Let's talk about hair...

After having lived here in Germany for about 2 weeks, I went on my first road trip to another country, Czech Republic. There’s this wonderful little town called Kalovy Vary, infamous for its crystal and pottery sales and its mineral springs. It boasts natural mineral springs and most of the hotels are spa hotels. It’s very lovely. It’s also where I first spotted someone with purple hair.

Ok, it was more like red/purple hair and it didn’t belong to a young punk rocker, this hair belonged to a 50-year old woman, maybe someone’s mother or grandmother. In Europe, color is king and it is considered very stylish. I was doing the staring this time (refer to blog dated 30 January 07). I couldn’t believe it. I was thinking, “Is this normal?” Apparently, it is. Having lived here now for over 2 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is very normal. Piercings are more main-stream here as well. It is nothing to see a middle aged woman with her nose pierced. It’s just very common. So are earrings on men of all ages.

Side note: Yes, I’ve had my nose pierced for over a year now. I would never had considered it a few years ago, back in the states, but like I said, it’s so common here that it grew on me and I started to think it looked cool, even classy. My husband was dead set against it, but then gave in and surprised me and had a girlfriend take me to have it done as a Christmas present in 2005. I was nervous about what my family would think, but as it turned out, they didn’t even notice until I couldn’t stand it anymore and pointed it out. Hmm…

Anyway, back to the hair. Another surprising observation that I made was the fact that men pay as much attention to their hair here as the women. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, although I’m sure a few of you alpha male types would beg to differ. It’s just DIFFERENT. I first noticed it on one of my first public transportation journeys and I was sitting behind this young man who was in his late teens or maybe early 20’s. His hair was perfect. Highlighted, texturized and sticking up in all the right directions. He had to have spent an hour on it. Again, I stared. Culture shock strikes again. So then I started paying attention to this new discovery. It was not limited to the young hipsters, but to us older 30 and 40 something’s. One of my best German friends here is a hairdresser. Her husband’s hair is highlighted and cut more often than my own. It pays to know someone. And pay, you will. It costs about 75 to 85 euros and up for a highlight, cut and blow dry, which amounts to $97.00 to $110.00 dollars based on the exchange rate at this time. I guess that’s the going rate in the states now too, I don’t know. I do know it’s more than I want to dish out too often.

The craziest hairdo I’ve seen thus far was when I was driving home from work several months ago and this girl was waiting to cross the street to a bus stop. The sides of her hair were shaved short and had this tiger stripe color thing going on with a bright multicolored mohawk, a tall one at that. She also had sections of hair framing her face, also brightly colored. I was stopped at a red light so I could watch this spectacle cross the street without driving off the road. It was amazing. I looked around to see if other people noticed her as well; you never know, it could be something common and I just never noticed before. The Germans were staring too. It was a jaw dropper, talk to yourself (Oh my God) sighting. Haven’t seen anything as extreme since then, however, I did find out that there’s a girl that works where I do (who also has pretty wild hair) and happens to belong to a newly formed roller derby club. They wear fishnet stockings and try to knock each other down. Gotta love this place.