December 17, 2010

Over the past three days the boys and i have tried to get haircuts. However, a series of unfortunate circumstances, such as long lines of waiting people, or showing up 10 minutes after the daily 2 hour siesta starts, have kept us from getting our hair volume reduced.

I have spent my last 20 summers in France, still I have a hard time getting used to this siesta thing. Time and time again I find myself in front of entrances to shops around noon, only to find out that everyone is on their daily 2 hour lunch break. This custom is of unknown origin but is common in countries with a hot climate combined with the largest meal of the day being eaten around noon. The combination of heat and drowsiness from over-intake of calories makes it desirable to sleep for a while. If you want to sleep, you have to close your shop. Here in South America the latinos have introduced the custom everywhere. 15 years ago we were in Ushuaia. At 55 degrees south, and no Gulf Stream, Ushuaia has roughly the same climate as Tromsø in northern Norway. Still, the shops closed for two hours in the middle of the day, probably more because of culture than because of the intense heat.

My hair was increasingly becoming a burden, it was both too hot and too heavy. This made it paramount to manage to get that hair cut today. In addition we had been invited to Miguel´s summer break party at his school. I couldn´t show up there with the top of my head in such a mess.

So, the boys and I moved over to the local barber shop close to our house, well ahead of the siesta, after a recommendation from Dauro, hoping to be able to cut our hair this time. There were only 2 people ahead of us, so we sat down to wait. This small barber shop is a one-man operation on a few square meters. Prices are low and the guy is quick and gives you a decent hair cut. My kind of place.

Half way through I could already feel the weight difference on my head.

30 reals (18 USD) for three haircuts. You cannot complain about that.

We sacrificed a chicken to the weather gods at midnight yesterday and it seemed to have had a slight effect. The sun was even peeping through from time to time. Back at the house we had some food and then started to prepare for going to the beach. Getting everyone ready and infused with sunscreen is a time consuming process.

I have a very strong love/hate relationship with sunscreen. On the one hand I would not be able to do anything useful in good weather without it. My skin is a total evolutionary failure. Unprotected it takes about 15 minutes of intense sun to kill off the outerrmost skin cells and change its color from vanilla white to strawberry red. The consequences are harsh and the pain lasts for a few days before my skin comes off in large flakes of dead white skin cells.

I have been able to build a mild brown chocolate color on a few rare occasions, but this takes months of planning, close timing and calculation of how long I expose myself and with which sunscreen factor I have infused my delicate white flesh.

On the other hand sunscreen is a royal pain in the behind. It is greasy and takes a long time to apply. It´s often difficult to see where it has been already applied, and if I forget even the most minuscule patch, I will burn and suffer. Being on the genetic fringe of fitness for survival I also sweat way too much than what the body should be able to afford in water-loss. As soon as sweat starts running down my forehead I get sunscreen in my eyes, which is very painful.

Sand sticks to it and worst of all, I always get some on my glasses. The glasses then become impossible to clean properly in any reasonable way without prolonged access to soap and hot water. When my glasses get stained I develop a strong hedache in about 30 minutes and become grumpy and difficult to live with.

Helene has good mediterranean genes and good skin. Even though she intellectually understands the challenges of my skin she has never really grasped the concept, much like I never get used to the siesta. I can get sunburned on a cloudy day, or through the windshield of a car. These are very alien ideas to the French.

Once I was with my father-in-law on a fishing trip in the alps. We fished for a whole day at 2350 meters (7700 feet) altitude at the height of summer. At that altitude, in the alps, there are no trees. The reflecting sun in the water made things even worse. I applied sunscreen with protection factor 60 diligently every 2 hours, 6 times in total, on every part of my skin that was exposed. My father-in-law applied nothing. At the end of the day we had both developed a tan, but not one of us was burned. Enough said.

Our kids have various degrees of protective skin. Viktor, the poor boy, has inherited my in-bred Norwegian skin. Iseline is a bit in between and Adrian has strong mediterranean natural skin armor.

After what seemed like an eternity everyone was covered in sunscreen from top to bottom and we could venture out into the baking sun.

Except, there was no baking sun anymore. During the time we had been indoors applying the stuff, the sky had completely covered and it had started to rain!

Defiant, and with a Norwegian attitude to weather, I proclaimed to the family that I was not going to let some weather god mess with our beach excursion. We are going to the beach, we(a)ther you like it or not!

Once we arrived only the surfers were left, they also disappeared soon, as the rain intensified:

The kids loved it. The temperature was very comfortable, and we soon had the beach to ourselves:

Rain on sunscreen infused skin:

I guess you have to live in Norway to appreciate going swimming in this kind of weather:

Afterwards we got ready to go to Miguel´s school and the school´s summer break party. The event was very much like what we are used to from Norway, The kids performed in different groups. They danced and sung for us.

Gabi and her nephew, Vitor, and niece, Caro, were also there.

In a break the boys showed Vitor how to play Angry Birds on my iPhone:

Laura and Bruno:

After a while Santa Claus and his bodyguard arrived. Santa threw candy into the crowd of children creating total chaos:

Then Santa was escorted safely through the crowd while waving to his hard-core fans:

We probably wouldn´t see Gabi, Vitor and Caro again on this trip, so we did our good-byes.

Tomorrow we will leave on a weekend trip together with Dauro and Laura.

See you around, folks!

Eirik

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