While in the Czech Republic I decided to visit Nayana at Hell.cz for my second aesthetic based tattoo. My design for her would be a swallow with the head as a skull. The swallow tattoo was historically used by sailors to show their sailing experience or number of nautical miles they’ve travelled. At my previous job I did many work related international flights and my move from the corporate world to working remotely was considered a type of rebirth to me. Rebirth and celebration of life are two meanings associated to skull tattoos.
Her design encompassed this idea perfectly as what I envisioned was it being done in the style of a medieval woodcut print. In my eagerness to get tattooed by her I chose to do it on the day of my flight back from Prague to Cape Town, let me emphatically state that getting a tattoo when you’re about to get onto an international flight is not a wise idea. Security will pick up the tattoo covering in their x-ray scanner and airports are not exactly the most germ free areas and you’ll need to apply healing cream numerous times a day which will have to be done in the lavatory for privacy. Needless to say the risk of infection of a fresh tattoo in an airport is high. Fortunately I didn’t get an infection but the discomfort of having to sit on a long haul flight with a sensitive new tattoo made this a learning experience which I will never repeat.