European haircut #3

I was standing outside of my original Hungarian haircut place last Friday.  I was rousing up the courage to enter (through the clothing shop) to the beauty salon when I saw my student Tono.  He loudly admits to disliking Americans and preferring British English, customs and traditions – but there is an element of teacher crush alive and well (as evident in the fact that he leant me his Hungarian Christmas CD- with pride, but without any of his friends seeing him do so…).  I asked him if he would help me ask if there was an opening for a haircut- despite my advances in Hungarian language, I have not gotten up the courage to phone a salon and ask for an appointment.  He accompanied me (through the clothing store) into the beauty salon and translated that I’d like a haircut.  When he asked “what kind of hair do you want?” my response was naturally, “beautiful hair – duh!”  He didn’t get it and I told him just to say that I wanted it basically the same, only shorter.  He confirmed that it was okay and left me in the beauty salon.  When I thanked him, his response was “not at all” to which I said, “how very British of you.”  Do people actually use that phrase?  At any rate, the woman told Tono that she had an errand to run and that she’d be right back.  In the mean time, 20 minutes passed… and I was referred to as “the foreigner” and “the American” many times.  Oh well, comes with the territory I suppose.  When she returned I retreated back into the role of non-Hungarian speaker and though I understood most of what she was saying, I just responded with “igen, igen” and a smile (“yes, yes”).  When she made motions of giving me bangs I haven’t had since I was 8, I responded with an “igen, igen.”  When she asked if I wanted it shorter on the sides, of course I said “igen, igen” even though I’d been trying to grow it out a certain way.  Oh well, you just go with the flow, and your karma is the haircut you leave with.  There was two cups of mousse, half a can of hairspray and lots of love in my new haircut, but I didn’t really like it.  Oh well- what do you do?