Air "Conditioning"

The school system in Florida acclimate youngsters to a cold environment since they are constantly running their air conditioning units. This, in turn, has made us into a/c junkies when we became adults and took charge of the thermostat. Okay, all but, how many, 3? 3 ½ months of the year? Well, for those remaining months think about how we jump from an a/c’d house, into an a/c’d car, park in a shaded garage and go down to some a/c’d establishment. We’ve been conditioned to that colder temperature.

Now, take for example a country like Greece where a/c is used sparingly and the population is a bit “cautious” of it because everyone thinks you’ll catch a “cold” from direct exposure! (Which makes me kind of laugh since I remember how often we blast our faces with car a/c in Florida after being outside in the deathly hot). Due to this societal trend, everyone here has adapted to a “warmer” temperature.

My guess would be that Floridians are comfortable at a temperature 6 degrees Farenheit colder than Greeks. I’ll cite two glaring examples.

1) When my 2 cousins (who have lived their whole lives in Greece) visited me in the USA (yes, I have lived in Florida my whole life) – they immediately started complaining that it was “cool” in the house at 77 degrees simply because the a/c was kicking in occasionally and hitting them. I put the thermostat at 80 degrees (the absolute hottest I could take it)and they were moderately comfortable. I left the house to get some groceries and when I returned one of them had set the thermostat to 85 degrees! I thought I was getting a FEVER! I could not handle it that hot. Borderline sweating temperature.

2) Today was a beautiful sunny day in Serres, Greece, about 70 degrees or so. I wore a short-sleeved, yet somewhat thick, cotton shirt. I walked around the city for about 20 minutes and I swear to you I did not see anyone wearing short sleeves. They were all dressed like we were in Oslo, Norway on New Year’s Day. The funny thing is, I got lots of odd looks and I was absolutely comfortable. If it was 1 or 2 degrees warmer it would have been ideal but I definitely had no intention of bundling up so that I can sweat after walking a little ways.