Paris Heatwave... How To Survive?

NOTE: Fair warning, this is more of a rant than an travel post

How "Can I" Keep "Cule"??

When I researched the weather of Paris France, I was given the impression that we'd be experiencing the typical autumn type weather; and I was quite smug about it too, being super confident after doing research of what a 'typical autumn in Paris' is like. So of course I was expecting somewhere between mid-70s and 50s, give or take the odd day here and there. To be fair, the first few days were as expected and it was chilly and even rained! But then I learned two new words the French have, "c'est chaud" and "canicule", meaning "it's hot" and an [unexpected] "heatwave", respectively. That's right, in the middle of September, we were hit with massive 90F+ weather heatwave! The general definition of "la canicule" is an extreme heat that occurs at one or more points during the summer. However, after speaking with hubby's work colleagues, even they said this is a little unexpected...

(Thank God for the children's play area at La Villete. Baby G got to cool off with some water activities )

Oh the heat, oh the humidity, OH THE HUMANITY!!! The worst part? Our apartment has no air conditioning, no fans, and is on the 7th floor. You'd think by opening the balconies (plural, yes we have two!) that there would be some relief or exchange of air. Nope, not at all, not even a cross breeze. Just hot, stagnant air. Instead, our apartment heated up like a greenhouse which made ~10am start to become absolutely unbearable! The odd part? The hottest part of the day was around 3pm-7pm, and it would stay in the 90s and 80s until 10 o'clock at night.

(Our forecast from 9/4-9/11. At 2pm it was 88F, the temperature peaked around 3pm at 94F)

While hubby went to work I had my own job to accomplish, searching for AC and keeping my toddler from overheating. Oh yeah, I should mention before I go on, most of Paris is not air conditioned: the apartments, office buildings, restaurants, most public transportation...nada. If there is air conditioning you can barely tell because, although it's not as hot as outside, you'll still be sweating, ESPECIALLY if you're surrounded by a bunch of people also trying to escape the heat. This went on for 10 days straight, 80s is tolerable but all day at 90F+ starts to become dangerous. The second to last day of the heatwave I overheated and got a little heat stressed, and was not feeling well. That night we all took cold baths to help cool down.

(Dressing light and staying in the shade as much as we could. Sticking to parks with bodies of water)

The Search for Air Conditioning

Although hubby's work didn't have AC, they did have a fan which provided relief throughout the day (if it were unbearable, then he never complained). Baby G would become excessively fussy if we remained in the house after 11am, so the plan was to prepare lunch and snacks, put together lightweight outfits, and get out of the house ASAP. Surprisingly, there aren't many places to escape the heat in Paris aside from parks with shade and large museums that need to stay relatively cool for preservation (i.e. collections, exhibits, artwork, etc.) purposes. Supposedly they have so few days of excessive heat (and old buildings) during the year that air conditioning is considered not really necessary (To this I say, "cha, okay!"). In any case, I had to research what to do in Paris and what it had to offer for adults with toddlers younger than two. Here we encountered both successes and busts, but it is possible.

(Martin Luther King Park: I read this park would have "water sports" and "water jets" for children, it did not)

Here is a quick list of the places we went during the heatwave (yes, we went to all of them!):

Museums

Musee D'Orsay

National Museum of Natural History

L'Atelier des Lumieres

Paris Aquarium

Science of Industry

Le Louvre

Parks

Martin Luther King Park

La Villette

Place du Tracadero

Square de la Turlure

Now each one of these places did provide some level of comfort, but some more than others. I won't go into detail about each outing, at least not in this post, but I will say the larger museums with exhibits were my best friends. The best thing I could do was kill time and do some sight-seeing before it became too hot, around 2pm was when the doors of hell began to open. Wherever we were at that time, Baby G and I were stuck there until 5pm.

(Natural History Museum: I had to change her shirt and wash her in the bathroom, she was sweating so much)

Did I mention the buses and (most of the) metro, the main sources of transportation, didn't have air conditioning? Gotta' say, riding the bus with an overheated toddler in a crowded bus of sweaty, stinky people was NOT enjoyable. Generally speaking, however, people were very supportive and sympathetic to the fussy baby (it seemed mine was the only baby in Paris NOT used to this type of weather). One gentleman actually gave me two oranges from his shopping bag, they were still cold from the grocery store. The cool oranges must have hit the spot, this kind gesture pacified Baby G for the rest of the bus ride home.