Another repeat while I am in the States.

Frost-Less In France

The only time I have been cold in Paris is in the winter out on the streets. The rest of the time, I roast. I had never been hot blooded before. I spent most of my youth cold, always sneaking around and turning down the air-conditioner or turning up the heat. As I got older I noticed that I wasn’t as cold as often–except when I lived in Dallas. I learned to never go to the grocery store or a movie in shorts when living there. I also learned to never forget to take a sweater for the movies. We are talking glacial. I would be in front of a screen sitting on my hands to warm them up or putting my hand over my nose to prevent frost bite.

I worked in the operating room for many years in the States. Because the doctors and scrub nurses are wearing double gowns, masks and caps and standing under the hot operating room lights they often requested the temperature in the room be turned down to Arctic levels. I had to wear a special jacket as I was outside in the periphery of the room and special efforts had to be made to keep the patient warm as well.

Then I moved to Paris. We went to a movie and the temperature outside was in the 30’s. I had on boots, jeans, a sweater over my shirt, a coat, hat and gloves. On the metro I started sweating but we were soon sitting in front of the screen where I slowly began removing layers. I even eventually removed my boots to cool my hot feet on the cooler floor. That place was like an oven. When I went outside I was immediately chilled in the cold air. I came to find that this was the norm for Paris. You may be dressed up for winter outside, but enter a store and you feel like you are in Arizona and spend the time in the store carrying your coat.

The French are very big at wearing scarves. I once saw a jaunty little dog one cold winter day wearing not only a leapard sking jacket, but a little scarf tied around his neck-even the dogs are stylish here. Of course, the women look fabulous in scarves and have all sorts of intricate ways to tie them that are works of art. I don’t see as many in the summer as even a Parisian can get a little hot. In the winter everyone has one, usually a wool scarf. My husband won’t leave the apartment without one if it is cold outside. I think he feels he will become deathly ill if his neck should become exposed to the cold. The scarves do look very nifty tied and tucked into a coat. I bought one to fit in with the crowd and tried to get used to tying it around my neck but got horribly uncomfortable with it on when I got on a bus or subway and it wasn’t long before I untied it and lost it. I do have a beret that I will pull down over my ears for warmth. The wind can really make your ears feel cold.

Then there are the summers. Ask any Frenchmen if it gets hot in Paris in the summer and he or she will say no, it is only uncomfortable at the most for 10 days in the entire season. In addition, you will be assured, all of the old buildings in Paris are built with very thick walls that keeps the heat out and the rooms cool. Shutters can be closed when the temperatures rise and opened when the sun goes down keeping the room at a comfortable level. At the most, all that is needed is a fan that won’t ever really be used.

What a load of bull. I am here to tell you that it is hot a lot more than 10 days in the summer. I have staggered home with a heavy load of groceries, stumbled into our apartment and plopped myself directly in front of our electric fan waiting to start feeling cool. The windows are wide open on either side of the apartment and I wait with anticipation for a cross breeze that never occurs. I think in any large city with all of the asphalt and cement it feels even hotter than the temperature actually is. And the nights can be agony with the little fan working its heart out to cool the temperature of the room down, and sheets pushed down to the foot of the bed. Around 3 or 4 AM the room finally starts cooling down. You also hope you don’t have to close the window because a party is going on across the courtyard leading to a really difficult night.

We were over for dinner at a relative’s of Maurice one summer night. It was in the 90’s and that is really hot in Paris. The room where we were eating dinner was was extremely hot. The windows were open and it helped some, but not a lot. The husband couldn’t stand the noise from the streets and closed the windows. I couldn’t believe it. My hair started frizzing, my neck became hot. I surreptitiously dipped my napkin in my water to try and cool my neck and forehead. Finally, the wife insisted he open the windows. I couldn’t wait to get home and take a cold shower.

Before I married Maurice I only half jokingly told him that I would only marry him if he bought an air-conditioner for our apartment. He didn’t do it right away. We went through one summer without one. I survived but I was crabby about it. No metro trains or buses were air-conditioned by anything more than opened windows and the French class I was taking at the time was oven-like. I came home dying for a cool room. Finally, the second summer we were in Paris we bought a little unit. What a difference! It doesn’t sit half in and half out the window like the units I was used to in Texas. There is a little box, which I assume is a compressor that goes outside. A hose goes through a hole in the window to the unit shaped like R2D2 from Star Wars inside which moves around on wheels. It makes such a difference. I haven’t kept track of the number of times we have used it but I am going to next summer. I want to prove that the heat lasts more than 10 days.

There are no screens on the windows in Paris, or the rest of France, or even Europe, that I can see. It is just not the custom to use screens. If it is cool or warm enough you open the windows and let the air circulate. I’ve gotten used to doing that and was surprised that, in Paris anyway, “bug strainers” weren’t needed. Very seldom does a fly or mosquito make it into our apartment. I don’t know if it’s because the streets are kept so clean or if they put some sort of insecticide in the water. I thought that maybe all of the flies went to Sweden for milder temperatures but discovered most of them in Provence when I got there.

Of course, the summers in Provence where we often go are much worse. When you go out exploring for the day you come back totally wiped out by the heat. All you want to do is float around on a raft in some swimming pool like a frog on a lily pad. You think when you return to Paris that the heat won’t seem so bad, but it never proves to be true.

I am slowly getting used to the heat in Paris. I was amused when the temperature this June “plummeted” to the 70’s and it rained so all of the cafes with places to eat outside fired up their gas heaters. God forbid, that we should get chilled. I was seated in a nonsmoking area of a restaurant not long ago and the room had an air-conditioner. It felt wonderful. It wasn’t long, however, until the French people in the room were cold and had the owner turn the temperature up - just as I was feeling comfortable. I don’t turn on our air-conditioner unless it gets above 80 degrees as I am now comfortable with just the fan going. Paris may make a Parisian of me yet.

The summer after I wrote the above, Paris, as well as the rest of Europe had the hottest summer on record. Over 10,000 people in France died from the heat which reached as high as 106 several days. I started using our air condtioner in May and didn’t stop until the middle of August, thanking God the entire time that Maurice had indulged me in my wish for one. Many angry postings were made by people on various Internet boards in the States about their trips to France and how they suffered without air conditioning in the rooms they had stayed in. When the owners of these places were questioned about buying units for the rooms, they would just shrug their shoulders and say the heat wasn’t normal, which is probably true but I also think they are cheap. I realize, of course, that an air conditioner will raise the electricity bill to high amounts, but this could be paid for by increasing the room rates. I have no doubt that not one B&B or Gite owner bought an air conditioner anywhere in France. I heard on the news that none of the French hospitals have them. Can you imagine being ill, having had surgery, and being in a bed in a room which is probably 100 degrees? Or, working in an operating room for that matter.

Many photos were taken of poor hot tourists with their feet in various fountains all over Paris. I imagined what their rooms were like at night. I met a couple who were lucky enough to have an air conditioned room but were awakened at three in the morning when the automatic timer turned it off. They never were able to get the manager to disconnect the timer. People on the Internet boards were posting messages saying France was uncivilized. It needed to follow the example of America and air condition everything, especially places where tourists were staying. Then the black out came on the East coast of America, that civilized country. It just seemed rather interesting how everything came to a stand still in the States when this happened. Of course, in France, the metros and trains would stop running, but most of France would continue on just as it does on a day to day basis, in their normal way. Maybe the old ways are still the best. I don’t know. I do know that I always pack an electric fan when Maurice and I go out of town if we are taking our car. He may be embarrassed to carry it into our room but he sure doesn’t complain at night when it is blowing on us, cooling off the room.