I frequently travel every year to visit my uncle in Toronto, Canada, but this year I decided to solely stay in Austin, Texas where I was amazingly confronted by a completely opposite weather from Toronto. In the past, when I walked along the streets of Toronto, I felt as if the winter squeezed me to death. Massive amounts of snow covered the roads, and I wondered whether I can survive this weather.   My shoes always crunched through the powdered, polar-white snow. My teeth chattered. My limbs stiffened. My body shivered. My fingertips tingled. My nose snuffled.  I even had difficulty coping with sore joints. The concrete floor feels like ice and it can freeze my feet. At times, the blizzard was harsh and the screeching winds were dreadful. The skies of Toronto are empty and bleak.  In these cold moments, I longed for the radiant light of the sun to warm me up. But that never happened because the callous winter always stifled Toronto with its icy breath. What are the only two winters in Toronto? The clear-cut answers are cold and colder.

 Now, as a UT student in Austin and having frequently travelled to Canada, I find the weather in Austin’s summers to be miserably hot. I find it hard to bear the heat, as I constantly struggle to walk along the streets with other Austinites. I feel like I am at war with myself when trying to bear the heat. My mouth is dry and I am thirsty and I am dehydrated. I sweat and I am fatigued from walking. I can barely breathe. There is barely wind. The concrete floor has the feel of a fire and it can singe my feet. I notice the heat shimmering off the ground, and only implore to be in the shade. It is as if the scorching sun gets the best of me wherever I go; it indeed gets the best of my mind and body.  The sun blazes down from a cloudless azure sky, and I feel like the sun is cooking me; the perspiration also flows from me like tears that would never stop. What are the only two summers in Austin? The clear-cut answers are hot and hotter.

Is there any way I would feel a tad bit cooler in the summertime? No way. Austin’s summertime weather is one of a kind in the same way Toronto’s wintertime weather is one of a kind. You can make instant sun tea here in Austin, but in Toronto, you can make instant cold brew ice tea.