The Heat

When I saw that the roads were melting, I knew the apocalypse was upon us.

I've lived in very warm climates; the first 12 years of my life were spent just south of the Sahara and every other summer, we went to Phoenix for our holidays - talk about out of the frying pan into the fire; I lived through many a Baltimore summer in my parent's house without air conditioning - I avoid visiting my family in the summer because of this; spent time in Ghana, and lived in San Jose (which it not really that bad in the summer).

In the nearly three years I've spent in Edinburgh, the last two weeks were, by far, the warmest stretch of time we've had. Highs were in the upper 20's C (mid-80's F) for about a week straight. To hear some people talk, you'd think the world was coming to an end because of this heat. Most Americans would love to have highs in 20's at this time of year; but in the UK, the world was time to complain.

Did I complain about the heat? Of course I did - it was the thing to do. In reality though, I didn't think it was that hot. For the most part, I'm not in air conditioned buildings - I don't know anyone who is, really. So it did get somewhat uncomfortable in my office in the afternoons, so some complaining was justified. 

But it was kind of nice to be able to wear shorts and flip flops outside and not freeze while doing so.

I saw news stories of train tracks having problems with the heat, there was a grass fire on Arthur's Seat, and, shockingly, some roads were melting - seriously. The melting roads really makes me wonder about the quality of the roads in the UK.

I saw a lot pasty white shirtless guys; sunburns so bad I wonder if these people knew that sunblock was a thing you could actually buy at the store. What I didn't hear of (like I hear every summer I was in Baltimore) was people being told to stay indoors and check on their elderly neighbours.

It looks like it's going to be cooler over the next few days, we've survived heatpocalypse 2013. Whew! At least we didn't all melt.