You win some, you lose some...

Every once in a while, something happens to you that makes you certain (well, at least momentarily) that fate exists. That was Friday for me. Serendipidity is an understatement:

Friday morning I decide to wake up early to get my hair colored at this funky salon in the center of Perugia. Get there at 9:30, plenty of time before I had to get the train to Rome at 1:30, right? Wrong. Having arrived so early, I am the second person in line, the first person being some old lady getting her hair blow dried. Great, I think, she's almost done and I'm next. Being slightly scrupulous and I thought perhaps a little ludicrous, I tell the receptionist/shampoo girl that I absolutely must escape (my exact words) here at 1pm to catch a train to Rome because I´m flying out to Berlin tonight. Of course I'd be done way before that, she assures me. So, I feel assured.

I explain what I want done to my hair and he begins to mix the color and puts it on my hair. 40 minutes pass. Slowly, as people begin entering the salon, I begin to realize that he (only stylist there is at the moment) is doing everyone´s hair simultaneously. I sit. I wait. And wait. And wait. Meanwhile, I´m nervous because I have a complex about people doing anything at all to my hair (my mom has the same complex but we´re not skilled enough to do our own cuts and color of course so we face our fears every time we visit the salon). It´s being double processed so this first stage is only 1 of 3 processes I have to go through to get highlights in my hair. The hairdresser is too much of an artist to explain to me what he´s doing with my hair, despite the fact that I tell him of my various salon phobia as well as my control-freakishness and my tight schedule (of course, tight since I was on Italian time...) He just tells me to stay calm and everything will be fine. Ugh.

It´s noon and I finally have the base color rinsed out. My hair is dark, darker than my natural color. Not what I was going for. Nice color though. Need more blond. It´s summer damnit. 1pm comes, highlites are just getting put in. Great, I missed the first train at 1:30pm.......The highlights are rinsed and I sit in the chair with my head wet for another 40 minutes...And I proceed now I miss the second possible train...

At 2:30 I get up, walk into the adjacent room where my conniving hairdresser (who I now hate for not telling me what he´s doing to my hair and making me wait so long) serves 3 other women and literally beg him to finish my hair. I tell him I´ve already missed two trains and I must get the hell out of here. After 5 minutes, he finally begins to finish the job. I like the colors a lot, despite the fact that it was not what I wanted (and I thoroughly explained with pictures what I wanted...I guess hairdressers here just don´t care because they are too busy being artists to serve their clientele.) I pay an arm and a leg and finally run for my life out of what I thought was an eternity as some sort of spectator of a nighmarish scene akin to Beauty School Dropout. So now I'm auburn with blond highlites. Or something.

Grab the latest possible train from Perugia to Rome. Of course, the first train is 10 minutes late. No problems...except the connection time between train 1 and train 2 is exactly ten minutes and I don´t realize it til I get there and don´t see the other train waiting. I proceed to miss the connection train. The next train to Rome (now I´m in Foligno, the middle of nowhere, Italy) runs at 6pm, getting to the main train station at 8pm. My flight is at 8:45pm. No chance in hell. I start thinking of crazy ideas to get myself there: getting a cab (but it´s impossible because all the taxis in Rome are on strike and it´s forbidden that any other taxis enter the zone as well), hitchhiking with some random person there (but there´s too much traffic at this time, I wouldn´t get there any sooner with car than by that 6pm train). I sit down and feel a few tears and lots of anger welling up, cursing myself and condemning the hairdresser to hell.) Then, out of no where, I pick up my phone and call the hairdresser, cursed him out and tell him that I never want to come back to that place, and if I ever do, I´ll make sure I don´t have anything to do and I won´t pay a dime. He proceeds to ask me when I want to come back to get my hair cut for free and I hang up. The girl that I met at the Perugia train station who is travelling with me on the first leg of my trip is now serving as my shoulder to cry on, telling me that everything will be alright, giving me sane advice to not choose insane alternative modes of travel and keep my mind on track because no matter what, the trains are the fastest way to get there at this point anyhow. (Thanks for all your help again, Noella.)

I prepare for the inevitable, call the airline to see if there are possible delays and subsequently call a friend in Rome to ask if I could stay with her for one night before catching the next flight at 8am. I´m now on my 2nd train, filled with nuns that just came from Assisi, trying to convince myself that all is not lost, just delayed. The last modicum of hope I hang onto with the skin of my teeth would be at least a 1 hour flight delay...but what would the chances of that be, with a German airline? Zip.

5 minutes before we reach the main train station in Rome, I call Air Berlin to tell them to rebook me on the morning flight because I won´t be able to make tonight´s flight. I cannot believe my ears when she tells me the flight actually has been delayed for one hour! I started screaming at my phone, cursing in 3 different languages and the nuns are now making the sign of the cross and bidding me farewell. God loves me, I run to the express train to the airport and board the plane.

Lessons learned:

1a. You just never know.
1b. So don't lose all hope.
2. Never go to a hairdresser in Italy unless you have absolutely nothing to do for at least 8 hours.


The LoveParade was a lot of fun, we got to ride on one of the 35 floats for a few hours by pulling some connections (hah, how else) but it was certainly not what it used to be, of course, before the 2 year hiatus. My favorite is always seeing people dancing on street lights, 20' tall street posts, and 30' high street signs. Despite a crowd of 500,000, I finally met up with a fellow New Yorker after years of path-crossing just missed. After the parade, our group made several attempts to go clubbing but an unlucky one of our friends was wearing Bermuda shorts, a surefire non-entry for most clubs. By 4am, we were beat and decided to call it a night, despite the fact that this weekend is thee prime clubbing weekend of the year in Berlin.

The next day was most spent catching up on sleep, walking around the city and then making a second attempt at clubbing. I get kicked out of a club before even entering, because I drank water. The bouncers were downright nasty, telling me of all people that they 'know what happens to people who drink water inside clubs in NYC'...uh nothing? Because I've done it about a thousand times. After some completely unwarranted attitude against me (he even yelled at me because I was continuing to smile even though I had done something so unbelievably rude such as drinking water after being ID'd outside a club), I just leave the pathway. Who wants to go to a club that treats their patrons like that anyway? Jumpin' jiggawatts, sorry for being human.

Back to school now.

Oh yea, and now I have a huge cold sore on my upper lip, something I get every coupla months from excessive sun exposure and/or stress. Great.

Edit: Sorry for such a long post! Won't do it again. :)