In early April, the temperature in Berlin hit 24.5 degrees. Around the same time last year, we’d been waking to regular frosts, as heavy in nature as in our lament. And because once they’d finally thawed, they’d given way to weeks of rain as opposed to the much-yearned-for sunshine, we didn’t mind a bit that summer 2018 had come early. Just two weeks into the official advent of spring.
Berlin rose to the occasion with flourish. Café owners dragged sidewalk furniture out of hibernation, ice cream parlors unlocked their doors with a sense of purpose, shops traded on garish displays of plants, seeds and picnic blankets, and pink-cheeked residents slipped into their sandals to indulge in it all before the hand that had given had a chance to take away.
By mid-May, the city had warmed to just shy of 30 degrees Celsius. By the end of the month, it had gone above and beyond. School kids were sent home early, people clambered for a spot in the shade and as casual conversation turned to heat oppression and lost sleep, I turned our balcony into an al fresco family bedroom. Read on or listen…