Experience in Denmark. I was in Denmark little over a month ago together with my sister, her boyfriend, three of my friends and two of my sisters friends. Before we left I had decided that I wanted a tattoo. I have wished for a tattoo since I was 10 when I read my first Tattoo magazine. We went to a place called Sønderborg and we rented a house there just outside the city. One day we decided to go to the town and shop. My friends bought Bayern München soccer outfits on sale, and my sister’s boyfriend and me went on a search for a tattoo shop. We asked a girl if she knew of a tattoo studio nearby. And we were lucky the town had one. It was about a 15 min walk down from the shopping center. We came to the tattoo studio. It was a small room (My kitchen is probably bigger then the shop was). There was a nice lady sitting there and drawing tattoo designs. I felt like we invaded the shop. The shop had flash in binders so we all started going through them. I have always been a fan of abstract and blackwork so I was sure that I wanted an armband, only I didn’t want it to look too “Evil” so it was hard to find. My friends wanted to get kanji symbol like “Bad” or “Hard and Strong” but since they are only 17 they didn’t have the guts to do it, because their parents would flip. My friend also wanted to get his eyebrow pierced, but the piercer wasn’t there that day so he would have to come back another day. I’m 20 so I could do whatever I wanted, so my parents wasn’t my care, I just wanted INK! I finally decided on an armband, it was a blackwork that would go around my upper arm, so I asked the lady for an appointment to get a tattoo. She said she could do it right away, and asked if I had decided on a design. I said yes, and I pointed to the armband. She said that the armband would cost twice as much because my arms are big. I sighed, so I asked if she could modify it so it only went halfway around my arm. She said yes, she could do that. But she wanted another design for me, because the design I had picked out was so common. So together we modified another design to go halfway around my arm. She needed a while to prep so I went out for a cigarette. My friends were saying stuff like: ”So are you man enough for this? Ey?? J “ After about 15mins she said she was ready. I got down in the chair, took off all my upperbody clothes and she started prepping my arm. She scrubbed my arm with some kind of alcohol, applied the stencil, and then she smeared vasoline on my arm. I asked: “Does it hurt?” She answered” No it doesn’t hurt at all” my sisters boyfriend who already had a tattoo went like “Sure…….” She dipped the outline needle in ink and did one dot, to show me it didn’t hurt. I was like “Huh?!?!? That didn’t hurt at all!!! This is going to be a piece of cake..” But when she started to tattoo the outline I swallowed those words. It didn’t hurt much; it wasn’t so painful that you didn’t endure it. It was like holding your finger under running water and increasing the amount of hot water to the flow, like a gradual pain building up, kinda like being at the dentist. So I was smiling and happy because I was finally getting a tattoo. It was fun to watch the needle go into my arm and depositing ink. I bleed a lot, she must have went through at least two packages of cleaning napkins. The look on my friends’ faces was so kewl, they were stunned probably from all the blood. It took about 1h 15mins to do it. When she was done she showed me in the mirror, snapped a picture of it, and gift-wrapped it in glad pack and medical tape. Afterwards when I was done I was really happy, I paid the lady. It wasn’t expensive either about 180$. She told me about aftercare, I should lube it up with vasoline three times a day and wash it with slightly tempered water after three hours. After about two weeks the crust started to come off. I was like “!”#¤#¤&#¤%&¤%DWFG”#¤%”#¤% I WANTED A BLACK TATTOO!!#”¤%”# NOT A GRAY ONE”#¤#%&%&” But later on I found out that the gray color was the new skin that was forming on top of the tattoo that was white and faded the tattoo a bit. It cleared up after a couple of days. Now it’s fine, it’s black, and I love it. There is only a couple of scars on it where the entry points for the filling needle were. To all of you thinking of getting a tattoo, it does hurt, but it does not hurt as much as you think, you will have no problem with handling the pain. The only part where I had to bite my teeth together and grrr was when she tattooed over my stretch marks. I’m a big guy and I have stretch marks on several places on my body. Those were very painful, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Now I’m even more hooked on tattoos then before. I want more, lots more. The next tattoo I’m getting is an eye in the back of my neck. I’m also starting to pick up an interest for piercing as well. I’m considering getting my tongue pierced as well as my lip and penis. I used to think piercing was kinda ugly, whenever I saw a girl that looked like Rosanna Arquette in Pulp Fiction I would go “Man eww!!!” Now I think it is ULTRA sexy. Well that’s it and that’s that. ;) Espen

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