So it’s hot here. How hot you ask? Really hot. Yesterday it was around 95 degrees with who knows how much humidity. You might even say it was 100% humidity because it ended up raining in the late afternoon.  I guess it hasn’t been this hot this early in the last 10 years. What makes this experience better is that my dorm doesn’t have air conditioning. In fact, there is only one floor in the International House that does. My Sunday nap was ended when I woke up totally soaked.

Luckily the subway cars are air conditioned. I never thought there would be a time when I never wanted to leave a subway car, but today I realized it was possible. As soon as the train doors open you walk out into the sickest feeling ever. There is no circulation in the station, which makes for a lovely mixture of the normal smell of the station and everyone’s sweat. So you run to get out of the station, only to find that outside is just at hot, just a little less stinky. Then you have to walk a few more blocks to get into you air conditioned building. Luckily, this journey doesn’t have to be repeated for another nine hours.

So yesterday was my first taste of the deathly heat in NYC. I had just woken up from my Sunday nap from extreme heat at 5 p.m. I had no idea what was going on – as most of you can imagine that have seen me wake up from anything – but my confusion and disorientation were amplified by my boiling brains. But I forged ahead and got ready to go downtown to my soon to be apartment to pay for the rest of the summer.

Melissa and I started on our way to the subway as gross as can be from sweaty naps. But it didn’t really matter because we would continue to sweat to and from the apartment. We found refuge in the subway car, but were kicked in the face with heat and humidity upon leaving the car. We walked to the apartment, paid our rent – looking lovely – and started back to the subway.

As we walked to the station, I thought, “I wish it would just rain right now to relieve this heat.” Right then it felt like a bird pooped on my head. I didn’t look up for fear that a bird had actually pooped on me. But then the rain came. I have never seen rain come to hard and so fast in my life. It felt so good, I couldn’t even believe it. Melissa and I soaked up the rain, with hands in the air as if to thank the heavens for such a blessing. So we walked the block to the station in the rain. We were completely soaked walking into the station. I’m talking wringing out my hair kind of wet. There was no dry place on me. And all of this in a matter of about three minutes.

When we walked down into the station people were just standing in the stairwell looking up at the rain. I thought they were all wimps for not walking out into the rain. But then I realized they just knew how things work in New York; it was only going to last for probably another minute and then they could be on their dry way. And they were totally right. When we got home, totally soaked, no one even knew it had rained, so we just looked crazy. Yeah, we looked pretty sweet at dinner.