Arizona heat

The time has come, the everlasting heat of the Arizona desert has finally arrived. A couple of days ago the thermometer suddenly hit 40 degrees celsius (104 Fahrenheit), and hasn't dropped since during the day. At night the lowest is 24 degrees celsius (75 Fahrenheit), so sleeping without the A/C is almost like a death sentence. No, not 'almost', it will be (and you can throw your bed linnen away for sure). The fact that it 'cools down' relatively late at night is also the main reason for Arizona not having daylight saving time. Extra daylight is not needed, not wanted. With daylight saving time the sun would only go down at 9 in the evening, making activities like outdoor cinema and sport tournaments hard to realize.

When we first arrived in Tucson, a lot of people warned us that we would be spending our summer days inside the house. I didn't believe them at first. Why would you sit inside when the weather is nice, the sun abundantly shining? Now I know better though...the weather is not NICE, it's HOT, and the sun is not SHINING, it's BURNING. It therefore didn't take me long to get devoted to that indoor lifestyle. Netflix, the ceiling fan and water bottles became my best friends and I wouldn't be coming outside at all if it weren't for an occasional plunge into the pool (no stops along the way, just a straight run to the water from our backdoor). Another aspect of this lifestyle are the afternoon naps. There is no resisting it, my northern European body just can't properly deal with this heat. Halfway through the day it simply shuts down. Not too bad, taking shameless long naps during the day is actually quite a perk of this climate.

Not a perk is the fact that at some point you will have to leave the cool shadowy living room to run errants. Grocery shopping is quite pointless though, don't even think about buying something frozen, for it won't be anymore as soon as you leave the store. Bread will get old while looking at it and the fruit turns weird colors as soon as the sun hits it. Better to just have something delivered that is already melted, like pizza (too bad).

The only sane thing left to do, when you really want to leave your four walls, is going to a Mall, where the airconditioning is cold and free, people actually wear decent clothes (and jackets, cause darn 24 degrees suddenly is cold), and your ice-cream won't melt away at the first touch.

Or wait, maybe not. Because this activity involves getting into a hot oven called a car, touching a burning thing called a steering wheel and walking through hellish fire called the sun.

Better to lock oneself inside the house and resume watching Netflix. Life is hot...