Somebody turn on the air conditioning!
I have so little tolerance for heat. I get totally lethargic, my brain freezes, and I have no desire to do anything that requires movement. It has been hot in Basel for several days now and I've had enough of it! By hot I mean in the 30s which translates to high 80s and 90s in "real" temperatures. I realize this is the usual summer weather in many places, but I'm a wimp. I lived in DC for 10 years and never got used to the summer heat there. But at least in DC everything is air conditioned! Virtually nothing is air conditioned in Basel, or if it is, it's only moderately cooled. I still sweat and I hate feeling all sticky.
We play a fun little game to try to keep our house cool. In the morning (when it's cool), I open all the windows to air out the house and hope for a good cross breeze. Then when it starts to warm up (about 9:00), I shut everything hoping to trap in the cool air and I don't open anything up again until the sun goes away. I feel like I'm living in a cave because I'm blocking out all the light.
Even last night at the drum performance, the theater was only slightly cooled which meant I was sweating as I sat amongst a crowd of hundreds, some of whom obviously didn't wear their deoderant yesterday. This morning at my German lesson, which is in a tiny office on the top floor of a 3 story (4 story American) building it was already 30 degrees inside and that was at 9:00!
Then there are the trams. Only a few trams are air conditioned, like the number 8 and the number 6 and sometimes the number 14. We take the number 15 so we ALWAYS get the old trams with only windows which frankly don't do that much for ventilation. It's like a sauna in there. The other day when I was taking a bus (same idea) home with a friend, we actually got off way before our stop in order to transfer to a tram which looked to be air conditioned. I didn't care how out of the way it was, at least it was cool.
And poor Grady. How would you like to be wearing a black fur coat in this heat? I've had to take him for very short walks, and otherwise he just lays around the house eating ice cubes (which I feed him).
I know somebody who's lived in Europe for a few years is going to read this and say "this is nothing compared to the summer of 2003!", blah blah blah. I realize that. I've heard all about that summer, and I'm very thankful that we didn't live here then. I don't think I would've survived. For now, I'm focused on this week, in the summer of 2005, and thinking about when I should next go to the pool since that's the only way to keep cool!
We play a fun little game to try to keep our house cool. In the morning (when it's cool), I open all the windows to air out the house and hope for a good cross breeze. Then when it starts to warm up (about 9:00), I shut everything hoping to trap in the cool air and I don't open anything up again until the sun goes away. I feel like I'm living in a cave because I'm blocking out all the light.
Even last night at the drum performance, the theater was only slightly cooled which meant I was sweating as I sat amongst a crowd of hundreds, some of whom obviously didn't wear their deoderant yesterday. This morning at my German lesson, which is in a tiny office on the top floor of a 3 story (4 story American) building it was already 30 degrees inside and that was at 9:00!
Then there are the trams. Only a few trams are air conditioned, like the number 8 and the number 6 and sometimes the number 14. We take the number 15 so we ALWAYS get the old trams with only windows which frankly don't do that much for ventilation. It's like a sauna in there. The other day when I was taking a bus (same idea) home with a friend, we actually got off way before our stop in order to transfer to a tram which looked to be air conditioned. I didn't care how out of the way it was, at least it was cool.
And poor Grady. How would you like to be wearing a black fur coat in this heat? I've had to take him for very short walks, and otherwise he just lays around the house eating ice cubes (which I feed him).
I know somebody who's lived in Europe for a few years is going to read this and say "this is nothing compared to the summer of 2003!", blah blah blah. I realize that. I've heard all about that summer, and I'm very thankful that we didn't live here then. I don't think I would've survived. For now, I'm focused on this week, in the summer of 2005, and thinking about when I should next go to the pool since that's the only way to keep cool!
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