... from amsterdam. im currently sitting in our 33C (91.4F) living room. the heat is crazy! and so it was yesterday, and sunday. and the days before... but today and yesterday are the hottest. as opposed to boston, houses, shops (except supermarkets of course), and even the local gym are not equipped with (proper) airconditioning, as its usually not this hot, and not for this long. i was just enjoying the light breeze by opening the balcony doors on either side of the apartment. a tiny breeze, but still... then i needed something from the kitchen and saw there was lots and LOTS of smoke, clearly not from a BBQ or something. ash particles were coming up too, and had already landed in our bedroom. what was it? then i saw that the idiot downstairs neighbour (i have no clue who they are, but now i know they are idiots), decided to just burn all the trees they had cut down from the neglected garden a week ago. that was all very, very dry ofcourse, and was burning like crazy. pfew, was i happy i hadnt just hung out the white laundry!!
i texted tim, mostly to figure out whether i should perhaps call the police or something. but before i knew, i heard the sirens and police and 2 firefighter trucks arrived. by then the neighbours had already put out the fire themselves, and from what i could see they were not opening the door for the police!!
now they are all gone again, and its too hot to get the vacuum out to get rid of all the ash.... :( wonder what eventually happened..... it was interesting to see how many people suddenly appeared to be home, standing on their balconies to see what was going on....