All year long, I have been complaining on how cold, rainy, and windy the Netherlands has been. Now it is none of these things. It's hot. The humid air hangs in a stagnant, unmoving mass above the city, with no hope for a refreshing rain shower.
And still, I complain.
Yeah, yeah. I've lived in Texas. I should be used to the heat, right? Well, there is one important difference. In Texas, you wake up in your nice air-conditioned house. You walk into your garage, which is slightly warmer, get in your car, turn on the AC, drive to work, run into your building, where it is air-conditioned to a good 60* F cooler than the outside. You feel pretty dumb bringing a sweater to work when it's 120* outside. The hottest part of your day is when you come back to your car at the end of the day, which has been parked outside all day and is now hotter than super-critical plutonium.
But Dutch summer is something completely different. Sure, it is not as hot, but there is NO RELIEF. No air conditioned bedroom to sleep in. No freezing office. Not even a cool grocery store to walk around in for a break. It's hot. Everywhere.
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| Figure 1: Idiotic window design |
Because of this, my apartment has pretty much been at 30* C (or 86* F) for a week. It is hotter inside than outside, and at least outside, you can feel fresh air on your skin.
I have therefore waged battle on the sun. The curtains are always closed, but this pretty much blocked what little air I could get from my window (open a fraction of a millimeter). I tried putting a yoga mat up in the window to block the light but let in the air, but after a few days, the yoga mat melted. So finally, I taped aluminium foil up in the window. I ran out of tape, so I used whatever sticky things I had left. I knew I was saving that gum for something!
Ahh! Immediate relief! I can feel the temperature drop already. Take that sun!
Just remind me of this in two weeks when the rain comes back and I again go into sun withdrawal.
You are so funny! Glad you still have your humor. Truly enjoyed your blog posting today! We have evaporative coolers, the humidity is 70%+
ReplyDeleteso they are useless for cooling... so I know from whence you speak!
=) Make slushies... they help until your get heart frost and have to suffer through the pain!
We were having a similar problem here, but our idiotic windows open about two inches on the top and it is raining today :) However, my battle is being waged in my lab. The air is always heated when it is brought in from outside. When you add a lab coat, face shield, gloves, long pants, and shoes to 37 degree heat, it gets miserable in about 10 minutes. When you step out into the hall, it is better but not by much because it is so hot and humid...at least in winter, the adjoining lab will be 10 degrees when mine is 40! Great post and good luck with the battle!
ReplyDeleteUpdate! There was a thunderstorm last night, and that helped to cool everything down. But, my aluminum foil sun-shield woke me up by flapping around madly in the wind. It seems like there is no winning this war...
ReplyDeleteI think when people wonder how we can stand to live in Arizona with our 115-degree summers, they forget it's the A/C capital of the world. Plus, the low humidity means that you cool off instantly when you come out of the heat & it doesn't make you sweat so quickly as the stickier climates.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in Cincinnati last week, I was in a similar situation to yours. She lives on the 3rd floor of her apartment (no attic, hence very little insulation), and it frequently got up to 85 inside...even with the A/C running the whole time. Heaven forbid we ever had to use the bathroom because that room faced the afternoon sun & it was seriously a sauna inside--ugh. Hope things cool off for you soon. Ginny