... and Temperatures

Yesterday evening, as I was watching the tennis and pondering about time zones, my thoughts drifted on to temperatures. I didn’t continue writing about them, because the match was really exciting and I felt I was going from "Hölzchen to Stöckchen" a.k.a. off on a tangent.

But I had been thinking that I wasn’t too upset about not being in the stadium because temperatures in New York are pretty unbearable at the moment. Day temperatures easily exceed 35°C and humidity levels 70% - it’s pretty much like a steam room. Last week temperatures even went above the magical 100F mark. Watching tennis in front of a gigantic TV in the air-conditioned living room suddenly didn’t feel so bad.

Of course, in temperatures that didn’t even make me want to go outside to watch tennis, there were players on the court playing a competitive game. The thought alone makes me shudder.

The organisers of the tournament also recognised that these conditions are not just not ideal for exercise, but possibly dangerous and introduced new heat breaks in which players are allowed to leave the court to cool down. Today I read, that they were encouraged to take ice baths and one player commented how “magnificent” it was to sit next to each other naked in the ice bath after battling on the court.

Having lived in New York for a couple of months now, I can’t help but notice the irony of the ice bucket. After all, that is what New York is like in summer - you go from steam room to an ice chamber.

Leaving the house in the morning to cycle to the train, is already uncomfortably hot. Waiting for the train is pure hell as temperatures on the platform must be around 40°C. And just as your arm starts to hurt from manically fanning yourself and you think the sweat is going to drop from your nose, the train arrives and you enter a 17°C ice chamber heaven, which slowly cools you down to normal temperatures… and then on to a point where you’re starting to feel chilly and are looking forward to going back out onto the platform to warm up.

Welcome to New York in summer.

Repeat the above over and over and over again every time you enter an office, a supermarket, a restaurant, a cinema… summer in New York is all about constantly going from sweating to freezing.

Like the tennis players. Just without the applause... and the million dollar prize money.