Bucharest city tales: My adventures with Mrs. Cold Lady

Columnist Eleonore af Schaumburg-Lippe writes in her weekly column about life as an expat in Romania. This week she writes about her new best friend, Mrs. Cold Lady.

I am Danish and before coming to Bucharest had lived all my life in Denmark, so I never thought I would cherish an AC unit as much as I do. I've got to say that I've gotten a new best friend here in Romania - right now the temperature in Denmark is between 15-20 degrees and it is a rainy summer this year, while in Bucharest temperatures are hitting 40 degrees in the shadow. It must be hard to handle for anyone, that's why I am so happy that I've got my new best friend … the AC unit, who I've named Mrs Cold Lady. Because of the more moderate temperatures I know from Denmark, I hadn’t been introduced to Mrs Cold Lady before, so she really fascinates me. I must admit I don’t really have any specific thoughts about Mrs Cold Lady; I just really enjoy her company. But for me it is really funny to experience how the Romanians react to Mrs Cold Lady. When I first entered offices or shops etc., where Mrs Cold Lady was on, I would run to feel the cold breeze and close my eyes. The sound of the unit reminding me in a homesick moment of the ocean that I miss so much from Denmark. Imagining the sound of the waves washing the shore would leave me pleasantly daydreaming for a minute. Suddenly I would be yanked out of my dream by someone saying, voice trembling with fear, "Take care; don’t stand too close to the AC, it's bad for you, it’s bad for your health." I must admit, I have no knowledge at all about the dangers of air-conditioning, and it is not something that I think about while enjoying the breeze, but the who knows? Maybe I should. I organized some courses a few days ago during the very warm days here in Bucharest, bringing professors from UK to teach people from the advertising industry around creative thinking. Around 30 people attended the course and to be considerate, I had put on the AC to cool down the classroom before the session started. During the day this act of turning on and off the AC became a hot topic, actually one person came late to the course, around 40 min, and the first thing the person said to me, while the course was stopped for some minutes because of the new arrival, was "could you please turn off the AC?" My reply was not that kind, I answered in a low voice, "You are 40 minutes late, and you come in giving orders, without considering what the rest of the class wants." The latecomer simply replied, "the draft is dangerous." Well I turned it off, but found the term 'dangerous' rather funny. Throughout the day the AC caused quite a scene. There was a remote control and at first people seated in front of the unit moved to get away from the what I would call breeze, but they called the draft. One person would switch it off, another would switch it on, a third would turn the 'thing' so the draft went up, someone would turn it down, one would sit in front with no problems, one might put on a scarf - a lot of different approaches to this Air Con Monster. I must admit I found it funny, but also a bit problematic, since it did disturb the course a bit each time a new adjustment was made. But I let the participants do what they wanted. For the course the day after, I asked the professor from the UK, who was a big man, to take charge of the remote control to Mrs. Cold Lady. People had to ask him to borrow the remote control for adjustment, it turned out that no one dared to ask, so the course went on without any comments on Mrs Cold Lady. I know that here in Romania, Mrs Cold Lady is talked about quite a lot at the moment, but so far I haven’t gotten any complains about Mrs Cold Lady being on during the second day, and to my best knowledge all 30 student survived and are in at least reasonably good health, despite their perilous encounter with 'her.' But still I have learned something, I won't judge who is wright or wrong, while for me Mrs Cold Lady provides a cool breeze and pleasant daydreams, for other she is an Air Con monster breathing her chilly, lethal blast. I remember some years ago, it hit 32 degrees during the summer in Denmark and it really felt warm. I remember that my colleagues and I went to our boss and said it is just too warm to work and we did not have AC. He agreed and he went out to buy the five of us ice-cream, after which we were allowed to take the rest of the day off. The office I worked for was part of a larger company with 300 people working there and emails were sent to tell everyone about the free ice-cream in the cantina. Up in the cantina there were huge boxes with ice-cream to cool everyone down. When it got 32 degrees here in Bucharest, I naturally expected ice-cream, but what can I say? I am still waiting, accompanied, of course, by Mrs Cold Lady.