J'ai testé pour vous..une école de coiffure

I am leaving tomorrow for a week in the US to attend a trade show (and then my cousin's bachelorette party!), and pretty much every time at the last minute before a trade show, I think "Crap, I should get my hair done".  It's a bit of a cliché, but (most) (foreign) gentlemen do prefer blondes and the blonder my hair is, the more they like me.  I know, I know - it's sexist and not fair and blah blah blah, but as one of the few women in my industry, I've decided I'll take any leg up I can get.

I normally try to get my hair done in the US because I've never really been happy with my haircuts & colors here, but I read a French blog last week talking about all the various hair academies in Paris, and I thought, pourquoi pas?  I used to go to the Aveda Institute all the time in the US and I loved it - and I figured if my hair got messed up here, I could always get it fixed next week.

So I checked out this website, and chose Jean Louis David because 1) I had done a case study on them during my masters program and 2) I thought they were the "specialist of blondes" (but I actually now think it is Jacques Dessange).  It was a bit annoying to make a RDV because you either had to call a numéro payant or show up in person, but I got my appointment set up for this past Tuesday. 

I showed up and paid my 15€ (7€ for the cut, 8€ for the color), and got sent upstairs. I was fairly quickly assigned a student, and we went through their look book together, and I chose a photo of a women with golden highlights. She in turn showed me something like this:

And I was like "Um, no - that's what my hair looks like now. I am coming in to cover up the regrowth, not make it look like I haven't had highlights in six more months".  She called over the instructor, who said that this was a new style becoming popular in France, and that the student was here to learn it, but that she would do that first and then give me some highlights after.  So I sat there for and let her do here thing, not in any way convinced by what she was doing....and three hours later, she whirled me around and I looked pretty much exactly the same as I had earlier. Minus a few inches of hair. 

At that point, I was like "Do I say something or do I not say something?" I mean on one hand, it wasn't terrible at all and I had only paid 15€, but on the other hand, she was there to learn and it wasn't what I had asked for. In the end, when the instructor came over and asked what I thought, I decided to speak up and be honest and said "It's fine....but it's not at all what I wanted".  I thought she might say "Tough luck", but instead she replied "Sometimes hairstyles need to be washed a few times before you really see how they are - try it out for a few days, and if you don't like it, come back and we'll do it again for free".

So I left, and didn't end up liking it any more, so I made another appointment for today. This time, I ended up getting a personal consultation with the instructor, and she had her chouchou redo my hair, and it is a million times better.  Exactly what I was looking for and the equivalent of what I get in the US.  Unfortunately though her class pet was Spanish and lives in Madrid, so that's a little far to go for a haircut.... Though I guess going to the US is also far too. :D

Would I try it again?  Probably.  I'm never satisfied with hair cuts/colors here no matter how much I pay, so in the end, I figure why pay 200€ when I can pay 15€?   Though I would probably give another school a shot next time for comparison's sake.  Has anyone else tried a hair school here?

A day in the life

Last week, I was out all week traveling in the countryside, visiting customs in and around Cholet.  One of the days, I had just arrived on site and was in the office drinking a cup of coffee with my client and the site manager (side bar - when will I ever learn to like coffee??  It's such a social thing here in France, and refusing a coffee offered by a customer is like saying "No, sorry, I don't want to spend 10 minutes chatting with you", so I always feel obligated to accept and choke it down).   But so there we all were, drinking our dirt water coffee, and all of the sudden we see eight or nine employees leaving the building at break time.  This normally does not happen because everybody wears special clothes inside, so going outside is a bit annoying because it requires getting undressed, changing clothes, etc. 

The site manager opened the window and yelled out "Hey, Jean-Paul, where are you going?" And JP replied back "We're going to see a deer".  The three of us looked at one another like "WTF??" and then I laughed and said "Well let's follow them, I want to see the deer too".

So we all trek outside in a line and Old Jean-Paul starts telling a story about how he was on his way to work that day, and it was really foggy and he couldn't see anything, and all of the sudden "WHAM".  So he pulled over and got out and realized he had hit a deer.  She wasn't moving at all, so "since no one was around to see", he hefted her up and popped her in his trunk and continued on his way to work.  And now five hours later was coming to check on her.

He opened the trunk and we all collectively leaned back a bit in case she jumped out, but nope, there she was, perfectly untouched and frozen in time. Luckily (or I guess unluckily), she had been killed upon impact, so she hadn't sat there suffering all morning, which had been one of my concerns.  His colleagues asked him what he was going to do with her, and he replied "Make steaks and sausages".  And then we all trekked back inside again.

That too is life in France, my friends.

Karma's a b*tch, part II

So when I left off yesterday, it was time to head over to the farm house to visit his dear, sweet dad. He was pretty much the only person in Brittany who welcomed me with open arms, and who was oh, so patient with me as I was learning French. He always had time to sit and talk with me, to offer me a cup of coffee and a palet breton.  I was nervous about seeing him - Fab had mentioned that he only recognized people that he had really liked, and it left me feeling nervous, and wondering if the sentiments I had for him were one-sided.

