Weather

This one's for the folks back home. Countrymen! I cannot emphasise enough that the weather in southern Virginia was one of the most difficult things for me to adjust to in my new life Stateside. It's hot here!

I'd been to Miami before and the weather was warm, but it was only February and the evenings were blissful. I'd also been to Baltimore and New York several times, but they're 4 and 8 hours north from here by car (respectively) and personal trips usually took place outside of summer because that was the trade show season at work.

I've been to Vegas twice. I don't suffer much from dandruff but it was so dry out there that I washed my hair at the hotel one night and, as it dried, I noticed my scalp was flaking. Yeah... gross. There's no such problem in Norfolk or I wouldn't have dyed my hair dark again. Any white here is me using too much product, or actual grey hairs (which is a myth, of course; hairs are either coloured or white). My scalp is quite moist now, thank you.



It's humid from Spring to Fall. All the time. It hit me like a brick when I arrived on 2004-04-30. Without air conditioning, I get out of the shower, dry off, then sweat. Back home you open a window to cool down but that's suicide here. I carried a CD to work one day and the plastic case steamed up as soon as I stepped out of the apartment. Crazy. The only other place I've experienced anything like it is in the greenhouses at Kew Gardens in London.

The great big plus to all this is the thunderstorms. Some days you feel the humidity build to breaking point, and the heavens unleash furious rain. When I can, I get out there and revel in the coolness before the invisible cloud of you-can't-breathe comes back.

Mark Twain once said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." I plan to move north.