{"id":6460,"date":"2026-06-23T11:32:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T09:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6460"},"modified":"2026-06-23T11:32:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T09:32:58","slug":"dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyding-in-air-conditioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6460","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyding in Air Conditioning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Periodically, my family will drop in to make sure I haven\u2019t gone too far upriver. Oh, they claim it\u2019s to visit and have fun in Prague, but then they ask me questions like \u2018what day is today?\u2019 or \u2018do you remember dad\u2019s birthday?\u2019 and I know they\u2019re doing a cognitive screening for my mom. We used to include \u2018who is the president\u2019 in these orientation assessments, but we figured if the president himself can\u2019t answer that question then why should we have to?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time it\u2019s my sister. We meet Thursday morning and chat easily about our strange family. We then talk about food. By late morning, she slips in the occasional question about our old street address (nailed it) and what our first cat\u2019s name was (there\u2019s debate here) and she sounds it out with one on what condition our great grandmother\u2019s golden retriever had (trick question, she didn\u2019t trust dogs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the questions are over, we can enjoy our most vile attack campaign: the heat. See, not only are Prague, the central Bohemian region, and parts of Saxony being bombarded by two Galeones, they are being bombarded by two Galeones, a heatwave, and two Galeones in a heatwave. This is fair to nobody. My people do not do well in the heat. Though, admittedly, this is a source of some confusion, as a good chunk of our little clan hails from southern Italy and from Sicily, two places not exactly known for their brisk and chilly weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, we can\u2019t handle it. Each of our homes is a testament to cooling down overheated people with short legs: fans, air conditioners, open windows, unused heaters, heating radiators that act as bookshelves. Without these, we are irritable and unproductive. It\u2019s no accident that my dad\u2019s uncles were all sent to fight in the European Theater during WWII. Had they been sent to the Pacific there\u2019s no telling what language we\u2019d all be speaking right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it is with some universal irony that we have various plans that include moving around outside and we are doing it in a country that looks upon air conditioning as the third greatest tragedy of the 20th<\/sup> century.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do two days in Dresden, where we find solace in outdoor pubs and big churches that block out the meddling sun. But it\u2019s on our way to the little town of Kutn\u00e1 Hora that the monster within me rears its overheated head. We sit in a cabin across from three people whose combined age would bring us to the Mesozoic Era. It\u2019s a one-hour trip that is consistently interrupted by stoppages and sitting still under the baking sun in a hot metal box with slanted window gaps the width of a slice of New York pizza. My sister closes her and hums lightly as she meditates her way to Kutn\u00e1 Hora. Burke is also calm \u2013 she\u2019s off from work and nobody is asking her anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s me who has the trouble. I grumble and groan. The sweat drips into my shirt and down my face. My hair is splattered against my forehead. I feel the judgmental eyes of the conductor on me. (I mean, all he\u2019s said to me so far was \u2018good morning\u2019 and \u2018I love your dog\u2019, so what kind of sociopath is this?) I go into the hallway with the other people overheating in the cabin \u2013 my dog. She and I stand out in the narrow walkway and she pants for a while before plopping down and resting her belly against the cool floor. She\u2019s soon in heaven and I am slightly cooled. A bunch of young guys in the cabin next to us are hooting and hollering. I suppose this is only natural \u2013 they are young, after all, and probably have visible abs and eyes that work without equipment. But still, I wonder, how can you all be so happy in this heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My sister and Burke realize my misery and soothe my bespackled feathers with talks of lunch and beer. I run a towel over my head and cool with gratitude. After the train ride, the twenty-minute walk to the first site forces Dr. Jekyll out again. I grumble and I think I might even shake my fist at the sun, because screw that G-type main-sequence star and all his yellow dwarf friends. As much of the rest of the day takes place in a restaurant, the police didn\u2019t have to get called on me.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While waiting for the train back to Prague, I grumble again. See, this is a local \u2013 not express \u2013 so while our morning train took over an hour because of delays, this one will take an hour and twenty minutes before any delays can be factored in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then some amazing things happen. 1. This train is early. 2. This train is empty. 3. This train has air conditioning. We take the 4-spot group seats and two women and a little girl take the ones on the other side. Cool air is blowing at us from all directions. The conductor is kind and has a kind face. (He says to me \u2018give me your tickets. Quickly!\u2019 and \u2018don\u2019t think about putting your feet on the seat\u2019 \u2013 what a mensch!) I am jolly and happy and making plans for the rest of my life. The woman next to me looks a little sad and I wonder how she can be so unhappy in these glorious conditions. I think I begin humming. This is the best ride of my whole life and I once rode in a Batmobile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re nearly in Prague when my sister leans across the seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Dame. What was our usual Christmas dinner?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Ravioli and meatballs. Duh? How did you forget that?\u2019 I make a face to Burke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018And which town did we usually go to at the Jersey Shore?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Oh, uh\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see what\u2019s happening. I answer the next few questions and subdue my mood until we reach home safely and our next air conditioning experience.       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Periodically, my family will drop in to make sure I haven\u2019t gone too far upriver. Oh, they claim it\u2019s to visit and have fun in Prague, but then they ask me questions like \u2018what day is today?\u2019 or \u2018do you remember dad\u2019s birthday?\u2019 and I know they\u2019re doing a cognitive screening for my mom. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Dr._Jekyll_and_Mr._Hyde_1941_poster.jpg?fit=818%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1Gc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6462,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460\/revisions\/6462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}