The fan that made me totally survive a Euro heat wave

"We don't have that for health reasons."

First there was no air conditioning at the Austrian clinic. No fan, either. That was the least of their dubious health claims, but know this: It was surprisingly hot at night. And I was detoxing from caffeine and had jet lag and was sleeping for literally 3 hours and having wild nightmares about my mother trying to tackle me. Plus there's the whole, like, perimenopause factor I’m semi in denial of? I am not hot all the time, or even have hot flashes in the tv sitcom way, but I do want to sleep in rooms that are FREEZING if possible. Should I chalk it up to a childhood of open windows with breezes off the Pacific every night? Probably. I mean, I blame everything else on it.

And then there was Paris with a high-90s heatwave and a fancy hotel room with a very nice note left on a desk from the management that the air conditioning had been overloaded. Then I made my way to stay at a friend's apartment while she was out of town and that also had no air conditioning. 

And guess what? I was totally fine because I brought a personal, rechargeable air conditioner of my own. No, this is not a litany of first-world problems and deeply American complaints about the necessity for proper AC but instead a story of triumph, planning ahead, and how throwing money at a problem can work.