A woman from Texas, US, said she used to ‘make fun’ of all Europeans for complaining about one thing but after living in England for three years, she has been thoroughly ‘humbled’ by it
An American woman living in the UK has shared she’s been “humbled” by an inescapable aspect of the country that many people in her homeland can’t understand – the heat. The recent spell of heatwaves up and down the UK has had lots of people feeling deeply uncomfortable.
Of course, many states in the US are hotter on average than the UK, but houses and buildings in England weren’t built to withstand the rising temperatures caused by the ongoing climate crisis. England is famous for being grey and rainy – our architecture was designed to keep the heat in.
While the summer season has always brought some sunshine and brighter weeks, in recent years, the humidity and relentlessly high temperatures have taken over, leaving countless people suffering in inescapably hot homes – with no air conditioning.
Texas-born Bonnie Langthorn has been living in the UK for the last three years and, in the wake of the recent heatwaves, she decided to confess how she’s been “humbled” by the weather here.
In a recent video, which she shared on TikTok, Bonnie said: “As a Texas native, I used to make so much fun of people in Europe complaining about heat.
“Like, any time it gets above 75 degrees (24°C), everyone’s having a meltdown and I was like, ‘have you experienced 105 (40°C)?’
“But now that I live in England and I have experienced summer here, let me just tell you, I have been humbled because the thing is, yeah, the temperature is not as high but you also can’t escape it.
“There’s nowhere to go. If you go inside, it’s almost worse than if you just stay outside because at least outside, there’s a breeze.
“Inside, you’re just sitting in still, hot air and yeah, you might stand in front of a fan and let it blow hot air on your face pretending like that’s making any difference but I can tell you, it doesn’t.”
Bonnie then went on to say that in Texas, there’s air con in multiple places which allows people to cool down dramatically and end up “shivering in no time”.
She added: “But here, there’s like nowhere to hide. You get on the tube, it’s hot; you get on the bus, it’s hot; you get off the bus, it’s still hot; you go inside, it’s still hot.
“Everywhere is so hot and you’re just sweating all the time. So, never again will I judge a European for complaining about the heat because the heat’s different. It’s just different.”
Bonnie’s video racked up more than 1,000 comments from people keen to share their thoughts. One person admitted: “My favourite summer content is foreigners being humbled by UK heat”.
Another said: “you found a breeze? I’m still looking…”
A third added: “It’s also the humidity, the heat sticks to you, there is a night and day difference between arid heat and humid heat”.
Another commented: “So many videos from Americans, Australians and people from the Middle East saying sorry [crying laughing emoji] our summer heat is terrible in England, you can’t escape the humidity”.
Someone else said: “100F in London is like the seventh circle of hell. That I can attest to”.
Another added: “And it doesn’t cool down at night! People ALWAYS forget that”.
