Welcome to Switzerland
You Won’t Be Needing that Sweater
Dear Switzerland,
Your people are lovely. Your history is fascinating. And your architecture is divine. Your castles captivate. Your mountains mystify. And your dining delights, if not dazzles.
Your air conditioning, on the other hand, sucks geschnetzeltes.
For the past week, my family and I have been traveling across Bavaria and Switzerland. It’s a truly spectacular part of the world with breathtaking landscapes, elegant old-world cities, and intriguing medieval towns. It’s also steaming hot and humid AF.
Given our very busy summer, I neglected to check the forecast, so the heat came as a surprise to me. I had mistakenly assumed the weather would be mild because it’s, you know, Switzerland, a magical kingdom of green pastures and snowy mountains where it gets so cold you consume fondue, Ricola, and hot chocolate.
So why, then, am I sweating through the sheets in the 4-star hotel we paid for partially with credit card reward points? The common areas are warmer than they should be, but the “air con” out there does seem to be functioning. The unit in our room, on the other hand, blows only hot air and false promises. It’s also—as our hotel desk clerk would later explain—throttled by “environmental regulations” that prevent it from doing its cooling thing when we’re not in the room or even while we sleep. (To be fair, this also seemed to be the case in Munich, where we were five days ago.)
No, this won’t devolve into a libertarian essay on the sanctity of individual freedom in the face of a supposed collective good. But when motion sensors render the a/c inoperable at 2:00 a.m., it makes you wonder if Green Big Brother should have the right to mandate the appropriate temperature for everyone, despite our infinitely unique physiologies. My body, my choice!
The following morning, I asked our taxi driver, “Is this a once-in-a-decade heat wave?” Oh no, he assured me. Zürich gets very hot in August. “That’s why all the locals go to the mountains or the beach” he explained. Yeah, leaving the tourists behind to sweat through a woefully inadequate supply of underwear.
Later, after lunch and a walk around the old city, we returned to our steamy room for a little break. Following the directions, we cranked up the A/C and—as the directions made clear—allowed 45 minutes for the temperature to drop. No such luck. An hour in, the room was still sweltering. Only then did I call the front desk.
The on-duty manager apologized sincerely but then suggested that Americans tend to like things “very cold.” A less generous yank might have interpreted this as a passive-aggressive insinuation that it wasn’t the HVAC that was out of whack so much as it was his expectations.
I didn’t take the bait, but it did make me wonder if I was being unreasonable. I don’t think so. It’s not 1992. I’m not staying in a 5 Franc /night hostel. I didn’t backpack here with my college buddy Dave and hook up with a dreadlocked Hungarian girl who introduced me to hashish and entry-level Tantra.* I’m a middle-aged man traveling with my wife and two kids, and I have needs!
Granted, I could lose a few pounds and chasing my lunch schnitzel down with goblets of rotwein isn’t really “hydrating.” But these truths did not negate the reality that I was perspiring in a not-inexpensive room where I should have been relishing a chilly respite from the surprisingly cruel summer out my window.
Come to think of it, maybe I do have thin skin. Maybe I once invited an energy savings expert from Georgia Power to our home in the hope we could find a way to reduce our astronomical summer electricity bills. Maybe, after I asked if solar panels or more insulation would help, he laughed—not quite at me, but definitely not with me—and said, “Look man, your thermostats are set at 69 degrees. To keep it that cold all day and night—you have to run five semi-industrial grade HVAC units full-speed, 24/7. It adds up.”
Perhaps this explained the condensation on our windows, but it wasn’t the good news I was hoping for. And when he suggested a minimum temperature of 78 degrees, it was my turn to laugh not so much at him, but…well, you get the point.
Maybe having spent my childhood summers soaked in sweat, I have developed an irrational need to stay cool…very cool. Maybe before I cut down on my A/C bill, I would forego “luxuries” like food, water, or antibiotics for my children. So when paying high-season hotel rates in Europe, I wasn’t overly worried about being thought of as an entitled American.
Fortunately, when the manager came to our room, she acknowledged both that it was definitely hot and that I was probably not crazy. Perhaps she was just indulging me, but I didn’t care. She kindly moved us to a room that was larger and—more importantly—a much more hospitable temperature.
Honestly, it wasn’t anywhere near as cool as I would have liked, but maybe that’s something I can work on.
THE END
*This didn’t happen, but I’d like to think that it could have.
So what do you think? Are Americans generally needier when it comes to our comfort? Or is the European standard behind the times, just like they don’t offer ice in their beverages? COMMENT BELOW
Also, this seems to be a theme:
Extra ice in Europe is 2 cubes! Sounds like a fabulous trip notwithstanding the AC issue.
Air conditioning set at 69? Giggle giggle!