak English?”

Big mistake. You never ask this question to a proud Catalan who´s survived and outlived the brutal suppression of their culture by Generalissimo Franco.

Old guy flinches his eyes for that fuck you look and says rather curtly, “No.”

I reply by asking, “Haircut?”

He says in Spanish which I think more or less translated to, “If it´s a haircut you want, then there´s no problem. You´ve come to the right place. You didn´t have to ask if I spoke English you turd.” He then points me to the second geezer because he´s the one who´s gonna give me my haircut. Apparently, first geezer doesn´t want anything to do with me who has to give instructions in that alien language called English.

I sit down on one of the four chairs in the place. El Viejo puts around my neck this mildly sticky disposable wrap and the requisite white poncho.

Then, he asked THE question. Well, at least I think the old fart was asking me what kind of haircut I wanted.

Brilliantly, I thought of using the handiest Spanish word I know which is “aqui,” translating to “here” in English. So I take my hand at the back of my head and go, “Aqui.” Then I take both hands at the sides of my head and also say, “Aqui.” Then I tousle the hair on top of my head and go, you´ve guessed it, “Aqui.” Basically, I just told him to cut my hair everywhere.

He asked me if I wanted the electric shaver. I said no and told him to just use the scissors by holding up my index finger and middle finger and moving them together then apart again while saying, “Snip, snip.”

Then the old fart goes to work. He is fucking brilliant. He knows instinctively how I want my hair cut above the ears – which is not too high. Filipino barbers always cut this pattern above the ears in a very steep arch. This Spanish barber was all about precision – there were some really small bits of hair he cut which were so tiny that you needed an electron microscope to view these.

When he was done he said, “Bueno,” and took off the poncho with a flourish – just like a matador teasing a bull.

My God, I thought, this is the best haircut I´ve ever had. I love it. It was perfection staring back at me from the mirror.

I was really impressed and I said to myself that I wouldn´t mind paying EUR15 for this masterpiece and as it turned out, I only had to pay EUR9. Being a Filipino, I naturally converted to pesos and was horrified to find out that I was going to fork out more than six hundred pesos for a haircut.

I soon took in the big picture and thought that EUR9 was a good deal in a city where a Big Mac meal would set you back EUR6 (or roughly PHP414 – can you believe that? This is McDonalds we´re talking about here).

I thanked him, paid the money, and then left the best barber in the world.

Missions accomplished.

Up Down and All Around

In the few weeks I´ve been here in Europe, I´ve made the decision to hate it because of the uptight waiters, people who look at me funny and don´t understand what I´m saying, and lack of choices at the supermarket. However last weekend, Southern France exposed herself to me and I now think this place ain´t so bad afterall.

These two Singaporeans rented a car and took me and an American to leave the city and go north and travel the eastern side of the Pyrenees and onwards to the Mediterreanean coast.

On Saturday, the first town which seemed interesting for us to make a stop was Solsona in Lleida, Spain. It is a walled city and inside, you can almost hear the faint echoes of Don Quijote rustling about in his suit of armor. There´s actually a sculpture of the Don done by the town´s most famous artist but wasn´t Don Quijote from La Mancha? We didn´t stay too long for me to understand the connection. The day we were there was a national holiday in Catalunya and so all around the region, there was something going on. In Solsona, there was fiesta at the town square and the air was filled with the musical stylings of Aretha Franklin (I shit you not).

Going up the Pyrenees reminded me so much of Kennon Road that I felt a little homesick. Or was that feeling brought about by the combination of the red wine from last night and travelling the twisting and winding road? It´s still summer here and so there´s still no snow in those parts. All you can see are pine trees. Everywhere. I´ve never seen so many pine trees in my life.

Our next stop was the Principality of Andorra. For those of you who´ve never heard about it, I don´t blame you. We actually planned to stay the night here but seeing as how there´s nothing to do in that quasi-country, we decided to cross the border to France and spend the night there instead. Oh yeah, Andorra was where Silas, the albino assassin from The Da Vinci Code was imprisoned.

Our first encounter with a French guy was this fucking asshole who told us not to park the car near the toll booths of the tunnel leading to the border. What he didn´t seem to get was that we stopped specifically to ask him for directions and then we´d get out of his frog face. So you can go through the tunnel and pay EUR5 or go on for another 20 kilometers for free. Fuck that, we´ve seen enough of mountains so we went through the tunnel.

We were trying to reach this small town called Mont Louis and spend the night there but it was already about 9:30 in the evening. We decided to check-in at the first hotel we saw. And so we ended up at the Mirasol Restaurant and Hotel in the quaint town of Enviergne. The woman at the reception was really beautiful. She looked exactly like Madchen Amick with a French accent to boot. But, of course, being French, she was snotty as hell. When we asked her what was there to see in Mont Louis she went, "A yam from Paree en so ay noo notheeng abawt wat to zee in Mont Louis." When the American asked her if they had an overnight package for a room and dinner and she seemed puzzled at the inquiry, she went, "Ay noo deener but ay doont noo wat yoo arr askeeng." Oh well, I forgive your bitchy French heart because I´m in love with you.

Individual rooms went for EUR34 with a shower. The toilet was outside the rooms and if you wanted your own toilet you had to pay extra. The rooms were pretty basic - just a bed and, oh, that´s it.

The shower was incredibly small. I couldn´t imagine any European guy twice as big as me (which is every European guy) even fitting inside the door.

I didn´t sleep so well too. The open window got me thinking about werewolves roaming the French countryside invading any structure which looked habitable to humans (ie, dinner). Werewolves are filthy, ugly fucking animals. But a French werewolf? Now, that is really scary.

Well, that was day one of our little road trip. All about day two soon.

Barthelona

And so I'm now in Barcelona. We're six hours behind you and so I'm still at work here while you guys back home (sniff, sniff) are now out or resting - just glad that this fucking day is almost behind you.

One important thing to know if you've ever planning to go here. NO ONE SPEAKS ENGLISH HERE. That's right, if you lose your way going to the Picasso Museum or just try to tell the cab driver where your hotel is, good fucking luck. Your ass is grass buddy.

So many things have happened since the last time I posted an entry and I just don't have the time right now because it's hard sneaking in a few moments of leisure while I'm "working."

Two things I've witnessed stand out, however, which I'll tell you about.

I ride the bus to and from work. I bought a bus pass good for one month which I can also use to ride the subway. Last week, a dad and his small kid got on. There's this machine near the driver where the pass is inserted in and then it validates that the pass is still good. Get this, the dad inserts the card once, right? And then he inserts it again for his kid! He didn't have to take the time and insert the card a second time but he did. Whoa.

The other thing happened just now. I was in the office bathroom doing my business and this other guy walks in and takes the urinal next to mine. We wash our hands at the same time and then he leaves ahead of me. But he actually says to me on the way out, "Adios." What the fuck?

By the way, European keyboards are fucked up too.