Halfway down the Danube

Heat

It's been a very hot weekend in Bucharest.

Temperatures topped out at 38, but most of Friday and Saturday, they were hovering in the 30s. (For Americans: it was in the 90s, with a peak around 100.) That wasn't so bad, but the humidity... well. I went for a short walk on Saturday afternoon, and the streets were empty of pedestrians. Even the vicious dog who lives down Strada Brasilia, who snarls and lunges whenever I pass, didn't budge from under its car. I came home after half an hour and my t-shirt was drenched in sweat.

Sunday evening, the heat broke with a sudden unexpected cloudburst. It started as a sunshower, drops of rain from a clear sky. Then some clouds moved in, and it began to just pour -- fat raindrops spattering down, the pavement dancing. I took shelter under a balcony. Cars started honking their horns. Some people ran for cover, but others were hopping around yelling, or just standing with arms outstretched and faces turned up.

Afterwards it was still humid, but cooler, and when the sun went down the night was almost tolerable.

Random note: Bucharest has a climate rather like the US Midwest. I spent three years in central Illinois, and this is pretty familiar. But expat friends from Europe and (especially) Britain seem to find it pretty savagely extreme.