But when I walked through the door, he light up like a light bulb, with this beautiful, huge smile, and it was honestly one of the most emotional moments I'd had all year.  To see that man, who was so strong and who had worked so hard his entire life lose nearly everything just as he was retiring - was heartbreaking.  And then of course right beside him sat my ex-MIL, who's about as mean as a hornet and who barely worked a day in her life, in perfect health.  Sometimes life really isn't fair.

Since he couldn't talk, I sat there talking about what I'd been up to for nearly the past ten years. One of Fab's aunt's was also there, which was a bit awkward, but we made do.  And his handicapped step-brother was also present, and provided for some much need levity by interrupting me and asking very loudly "Why you wearin' a ring?  You married?"

Up to that point, I had been kind of circling around the topic of C, saying "nous", but making no specific references to him.  But I couldn't really avoid it after that, so I gave him the glowing description he so wholly deserves, and they all said they were happy for me. I couldn't really be sure if they were sincere or not since the alcohol had been flowing quite freely, although not for me since I still had some driving ahead of me.

Not long after, the night nurse came to take care of his besoins and put him to bed, so I had to say my goodbyes.  The evil ex-MIL asked him to try to say my name, and my initial thought was "Man, you are cruel" as we'd just been talking about how unsuccessful his speech therapy had been, but then to everyone's surprise, he said my name!  Everyone else then went around the table trying to get him to say their names, but he wasn't having it.  So I leaned down to give him the bise goodbye, and I whispered in his ear that I had thought about him often over the years, that I was extremely grateful for everything he had done for me during my early days in France, and that I was hopeful for him.  He couldn't say anything but Oui back in response, but he put his hand on mine and we both had a little mist in our eyes as I said my final goodbye.

As I drove away, I felt both sadness at seeing him like that and the closure that I needed from seeing Fab.  I don't wish him any ill will, but even if I'm so much better off now, I wouldn't be human if I didn't admit I got some satisfaction from seeing the end of the relationship that broke up our own.

2017 + some gossip

Well, the New Year has come and gone. After thinking we wouldn't really have any plans, we ended up throwing together a last-minute NYE party for nearly 20 people.  It was a great time, even if I was slightly cranky that all of the smog was blocking our view of the Eiffel Tower at midnight.

I've been thinking about it these past few days, and I don't really have any solid resolutions for 2017.  With the exception of the US political situation, 2016 was a pretty good year for us, and I will be perfectly satisfied if 2017 continues along the same path.

And in today's episode of karma is a b*tch, before I left for the US, I made a short trip to Bretagne for work.  Fab, my ex - as longtime readers will remember - had contacted me after the US elections results were announced to basically ask WTF.  We started chatting a bit, and I asked if he was going to get in trouble for talking to me, and he was quiet for a second before very sheepishly admitting that he had gotten divorced this past summer.  My first thought was "Ha, serves you right!", and my second though, which I voiced, was "That is sad for your daughter".

In even sadder news, he also mentioned that his father, a dear man with whom I was very close, had had a stroke. He is unfortunately mostly handicapped now, and needs a nurse to come three times a day to take of his daily needs. He also can't speak really say anything besides Oui or Non.  So I'd had him on my mind for quite some time when this Bretagne trip came up, and I decided to ask if I could stop by the farm to see him.

It was pretty surreal to be driving through the winding country roads that used to be my home.  When I pulled up to the farm, Fab came out to great me, and brought me to his 'house', aka a very sad-looking trailer behind the main farmhouse.  My face must have shown my surprise because he said "Alright, you get five minutes of laughter and then you have to move on".  It was pretty obvious that he too was aware of the irony of the situation.

He explained that was living there because he had lost a lot of money in the divorce due to the fact that he had brought his wife into the family business, something myself and everyone else in his family had strongly advised him against, and so he had no choice but to live there.  He also lost his organic certification after an inspector discovered they had been trying to cheat by using non-organic feed (as a side note, this is one of the reasons I don't often buy organic in France - in my experience, most of the farmers are doing it purely for the extra money it brings in, not because of their convictions - which means they cut corners and make substitutes wherever they can). 

I felt pretty gratified actually that he was able to acknowledge that I had been his moral compass, and he admitted that there is some truth to the saying that behind every great man is a great woman, and that he had unfortunately been too weak to push back on all of her suggestions. We had a long chat, and he apologized very sincerely for what he had done, and said it had weighed on him every day for the past nine years. 

I was also surprised with how much he remembered of our life together.  He asked very specific questions about several of my family members and co-workers, not to mention names of places we had been, etc, many of which I had long forgotten about. Although I guess I have a horrible memory in general, and can barely remember what I blogged about last year, so I shouldn't use myself for comparison lol.  It was very obvious though that he missed speaking English, contact with other foreigners and our regular trips to the US.

But this is getting a bit long, and I haven't even gotten to the best part yet, so I think I'll continue on with the rest tomorrow!