A British woman who moved to Romania for work and ended up staying for more than two decades has described how much better-prepared her adopted country is for hot weather compared with the UK.
Debbie Stowe, 47, from Kent, moved to the Romanian capital of Bucharest for a job in 2002, despite knowing nothing about the country.
She soon fell in love with the country’s weather, low cost of living, professional opportunities, friendly people, and green spaces in the capital.
“It’s just a great quality of life,” Stowe, a freelance journalist, told The i Paper. “I also met a Romanian man.”
Over two decades later, Stowe now has two sons aged eight and nine, and has fully embedded into Romanian culture, including learning to cope with its hot summers.
“It’s extremely hot every summer,” she said. “Every year, it gets into the high 30s or even above 40 °C. Last year, it was 42 °C some days. It can start in June and be hot through September.”
In the last few years, she says she has noticed the extreme temperatures have become more common since she first relocated.
“It’s more regular [temperatures reaching up to 40°C] every year now, versus 20 years ago when it would still have been hot, but not this hot every single year,” she said.
The weather occasionally breaks with “huge storms” that pass quickly, she added. “Then the next day, it will be very hot again.”
She said she had read in the media about a man with heart problems dying when he rode his bike on a hot day in June. Furthermore, in July, the national railway ordered trains to reduce their speed in areas where rail temperatures reached 50 °C.
Looking back to when she lived in Britain, she said air-conditioning units had been uncommon.
“When I was living in the UK, you never needed air conditioning except for maybe 10 days spread over the summer,” she said. “But maybe with climate change, that is changing. When I was back recently at my friend’s house, they had air conditioning in their living room. It’s the first time I’d seen it in a British house. Whereas every apartment in Bucharest has at least one AC unit.”
In Romania, Stowe says people rely on air conditioning units rather than fans or open windows because they think that this will “make you ill”.
In Stowe’s apartment, wooden floors as opposed to carpets help to keep the house cooler. “The houses weren’t built like in the UK to retain heat,” she said.
Working for herself, Stowe also avoids being outside in the hottest part of the day, between 3 and 6pm.
“I avoid going out in the middle of the day,” she said. When she does, she always has water and sunscreen with her.
Since her children’s summer holidays began in June, Stowe tries to keep them inside the house during the day with the blinds closed and the air conditioning unit cooling their apartment.
There is also air conditioning on buses in Bucharest, and the underground trains are cool to travel on too, she added, which is more comfortable for commuters travelling to work in the heat.
Now, when she visits the UK, she is reminded of the unpredictability of the UK weather.
“We recently went to a safari park [in the UK],” she said. “When we left, it was hot, [I was] thinking I should have worn shorts. Then we got out of the car, and it started raining and was windy, and I was putting on all the jumpers.
Then it’s hot again, and then it clouds over. The changeability is a bit annoying. But here, you know how it’s going to be – hot – so you prepare.”
After sitting inside all day during the hot weather, Stowe heads out of the house with her children to go to the park when the day is cooler, like many other families.
“Families will leave home at like 7pm and will stay out with the kids until 10pm or later, even with small kids,” she said.
While Romanians are well equipped to deal with the hot summers, she says, they are not, however, happy to be outside in the rain – unlike the Brits.
“In the UK, when the sun comes out, Brits rush out, sunbathe, and have barbeques,” she concluded.
“Even in the rain, I still insist we go out, because in the UK, if you let rain put you off, you wouldn’t go anywhere. I put my kids in raincoats and take them to the park. There won’t be any Romanians there. As soon as they get rain, they want to come inside.”
