I frequently talk about how much I love flying into my hometown and to say I was excited this week would be an epic understatement. Dublin when the sun is shining is a truly wonderful place. People engage in public drinking as though it’s not illegal, they shun sun cream in favour of red-raw skin and down pints as though they don’t have to go to work the next day.

When I left Dubai it was a pleasant thirty-nine degrees Celsius, which I am very used to at this point. My mom has been banging on about how warm Dublin has been all week but as usual I didn’t listen to a word she was saying because, quite frankly, she rarely has any sense of these things.

When I step off the aircraft into the air bridge the lack of air conditioning almost makes me vomit. It feels like it’s around eighty degrees C and it doesn’t stop there as I go to pick up my bags I’m greeted by masses of sweaty, angry and inappropriately attired travellers. The baggage hall is like a scene from Schindlers List as people aimlessly move in a zombie like trance trying to figure out how Ireland is managing to produce this stifling temperature and why the DAA don’t have a functional air conditioning system.

When I finally navigate out of the baggage hall I’m expecting to feel some amount of fresh air generated by the magic that always makes Ireland windy no matter what the weather. Nothing! I pull my phone out to check the latest temperature and it says that Dublin airport is 25 degrees C. It feels hotter than Dubai and when I sit into the taxi I am punished for assuming there would be air conditioning. Nope, it’s about 100 fucking degrees and the leather seats don’t help! A pool of sweat larger than a back-garden paddling pool forms so fast in my boxers that I feel as though I may dehydrate beyond saving.

When I get into my folks house I am quite literally dying from the heat! Oddly enough, my parents seem adequately prepped for the heat as all windows are open and there are small fans operating in all rooms. Even though they’ve managed to cool the place below sauna levels of heat, and humidity, I am dying to take a shower.

Despite desperately wanting a shower I am drawn into a discussion about the fact that my Dad is wearing a long sleeve shirt, full-length trousers and a pair of brown leather shoes. There are so many sweat patches on him he looks like James Harden’s MVP-Awards jacket. When I ask him why he is wearing winter clothes in the midst of a heat wave, that may bring the end of days for Irish people, he just shrugs and says nothing. Like it’s some sort of badge of toughness or some shit; I bet he’s not wearing sun cream either the muppet.

I love my mom’s cooking but when she tells me that it’s going to be spaghetti bolognese I almost collapse. I doubt she knows what a salad is, but ain’t nobody eating pasta and meat in this weather. Typically Irish, I’m sure there are literally thousands of people drinking hot drinks and eating roast dinners as I write this. If they’re not it’s probably because they are balls deep in a feed of pints and a questionable level of sun exposure.

After I politely stuff the pasta into me I feel as though I am going to burst and I declare that I’m going to take a shower. My mom informs me that there is a water use restriction and that there is no water pressure in the evenings. I am on the verge of tears but this quickly turns to rage, as I ponder how a nation that is engulfed in perpetual rain cannot manage its water needs for “warmer” weather during the summer.

I live in a desert and we always have water, I think I’d be better off in the thirty-nine degrees of Dubai right now where at the very least I’d get a salad and a shower.

Dublin!

Photo by Pierre-Yves Burgi on Unsplash