I forgot to tell you I got my stomach pierced. It was one of those surreal experiences that you look back on and say, “what the hell was I thinking?”.

I have wanted to get my stomach pierced for some time now, but told myself I had to get a six pack first, somehow even when I did manage that feat I would neglect getting my piercing, probably because when it comes to needles I am such a sissy its pathetic!
Anyway back to my story, I casually mention to the girls here that I wanted to get a piercing and of course they happen to know someone who can do it for me. Great now I really don't have an excuse, to make matters worse they call immediately and arrange it for the next evening. Arrrg, me and my big mouth, I don't really want someone to stick a needle in me, regardless of the aesthetic benefits.

Its all arranged and the next evening I find myself waiting at the trainstation where we are mysteriously led into some aging soviet style crumbling apartment block and inside the freaky elevator (you know the type that has bars in front and if you put your hand out you can touch the walls that slide by as you ascend, scary!). After a series of coded knocks on a auspicious door, it cracks open to reveal a den of musical instruments, vodka bottles, cigarette smoke and several men who casually let us in as if foreign girls regularly enter into their apartment to have needles injected! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So now I am seriously reconsidering the logic behind this decision, but Anna is happily chatting away getting them to bring her snacks and determined to ease my discomfort be regaling me with the humorous tales of how “Zoran” (my competent piercer) managed to get a chin piercing wrong and ended up putting it off center. Oh ho ho ho SO funny, thanks Anna, for the moral support please leave the room!

After successfully evicting Anna from the room, we get down to business. I lie down on the bed with my feet up on someone's pillow and take a deep breath.
Ouch! Okay so it wasn't so bad, after having a baby nothing will ever seem that bad again, but I am not a happy puppy when I hear “Oh shit”. What has he done? Punctured my colon? Turns out the needle went through, hmm that would explain the pain, but the plastic piece wrinkled and didn't go through.

Murphys law.

Oh well don't worry just nip out to the nearest pharmacy and buy a new one. Don't mind the fact that its past nine and most of them are closed. I will just lie here bleeding on your bed til you get back, don't mind me.
Well sometime later on during the night we finish the procedure and Anna has dutifully held my hand while exclaiming that she is sure it will look all right once the swelling has subsided. She didn't look very convinced, who could blame her? After all that trauma it looks like someone punched me in the stomach several times. Now lets bike the 7 kilometers home, no problem, super women in the making here, haha.

As soon as we left the apartment I went to the nearest kiosk and bought a two liter bottle of beer. Figured I deserved it for being such a trooper. But once I got over the infection, (I will spare you the gross details) it looks pretty good and now I even have a memory other then some boring chair in a tattoo parlor to remember this piercing by.

Note to self, if Anna is involved just say NO.