Magic Hair

For the record I would just like to say that my hair looked amazing yesterday.  Remember how I gave up doing it?  Because why straighten your hair when it's only going to look like a tumbleweed 2 minutes after you're done?  Well, we've all be a little sick around here for the last few days and trapped in the house and yesterday afternoon I finally made it out.  And because it felt nice and cool and autumn-y without a hint of humidity I thought I'd chance it.  Plus, I was tired of the ponytail.  It sometimes makes me feel defeated.  So I straightened it and it looked like magic.  My bangs alone were a revelation.  Not a tumbleweed in sight.

So my magic hair and I headed out to Sidi Bou Said to get a ticket for a concert that night and as I walked past the mosque I noticed how pretty it looked in front of those very dark and ominous clouds.

That picture was the last thing I did before finding myself ankle deep in water.  The skies opened up and the street turned into a raging river.  I took shelter with about 20 other people under a tree but it ended up being a mistake because trees do nothing when rain is coming down in sheets and sheets.  I was soaked through.  

And my hair was no longer magic.

But after about 10 minutes the sun came back out and I managed to make the most out of the day by convincing this guy that I was sad and pathetic and wet and so he should give me a good deal on some ceramics.

He did. 

For the record my face looked a lot better before the rain too.  Remember, I'm drenched in this picture.

I went into another shop and this older guy kept saying, "Princess!  I love you!  Let's get married!  We'll live in a big house!  Okay?  And now I'm going to give you the best price."  And then he clamped his arms around me and kissed me on the cheek several times and I was about to do the Vulcan death grip on him to break away except that I was in the midst of a very shrewed business deal.  I managed to break away and make the deal.  Even as I was walking out of the shop he was still calling out, "Let's get married, princess!!!"

The concert was sold out, by the way (international pantomiming exercise for the day:  "sold out") but Walli still managed to get me a ticket.  It was the same concert series in the same place as the Occitan musicians last week (big beautiful mansion overlooking the sea, ah)  but this was traditional music from North Ireland.  Very Riverdance.  They ever had a step dancer.  And this time they spoke English so we could understand most of it, considering how thick their Irish accents were.  The whole thing made me want to watch Waking Ned Devine.