You live in Mexico City.
At 7 AM, you walk outside and, being from Iowa, you don't find it to be too cold.
It's definitely not warm or hot.
Just normal temperature to you.
You could actually put on shorts with a short sleeved shirt and feel perfectly fine.
But outside you see a few Mexicans here and there walking outside with literal winter coats.
Granted, as I wrote here, it's not unusual to see Mexicans putting on winter coats for completely odd situations that make you think "how the fuck is he not sweating his ass off?"
At any rate, you go about your day.
Give it a few hours until around 10 AM at earliest when the sun starts to make its presence more well known.
It might not be too hot yet.
But the day might start to eventually get quite sunny.
It might not be as hot as other destinations like the Caribbean Coast of Colombia or Asuncion of Paraguay but the warmth is much more noticeable.
Sitting down at around 12 PM now by some street food spot, you say hello to the local gordita lady and she begins preparing your food.
"Hace mucho calor, no?" you say to her.
And she gives you the "siiii" and she points out the little banner that put up that not only advertises her food but also blocks out at least some of the sun from directly hitting her face while she does 12 hour days cooking for any strangers on the street.
While the banner helps, you can definitely see sweat on her face and the warmth can still be felt.
As I said, it's definitely not the worst I've experienced.
In Iowa, you'll notice summer days to be quite hot also sometimes.
Anyway, the day goes on.
Give it about another 5 hours now.
It is 5 PM at earliest.
And you just might notice how the weather has switched from noticeable heat to a shit ton of rain.
If it gets really bad and if you aren't in the nicest or most developed neighborhood, you might notice mini street floods that aren't too dangerous but are not what you'd want to drive your car through.
Or perhaps worse shit like what you can see here.
Rains Xochimilco CDMX
And that was all in just one day.
One can only wonder then: "what the fuck should you bring to wear when in Mexico City?"
And, on top of that, you might notice a certain humor among the locals about it when you get it.
Mexicans have a way of laughing at the inconveniences of life down here.
Though one joke that they sometimes make is all to common for me being from Iowa.
You can see it in this meme here.
As you can see, it's a little bit of humor stabbing at the fact that, on some days in Mexico City, it truly does feel like the weather can change so rapidly.
From weather cold enough to convince some locals to put on a winter coat in the morning (though anything will seemingly convince them of that) to sweating your ass off to needing that umbrella (or standing underneath something while waiting for the rain to go away).
Back in Iowa, you notice locals make similar comments about the weather.
That it can be quite contrasting from one moment to the next.
Be it very intense winters that go on forever with snow in later months that we were not used to decades ago to fairly hot summers.
Quite honestly though, I don't think it's just a Iowa and Mexico City thing.
From My Travels: One Commonality
Nothing more I want to say than the fact really that it seems like "the locals" in so many places I've been to comment on the "erratic weather."
I remember a guy I know from Iowa who is living in England and he often posts stuff about his time in England and broader Europe.
There was a point where he ended up mentioning how some part of Europe -- forgot which part -- that he went to had "very erratic behavior" and some chick from the same town named Megan mentioned how "it sounds like Iowa."
That was some months ago when I saw that but it comes to memory now.
In my travels, I've seen no shortage of locals in so many areas complain about how "erratic" the weather seems.
Granted, not in every place obviously.
For one, I don't always spend enough time in any specific place to know how the locals feel about the weather nor even learn about what the weather is like year around.
Though there is a city in Colombia called Pereira and that is known for having "eternal spring" just like another city nearby called Medellin.
It sure would be ironic if locals in said area ever complained about "erratic weather" given the reputation their cities have to foreigners for being such great places to move to for the weather.
I have my doubts such complaints are made there but, as we all know, there's always someone complaining about something and so who knows.
And, on that point, I guess it wouldn't surprise me entirely if some locals were like because, in my experience, it does feel like at times that the locals exaggerate just how bad or erratic the weather is in their area.
Sometimes it truly might be a case of a local not knowing how much worse it could be.
Though, on top of that, weather in Iowa for example has certainly changed over the last few decades it seems with more erratic winters where sometimes there is no snow and sometimes there is snow until something crazy like March.
On that note, it could also be the case that said local is simply noticing how erratic their weather is compared to the past if they are old enough.
Above all though, it's just a commonality you notice in your travels when you get talking with enough people in various cities around the world and seemingly this trend of everyone thinking that the weather is "erratic" in their specific city is apparent.
Anyway, that's all I got to say.
If you got anything to add, drop a comment below.
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Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Matt