Hot in Hierr

Wiesbaden is warm. Warmbaden. I have no air conditioning in my apartment and this evening I actually appreciated the fact that I can't get anything other than ice cold water in my shower. Usually, it's so cold that I have to yell "IT'S COLD! IT'S COLD!" loudly which seems to help a little and emerge shivering and suffering from a transient form of post traumatic stress disorder. Today the Arctic temperature was something for which I was grateful. Nothing like a little thirty-two degree heat at eight o'clock in the evening to force you to stop and think about the little things.

I realise that, in general, thirty-two degrees is not exceptionally high. It's par for the course in package holiday destinations and a little on the cold side in the Middle East and the Amazon Basin. I, however, struggle with anything more than what Irish grannies describe as "mild" weather. My hair finds a way to stick to my face and neck even when it's tied up and out of the way, my eyes water if I so much as think about the sun and I turn a fetching shade of pink after just a minute's exposure to the great big star in the sky. Like a great big cured ham. With hair.

Germans, however, are pros at handling steeper temperatures (except for perhaps the obese ones, who sweat buckets and expand in the heat so as to take up extra room on public buses. But they are few and far between). My colleagues, for example, enjoy lunching outside so my daily forty-five minute lunch break has become something I live for and dread in equal amounts. As soon as the automatic door opens onto the outdoor seating area from the cool and calm air-conditioned canteen I am poised for battle with the elements. I usually forget to take my sunglasses with me, and the trays in the canteen are white, so if I look down I am dazzled and if I look up I am blinded by the sun. The solution is to close my eyes almost entirely but leave an all-important half a millimetre gap to allow for vision and me to not look like a complete imbecile. Furthermore, I take out as many cups of chilled water as my tray will carry to prevent my body from shrivelling up and frying itself on the picnic bench during the half an hour or so that I am forced to be as close to "at one" with nature as I ever will be. It probably looks a little extreme but if anyone ever asks I just play the "I'm Irish and I can BARELY cope with this weather, it's so unusual back home, how do you manage at all?" card. I am perennially jealous of my peers' natural ability to remain composed, outside, at the hottest time of day. They are brown, lean-limbed, their make up stays fully intact, and not one hair clings to their foreheads, ever. Damn them.

My apartment, meanwhile, is no longer the comfortable, relaxing and cool retreat it once was; rather it has become Germany's largest sauna. There is no air conditioning and opening the windows doesn't help as it's probably warmer outside. One solution is to swing the living room door open and closed really fast to generate a breeze but this reprieve from the sweltering heat is merely temporary and if I keep it up I'll probably end up pulling the door off its hinges and having to replace it. I wouldn't want that.

Until this heat lets up (which will be sometime later this week, according to the news and every German with whom I have made small talk this week) I shall have to make do with guzzling two litres of water a day, cold showers thrice daily and overly sentimental thoughts about Irish rain, dampness and drizzle. Oh, drizzle.