Air Conditioning - My two-week long cold

All my life, in America at least, air conditioning was in all the houses I lived in. It was a standard.

When I lived in Belgium for a year there was no need for AC.

When I lived in Cuernavaca, Mexico, the city of eternal spring, there was a need for AC but there was no AC in private homes. Coming from Texas, I had a hard time adjusting to no AC in my room. We had a fan but my roommate couldn't sleep with the fan on but I couldn't sleep without it on. Anyway, it was so hot during the day that you just wanted to go home and sleep. I would sleep for a while but then would wake up after a couple of hours and realize I was sweating in my bed and that I had to get up, take a cold shower, and get to school before my brain fried anymore. You see, my university had AC.

It was actually ironic that I WANTED to go to school not for the learning but for the AC and I would often camp out there a long time in the internet room just to beat the heat and not be too lazy.

I lived in Turkey this summer without AC. In most cases just opening your window and letting the fresh air in was good enough. Sometimes, we had to turn on the fan that we bought when we arrived just to get a breeze. I actually got accustomed to no AC.

Then we moved to Barcelona. Well I should have realized that almost anytime you live near a beach in a hot place (like Houston year round or DC in the summer), you are going to be living with massive humidity. Oh yes, that is what we have here - Humidity with a capital 'H'.

Burak and I sleep with our room doors open to the rest of the flat just to get some 'fresh air' (because our window to the balcony faces the street which produces noise all day up until about 4 am). When we walk up the 4 or 5 flights of stairs at our language school, we are always sweating from the heat and humidity. I am basically sweating everytime I walk out my door. I never use concealer (makeup) because it would sweat off like oil running off water. I almost don't even use my powder makeup on my face because I am constantly sweating it off as well.

Oh so yes, I sweat a lot here. But the main reason I wanted to bring up the AC issue was because of my 2 week long cold.

At my language school, they have AC in the rooms to keep us motivated and awake. It serves a good purpose. But it is actually the only time when anyone comes into contact with AC for a long period of time while living here and actually causes many colds. Many people are sick or fighting off a cold but the alternative of turning off the AC produces this environment that makes you want to fall asleep.

Anyway, I hope my cold goes away sometime. This is quite peculiar.