Heat Wave!

Buds here. Today’s daily paper in Hamburg featured a rotund fish lying dead on its side and the headline above. Today’s daily high is expected to be 95 degrees. Fans are a health hazard and must be avoided at all costs. The average summer day in Hamburg has 11 hours of sunshine.

I fear the big takeaway from this trip will be Germany is hot. Which, unfortunately, is just not right. Hamburg in the summer averages mid 70s during the day and mid 50s at night.

How to cope?

The courtyard behind our apartment building was alive with barbecues and conversation when we went to bed at 11 o’clock last night.

We’ve filled the fridge with juices and fizzy German drinks. We bought the ice cream. There are few bugs around so windows can stay open all the time. The walls are thick (the floors are thin, so thin) so the warm air only slowly reaches into the house.

Germans don’t have sheets, only blankets, which now lay in Alpen piles on the floor. But sleep has been fine, and when a crisp, dangerous breeze comes in through the window it is glorious.