Firsts

Today was a big day full of local firsts. First things first were first up -- 9 a.m. appointment at the "naiste juuksur" -- women's hair salon -- where I finally got the chop-chop that no haircutter back in Montreal would give me. I had basically given up, since wanted the whole short-in-the-back/long-in-the-front bob scenario, but was repeatedly told it couldn't be done. "You can't make that line." "No, you can't get that kind of angle." "No, I'll have to make it curved in the back." "You want that much off? Well, I'll take off as much as I can." (Takes 10 minutes to remove 6 mm, charges me $40 and I leave with wet hair.)

Though Eida at "Starland salong" and I had only Russian as linguistic common-ground (and even that was pretty spotty for the both of us this day), she had a good idea of what I wanted done from the get-go. I was happy to let the scissors fly as soon as there was talk of "Victoria Beckham". This was obviously a reference to Posh Spice's famous hair-do of summer '06 -- a much toned-down version of which I was after. Aaah, how nice to be back on EuroSoil, where one need only "speak Spice" -- to have one's cosmetic and beauty needs suitably looked after.



The second first was breakfast made by J on our new appliance for cooking. When our landlord initially mentioned the possibility of acquiring a stove, he said it had two burners. I asked whether it had an oven -- no, it didn't. That's because it is a hotplate! Urmas delivered it on Sunday night, and we finally got some breakfast fixings and gave it a go.



Rounding out the evening firsts, come suppertime, we had our first buckwheat kasha (since being here). Then we watched "Play Time" by Jacques Tati (after Intro, click on "Play Time" in the building on the left). This movie is so visually stimulating and relentlessly playful, I felt drained afterwards. This was also a first -- though it's the kind of film you want to watch about a billion times to make sure to catch all the beautifully designed details, humorous splashes and artful nuances.