Gas-station croissants and Japanese toilets

Why can’t we have nice things?

I recently got back from vacation. My wife and I figured that June would be a nice pleasant month for a long-awaited sightseeing trip in Europe. Naturally we arrived just in time for the hottest June week Europe’s ever recorded. It might have been their most severe heatwave ever for any month; the data are still being analyzed by Copernicus. I grew up in Texas, and am not a heat wimp, but subjectively, I can tell you that it was the armpit of Satan. I’ve been in cooler saunas than the men’s toilets at Versailles. Sitting in the breezy shade atop a boat sailing down the Rhine sounds like a…

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• John Böllhoff

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