It's coming...

The heat waves! This weekend is supposed to be around 90 degrees (or here, in the 30s, yikes), and this country is all about NOT having air conditioning. Ugh. You may have your heat and humidity back in DC and other areas of the U.S. but at least you can escape it inside your own homes. I can't. And I spend a lot of time being inside during the day, either cleaning, cooking, or studying.

After I returned from a trip in the U.S. last summer, I hemmed and hawed and made Matt drive us to the Hornbach (the German equivalent of Home Depot) and purchase a window unit.

We named him Harvey. He's a very important member of our household, even more important during these trying times of summer heat.

Of course, in our apartment, we don't have windows so we have to get creative and rig it with a partially opened door and use masking tape and a big piece of cardboard. It's nowhere near perfect, but it's effective enough when combined with a careful positioning of the fans, keeping the rolladens (super swanky window shades) drawn down to keep the sun out, and also just sitting still. We only have the one Harvey so it lives in our bedroom at night and then we typically move it upstairs during the day if I anticipate being upstairs a lot.

Oh - and there is a moratorium on using the oven for obvious reasons. Thank goodness for the crock pot. I also will be making batches of cold-brewed iced coffee and some iced tea to have at the ready.

Cold brew iced coffee is one of my favorite things. I loooove scooping my Lavazza Qualita Oro coffee in the French press, pouring fresh room temperature water over it, stirring it all up and sticking it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, all I have to do is press out the grounds and it's absolutely perfect with a splash of milk. It offers a great escape from the weather with each sip.

Is it iced coffee weather where you are? This website tells you for sure :-)