Summer in Germany & the German Attitude Towards Fans

As I've already discovered summer in Germany is hot! It was still over 30C at 9:00 pm on my first night in Germany. Coming from Calgary, Canada where we had a late start to summer this is indeed a warm welcome (pun intended).

What was not a warm welcome though was the German attitude towards fans. While eating our potato soup at my fiancé's mothers house, we all had beads of sweat rolling down our forehead but no fan in sight. Several hours later we arrived in Stuttgart where I saw our new apartment for the first time and was welcomed by a heat wave.  Summer in Germany is hot!  I told my fiancé that we immediately need to buy a fan. He wasn't convinced as he proceeded to tell me that fans cause colds and that we shouldn't get one or I would get sick.  I had never heard this before and was willing to take my chances since summer in Germany can last well into the fall. It turns out that the German attitude towards fans is to avoid them.  According to GermanLanguageGuide.com "Germans know instinctively that drafts cause colds and therefore drafts are bad." Who knew? However while I am happy to be living as an expat, I am even happier to spend my summer in Germany with the fan blowing at full speed - no cold in sight.

For more on German Attitudes see German Attitude to Window Screens

Summer in Germany photo of me in Stuttgart.