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Yesterday I experienced the most stressful haircut of my life thus far. Haircuts are not supposed to be stressful. Haircuts are supposed to be a small part out of your day where you get to forget about the rest of your life and instead sit in a big, comfy, black chair and think solely about the hairs on your head for a good hour. However, I can now advise you that when you make the risky decision to get your hair cut by a foreign man who does not speak a word of your language, you should think about me and this story and cancel that appointment. So I’ve now been in Israel for a month and lets just say my hair was getting beyond control. The good ole’ put it up in a high, messy bun so it looks like I wanted my hair to look like this was no longer an option. Now I’ve realized and learnt a lot about myself since I’ve been here. The main thing I’ve realized is that when you’re in a country where you can’t speak the language and the culture is about as similar to yours as an onion is to shrek you lose basically every bit of independence you’ve created for yourself. You completely depend on other people to live. You depend on them to order your food, buy your bus ticket, talk to the saleswoman in the dress shop for you AND translate to the hairdresser. So yesterday my boyfriend takes me into this hair salon. It’s freaking busy, there’s people everywhere and they’re all talking in Hebrew a million miles an hour. This lady points to the sink and my boyfriend tells me she wants to wash my hair, which I always find really awkward when I’ve just washed my hair literally 2 hours before coming! Like does my hair not look clean? Do you not want to touch my hair? Does this half wet, frizzy look make my hair look dirty? Anyway she washes my hair, then passes me a towel and a hairbrush. Ummmm what the hell do you want me to do with these!? I assume she wants me to dry and brush my own hair…ok, I go along with it. Next minute I’m in the big, black, comfy chair with my hairs in the hands of a man who will not understand a word I say if he starts to give me a pixie cut. I’ve asked my boyfriend/my translator/ my life dependeronera to leave by this stage so I can feel like I’ve done one little thing by myself today! That was a mistake. As soon as he leaves, the hairdresser starts cutting my hair, while talking at the speed of lightning in a language I do not understand. I pray to god he doesn’t give me a mullet. He’s having a grand old time; scizzors in his hand, cutting away at my precious locks, chatting to everyone around him, having a good old laugh. Are you all laughing at me!? Usually this would be a paranoid thought, yes, but trust me, in this country I stand out like a limple on school formal night. All the girls here are super short, with darker skin and brown eyes. I’m 6 foot tall, with the whitest skin you’ve ever seen and big blue eyes! Pair this with the permanent confused look on my face because of the fact that I can’t understand what anyone’s saying, and you’ve got yourself a good laugh. I don’t think I even looked at my hair when he took the cape off, which obviously signified the end of this particular torture session. I gave him the thumbs up, handed him 100 shekels and was out of there! The positive end to this story is that I didn’t end up with a mullet or a pixie cut, my hair actually looks pretty darn good! But to save any future anxiety attacks or hair-cutastrophes in the future, I think I'll rock the high messy bun and stick to haircuts in Australia!