"there aren't many salons around here, dearie, so I dunno why I hadn't heard of that one"

Today was a Big Day.

I ran out of my magical hair product that I use every day a few days ago, so I've been sporting ponytails and googling salons that carry my brand. Fortunately, they're all over London (a quick pop in at a Toni & Guy on Liverpool Street taught me that apparently only the smaller, independent salons are carrying that brand now, though) so I was planning on walking the two miles or so to Bethnal Green Road after class today to pick up a few bottles. Seemed simple enough.

I was largely enjoying my jaunt down Roman Road/Bethnal Green -- it's a pretty grundgy neighborhood with government housing and countless halal fried chicken shops, but it's currently going through some kind of hipster rebirth (I passed more than one used clothing store that looked like something in the Haight and spotted a group of twenty somethings with large black glasses frames and striped retro sweatshirts carrying a dismembered mannequin) so it was a fun walk to take.

But then came the part where I was supposed to find the salon, and found instead that it did not exist.

I'm not kidding -- I paced the the place it should have been as well as a five block radius on all sides, and found nothing. I asked inside two stores -- they'd never heard of it. It was getting dark. And started to rain. And the salon did not exist.

I was just about to give up and take the walk of shame home, when I by the grace of god saw a tiny plastic sign next to a buzzer on a building that said "for Beauty Island: ring 242A." I was too busy rejoicing to think that was sketch.

So I rang 242A and waited a few minutes for a nice young Portuguese girl to let me in and lead me up to the salon. Upon entering the one room salon devoid of any clientele whatsoever, I realized they only had my product as a part of a set and would only sell it to me along with two other useless products. This would not do at this point. I begged her to let me have it individually -- this, of course, leading to half an hour of her and her brother? boyfriend? speaking to each other in Portuguese, calling their manager? mother? on multiple cell phones, speaking in more Portuguese, inviting me to sit down and have a cup of tea, calling more people on cell phones, then finally conceding and letting me buy my one stupid bottle of hair product and get the hell out of there.

So now I'm home, a few hours later than I was anticipating and a little damper than I would have hoped, but excited nonetheless to finish this essay tonight and start packing for PARIS on Saturday! I'll update on that next week!