As Nelly says, “It’s gettin’ hot in herre…” and I agree. The first day of summer is officially 21st June but gosh, after these temperatures it feels like summer has already arrived. So here are some alternatives to taking your clothes off while trying to stay cool this summer.
Now, I may be on my own here, but hot weather makes me cranky and more susceptible to illnesses, so I’ve had to figure out how to stay cool throughout the summers in the past. This has been really difficult since I moved to Europe because, in places like Germany, most homes do not have air conditioning.
Can you hear the sounds of Americans shrieking in the distance?
Several German sources say that air conditioning is loud, not good for the environment, and a waste of energy, and in places like Germany the temperature isn’t so hot that it is needed for an extended period of time, so a lot of homeowners, landlords, unintentional occupants, and various house cats have decided not to spend the time, money, and effort into installing an air conditioner.
That being said, I have found several ways in which I’ve learned to stay cool in the summers while in Germany and I thought this would be a good time to share them with you.
1. Open your windows at night
Ilyasick photo
Open your windows at night and sing your favorite Disney princess song. The cooler air will come into your room, giving you some relief from the hot, stagnant air that you’ve been breathing in all day and you will feel all the more beautiful and powerful once you’ve belted out the beloved lyrics to Part of Your World after pretending to come up from a rock/window ledge.
2. Close your blinds in the morning
Nong V on Unsplash
Close your blinds in the morning and open them in the evenings. Closing the blinds lets the sun know that you aren’t home and it will skip your place and shine its bright, hot auras into your annoying neighbor’s windows. Be prepared, the sun is very similar to a dinosaur, if it sees any movement in your home, it will know you are there and will bring its angry rays back to your home. Don’t let it see you.
3. Treat yourself to a siesta
Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash
Take a note from our neighbors a few countries over and treat yourself to a siesta. There is a reason countries closer to the equator stop the day to take naps and it’s because your body temperature lowers as you sleep so if you sleep in the heat of the day, your body will cool you down enough to dream of sitting in the sun with a melting popsicle.
4. Drink tons of water
Photo by Shameel mukkath on Pexels
Drink tons of water and add some juice. Heat means sweat and sweat means you are losing the water your body so desperately needs in order to function like a human, or a housecat, no judgment. Additionally, you are losing a lot of salt from your body, which I’ve been told is necessary for living, so try some electrolytes and add some juice to your drink in order to have some vitamins. This also helps with heat stroke. As someone who has passed out from heat stroke several times, it’s important to keep your blood sugars in check, and a nice big glass of juice is a great way to do that. Mix it with champagne after your giant glass of water and you have a party.
5. Take a cold shower
Photo by Pixabay
Not only are you helping the polar bears—or so that chain email told me when I was 12—you are also cooling down and slowing down your circulatory system. Don’t have time for a shower, or you work a 9–5 job and it’s weird to leave your desk in the middle of the afternoon and come back wet? No problem. Get a bandana, buff, or random piece of cloth, get it wet, and put it on the back of your neck. Paradise? Nah, just the glorious natural cooling sensation of a damp piece of fabric.
6. Turn off the lights!
Do you even need lights these days anyway? The sun screams into my room every morning at 5:15am and doesn’t go down until past 9pm. Don’t use lights if you don’t have to. Go for the vibe of a speakeasy or underground cavern, this is your time to make your dreams a reality.
7. Don’t use the stove
Photo by Ilona Frey on Unsplash
Don’t use the stove or oven in the middle of the day. Instead, try the lovely German meal of Brotzeit, as the Germans do. Have some bread and some marmalade and chow down. My personal favorite thing to eat is a cucumber sandwich with a side of fruit. I expect this is what queens eat and I treat my body like a palace by eating what the queens eat.
8. Put ice cubes on your wrists
Photo by Racool_studio – www.freepik.com
This was a hack I learned from my grandmother, and that was: put something cold on the insides of your wrists when you start to overheat. I used bags of frozen peas but I’ve also used ice cubes precariously balanced on my wrists that were removed after a few seconds and then reapplied. I’ve also just put my hands under a cool water tap. And if you add soap, you are also fighting Covid-19 and Monkeypox, congratulations.
9. Get a fan
Not the ones that cheer you on, though, those are great too, but the ones with the blades that spin and cool places down. Fans can help move that hot air out or up or around. I recommend aiming the fan in the direction where it will suck the hot, heavy air out of the room to start. You can also create your own air conditioner by putting a cold cloth or a bowl of frozen food in front of your fan. Yay, you!
The shops in Nuremberg usually need to have air conditioning to keep their products cool and the refrigerated section of a grocery store is a great place to hang out when the weather is unbearable. Go work in a coffee shop or duck your head into that store you’ve always wanted to check out. Now is the best time to act like the fashionable humans you try to be and go into that pretty jewelry store and pick out the necklace you’ll wear to the next ball, look at the baby clothes next door and see if your dog will fit in them, find a book where the main character gets abducted by aliens. Follow your goose.
10. Pool it out
Photo by Drew Dau on Unsplash
When in doubt, pool it out. When I say this, I literally just mean, go to the pool. Try not to get splashed by small humans who are engaged in water fights, practice that backflip you learned how to do that one summer to show off to your middle school crush, or literally just float in the pool and hope a bird doesn’t poop on you.
Stay cool, mah peeps.
By Carolina Adams, who prefers cold weather.
This article is written in American English.
