Summer is in the air...or did someone just light my hair on fire?

"You gotta just lay low and sweat it out." -- My Scottish hair-dresser on summers in Barcelona.

The train is approaching the station, and we are bracing ourselves for impact.  Our first summer in Barcelona.  It's fitting that Barcelona throws one of the biggest parties of the year on the summer solstice -- the celebration of St. Joan, set to kick off this Saturday night. An all out, all night, party till dawn rager that extends to every corner of the city and involves music, dancing, festivals, feasts, and fireworks. LOTS of fireworks. Often launched around, near, and even INTO crowds. Should be an interesting weekend, and while we won't be on the beach partying till dawn, we plan to take part with some low key sparklers for the kiddos and feast it out with the rest of them this Saturday...more blogging to come about this crazy Barcelona holiday.  For those interested, you can read all about it here

A beach snapshot from a previous year...

So, while summer hasn't officially arrived until the last firework has been launched this Saturday night, it feels as though we are already in the thick of it.  And, in a way, this is the moment I've been waiting for since we arrived here in Spain.  The time when we shall see what we pampered Americans are really made of.  While we are no strangers to heat (what, was it like 100 degrees in Mass yesterday???) -- we ARE strangers to a no A/C lifestyle.  Yes, we technically do have a version of A/C in our apartment here but, to be honest,  I do not consider the decorative "art cool" you-think-its-a-painting-but-really-its-an-air-conditioning-unit thingy in our kitchen to be actual A/C, more like a refreshing puff of air, and only if you sit directly under it. 

That is our air conditioner.  It says "Art Cool".

Generally, anything over 80 degrees used to make me a little grumpy, and back in Rowley Chris would insist on pre-cooling our bedroom before bed for a solid hour at 60 degrees before he would even consider going to sleep. When we found our apartment here, we were so wooed by the layout and the pool we rationalized our way through the lack of A/C... ("The walls are brick and stone, we will practically be freezing....right?")

While I wouldn't say it is freezing in here, I will say that we are surviving the heat so far.  I realized today that we are almost into July, and I haven't died of heat stroke yet and actually have been pretty comfortable all things considering.  Like my wise Scottish hairdresser said, you really just have to resign yourself to "sweating it out".  The roughest part of summer city living anywhere is all the walking.  Back home we would leave our air conditioned house, hop into your air conditioned car, and drive to another air conditioned place.  Here, not so much...we have to walk everywhere, and we have to take the metro full of other hot, and often smelly, folks...but it is comforting to know that we're all in it together! And honestly, a lot of the air conditioning we used at home really wasn't all that necessary...I think we waited until November to take it out of the bedroom window last year?!

So for now, we are embracing it.  Bring on the heat.  Bring on the sundresses, bikini (yikes), irresponsible firework use, and frizzy hair-- we are ready for summer!