title: Returning the first N characters of a unicode string
body: <p>I have a string in unicode and I need to return the first N characters.
  I am doing this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>result = unistring[:5]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but of course the length of unicode strings != length of characters.
  Any ideas? The only solution is using re?</p>
  
  <p>Edit: More info</p>
  
  <pre><code>unistring = "Μεταλλικα" #Metallica written in Greek letters
  result = unistring[:1]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>returns-> ?</p>
  
  <p>I think that unicode strings are two bytes (char), that's why this thing happens. If I do:</p>
  
  <pre><code>result = unistring[:2]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I get </p>
  
  <p><code>M</code></p>
  
  <p>which is correct,
  So, should I always slice*2 or should I convert to something?</p>