It's Hot

Soo now that it’s December and starting to get “cold” here, I guess I’ll finally write about the decent weather here in Murcia. So when I arrived in Avila I can remember immediately thinking oh man it feels so hot out. It was quite the difference after spending a week in the arctic winter rain going on in Ireland. However, it really wasn’t that much different than it was in Tennessee when I left. Although, in Spain I noticed rather quickly that it really feels like the sun is closer as the heat is just beating down on you but there doesn’t seem to be near as much humidity. I remember thinking after a month in to myself that I don’t think that I have stopped sweating since I arrived. It’s not like in the United States when you’re outside in the blistering sun and you walk into the nice air conditioned house after to cool off. Although some houses have air conditioning, it doesn’t ever really feel like it. I actually don’t think I slept under the covers until mid-October for the first time. Another thing that I noticed rather quickly was that it never rains. When I say never, during my whole time in Avila it rained twice and probably for a total of 25 minutes.

However, this was nothing to what I was getting prepared to go to. Murcia is known as having one of the warmest climates in all of Spain. It averages about 320 days of sunshine per year. When I arrived to Murcia, we went to a beach house for three weeks and I had never quite experienced heat like this before. Although, the average high was probably around 95, the extreme days were so much more extreme than in Tennessee. I can remember the first days when I started going to class in early September, my shirt would be drenched on my backside after my 12 minute walk to class. Throughout the city there are electronic signs with the temperature and the time. I can recall the second week when I got out of class passing by and sign read 45. However, this is in celcuis, when converted that would be about a 111 degrees Fahrenheit. Making matters worse in there’s absolutely no air conditioning in my flat. Instead I had to make the most of this tiny fan I found that blows out warm air half the time.

Now that it’s November the average temperature lately has been in the high sixtys. Although, earlier in the month it was still in the seventies and at time about 80. The weird thing is that I know this is still ridiculously warm for this time of year but I have gotten so accustomed to the heat that it seems cold now to me. Also, here everyone where’s a jacket and pants even when it’s in the seventys which seemed crazy to me at first but now I’m starting to get accustomed to this being cold weather which is really weird.