Hot, Hot, Hot!

I'm beginning to understand why most Madrileños get out of the city in August if they can. It's bloody hot (high 30s, methinks) and it's been a bit humid the last few days. You might think we should be used to it, having lived in Dubai for so long. But everything in Dubai is air-conditioned, even the cheapest, nastiest car has a/c. So you run from building to car and back again and don't really experience the heat. In Spain the extreme heat only hits for a month or two, so air conditioning is not so common.

We had a house-warming party a month ago, and about thirty people came. The house certainly got warm, and two of our neighbours disappeared down to their store-room and came back with a portable air-conditioner. They said they didn't need it in their flat because they've got permanent a/c installed, so we could hang on to it as long as we wanted. It was extremely kind of them, but we really didn't think we'd use it. It has, however, been on day and night for most of the last week.

Before we made the move to Spain (2 years and 12 days ago, in fact), we spent a couple of summers in Valencia and Barcelona. During the second of these trips we did a 2-week intensive Spanish course. On our way to class one day (we might have got off the tram one stop too early), my shirt was soaked, so MamaDuck disappeared into a shop and came out bearing a brand-new t-shirt. I put it on and we went into the classroom. Llorence, our conversation teacher took one look at it and collapsed in laughter.



'What does it mean?' I asked.
'Fuck, it's hot,' he replied.

Sadly, that shirt went missing shortly after we returned to Dubai, although I have seen it on sale here in Madrid.