£5 hair cuts

inside YumChaa teas, originally uploaded by supafly.

I felt a bit better by Tuesday and ventured out to Camden for a hair cut I had scheduled a week and half ago when a woman stopped me on the street the last time I was in Camden and asked if I wanted to be a hair model. I was afraid, my hair was going to be massacred by a student, but instead was pleasantly surprised to find out that an instructor would be cutting my hair in front of a class of students.

It took three hours and involved a lot of neck cramps. I also fell asleep at one point and had my hair handled by several students that smelled like candy. However, for £5, I got a fabulous hair cut! She gave me (in hair stylist speak) a reverse graduated bob, also known as an A-line bob. I loved it! It was beautifully cut. I especially liked the bangs. She spent a long time explaining the proper way to cut bangs - I wish I could've video taped the whole thing to show my next hair stylist. I didn't know there was so much technical knowledge involved in a good haircut.

They also spent a lot of time talking about the new scissors they were using which made a fairly loud "snip snip" sound because of two metal pieces that banged against each other. This was to remind the stylists of what they were doing and keep then in the moment and more mindful of their work. They were also saying their salon was in Camden because it was one of the centers of style in London - and there's certainly a lot of individual expressions of style when you walk down the streets of Camden.

After the haircut, I had a nice cup of Chelsea chai green tea at a tea house nearby. It was nice to just sit, sip, and read. Then, I relaxed some more in Regents park before meeting Marshall for a Kellog Alumni lecture at the Royal College of Physicians on "Why Power Corrupts." I got there early, but was pleasantly surprised to find lot of free food and drinks. Feeling more up to eating, I tried some food and had a glass of cranberry juice. I walked around the room, which was actually a library, and looked at the many books locked up in cages. There were a lot of medical and science books, but amongst them was Paradise Lost.

The lecture was interesting and I met a few nice people and was pleasantly surprised afterwards that they put even more food out to eat. We ate, chatted with people, and then headed home. (We made a pit stop in the bathroom at the Royal College, which is the nicest I've seen so far - much better than the so called luxury bathroom at Harrods which had a scary bathroom attendant that glared at me the entire time.)