Sunday 5 July 2015

How to enjoy the heat

Zürich has been in the middle of a European heat wave these last few days. We've been having daily temperatures of more than 35 degrees and all our nights were tropical, I guess it was never cooler than around 23 degrees. Most houses in Switzerland don't have AC because we simply don't need it so you can imagine that it got quite warm inside. Especially if you live on the top floor, right underneath the flat roof with sunshine from 6am to 9pm. Yep, I guess it's around 35 degrees inside my bedroom and at night the heat just doesn't leave at all.

So last night Antonia and I decided to take action and we moved two mattresses on the balcony (there was just enough space) and we slept out there. It was so lovely to lie under the stars and it was definitely cooler than inside; it felt just like holidays. In the morning we were woken up at the first bit of light by the birds around us, there are some crows and some magpies that love fighting around 6am.


It didn't really matter because I wanted to get up early to go swimming anyway. I arrived at the lake at 8:10am after a lovely bike ride through a mostly empty city. Seebad Enge is the perfect place for an early start at the lake. The water was beautiful, clean and warm and it was ok to sit in the sun for a while. I had an iced coffee, went swimming for three more rounds and was home shortly after 10am, escaping the heat and all the people who were too lazy to get up earlier. Now I'll spend the rest of the day inside, looking forward to spending another night outside.

Life is good ;-)


2 comments:

  1. I hope this European heat wave ends soon! I haven't knit for days because it's just too hot. Good for you to sleep outside, I've considered it too, but I have so many mosquito bites already that I just moved my bed next to the open window to get some air but no mosquito's :-)

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    1. I've been bitten a few times, but ehile I still slept inside. On the balcony it was cool enough to be covered which helped with the mosquitos and with my back. All that sweating inside made me so sore and stiff.

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