Dubai Post 55: The Things You Don't Think About Abroad

As I was preparing to travel abroad, I made a checklist of what I would need and things to take care of.  This is standard for anyone who will be traveling and the list will include things such as: deodorant, ways to communicate back to the states, how to take money out etc...  However, there is always going to be a few things you forget about and do not come to fruition until you are overseas.

So far so good around the back. 

This happened to me the other day.  getting a haircut was on my to do list before I left. However, I did not even think about what would would happen two months in.  About a week or two ago I realized my hair was  starting to get long.  While the long hair would be no problem in college, I feel the need to look professional in the business world. This is especially the case since I started working in Dubai where everyone is dressed in thousand dollar suits on a daily basis (over-exaggeration but it seems this way).

I asked around but got the typical responses, "Oh just find a place", "Time Out Dubai will have some good recommendations" etc... I have come to learn it is not as easy to get sufficient answers simply by asking the locals for  recommendations.  (Samantha learned this when we asked where to go to breakfast and they told us Subway!)  Anyway, I saw a shop across the street from my building that said Gents Saloon so I figured, how bad could it be?

Didn't cut my ear off. 

As I sat down in the chair, everything appeared to be normal.  There was a mirror in front of me, they were playing pop music, there were hair cutting utensils on the desk and a bunch of dudes with tight shirts, groomed faces and gelled hair. The barber/hair dresser wrapped the apron around me and I began to tell him what I wanted...he hardly spoke English. Uh-Oh.

After failing to communicate with each other I waved my hands giving him the signal to just go.  I figured this would turn out to be interesting.  Instead, the guy was a magician with scissors. I felt like I was in that scene of Edward Scissorhands where he whips up all sorts of incredible hair styles for the ladies of the town.  I had never seen a barber work so fast with a pair of clips and actually know what he was doing.  He did every so often stop and try to sell me shampoo or hair gel but I did not care.  Although he could not speak English I thought it was one of the best hair cuts I had gotten in a long time.

Lesson: To those who travel abroad, do no worry about leaving items off your to-do list.  People live and get by in foreign countries and you will too.

Some of my American barbers should take note.