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# ¡Qué calor!
- URL: https://the-second-home.ghost.io/que-calor/
- Published: 2026-08-08T10:53:09.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-08T10:53:09.000Z
- Author: Barbara Orzel

*“*¡*Qué calor*!*”*

I don’t think I’ve heard any other Spanish phrase more often during the summer.

It’s what people say in the bakery, at the pharmacy, in the lift, at work and to complete strangers while waiting to cross the street.

Not as a complaint. More as a shared acknowledgement that, yes, today is another one of *those* days.

Back in Poland, a night with 24°C makes the news. It’s called a *tropical night*.

In Spain?

Twenty-seven degrees at midnight barely raises an eyebrow.

After my first long summer here, I realised that the heat isn’t simply part of the weather. It quietly reorganises everyday life.

You stop choosing clothes because you like the colour.

You start reading the label first.

Linen.

Cotton.

Anything that breathes.

I still don’t understand why Spanish high street shops keep selling polyester dresses in the middle of July. Someone clearly buys them. It just isn’t me.

Air conditioning also changes category.

Back home it always felt like a luxury.

Here, it feels closer to a washing machine or a fridge. You don’t think much about it until you imagine living without it.

The direction your windows face suddenly matters.

The route you take suddenly matters.

The hour you leave the house suddenly matters.

You stop making plans for three in the afternoon if they involve walking further than necessary.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b6/8b/b68b0831-5fe6-4a64-b3e8-fe6b2cf40952/content/images/2026/08/IMG_3841-1.jpeg)

**Just after 10 a.m., it was already 33°C. Most of the shutters were already down.* 

People often ask me where I’d go for a summer holiday in Spain.

They expect me to say Málaga or Seville.

My first thought?

Voluntarily? In August?

These days, northern Spain sounds far more appealing.

Galicia.

Asturias.

The Basque Country.

Somewhere you can walk outside without feeling like you’re negotiating with the sun.

In Poland, before a music festival, you check whether it might rain.

In Spain, you check whether it will be 34°C or 38°C.

That’s simply a different type of preparation.

There’s a moment when you stop treating the heat as background scenery.

Mine came at an outdoor concert, when my body decided it had reached its limit before I had.

That evening changed the way I think about Spanish summers.

I stopped trying to outsmart the heat.

Instead, I learned to work around it.

The weather forecast slowly stopped being background noise too.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b6/8b/b68b0831-5fe6-4a64-b3e8-fe6b2cf40952/content/images/2026/08/IMG_4242.jpeg)

**Meanwhile, on Spanish television.*

One afternoon I looked up from my laptop just as the forecast came on.

Spain was almost entirely red.

Thirty-eight.

Forty.

Forty-two.

After a while, maps like these stopped looking dramatic.

They simply meant tomorrow would be another summer day.

Oddly enough, adapting made life easier.

You stop fighting the climate and start living with it.

And one day you read a headline from Poland announcing another *tropical night*.

Twenty-four degrees.

You smile.

Then you check tonight’s forecast where you are.

Twenty-seven.

*“*¡*Qué calor*!*”*  

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b6/8b/b68b0831-5fe6-4a64-b3e8-fe6b2cf40952/content/images/2026/08/IMG_4114-1.jpeg)

**Brunch Electronik Festival. Heat management: fans, mist and whatever works.*