Stifling in the heat of the Northeast or Baltimore this weekend? That’ll give you some sense of what it’s like to be in Singapore (though the temperature here has yet to go above 93, thank goodness).  Here’s what it’s going to look like in Singapore this week:

I haven’t seen anything that unchanging since we lived in Hawai’i.  The humidity here generally hovers somewhere between 70% and 90%, so the air just about always feels hotter than it actually is.  It rains whenever it feels like it, usually just for an hour or two in a giant downpour, but we’ve seen it be cloudy and sprinkling, too.  There’s rarely a breeze downtown, unless it’s storming.  The air feels heavy all day long (and sometimes all night long, too). If you walk outside for more than a few blocks, you sweat.  That’s just something you come to expect (and we rank our days by how many showers we take, as in, “today was a three-shower day).

I am truly grateful for the invention of air conditioning.  I have no idea how my Dutch colonial forefathers and mothers survived down here in their three-piece suits and full dresses.  They must not have moved around very much.  Just thinking about it makes me feel hot (and the Noel Coward song, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” keeps running through my head).  Hope everyone back home is finding ways to stay cool!