New York City has got to be, without a doubt, one of the hottest, most humid places north of the equator come summertime.
In light of all the sweat, air conditioning drips on your hair, full-bodied garbage odors, and stifling subway rides, sometimes summer in the city can get you down.
Not to worry- if you’re feeling like an over-cooked fish stick, then all you need is a day or two away from it all.
Some fresh air, new scenery, and a day off can work wonders, and leave you ready to return to the city ready to live it up in the greatest place on earth.
Here’s how to tell if you need to escape for a while before your brain starts to sizzle under the pressure.
1. Everyday feels like hot yoga, minus the inner peace
Despite being out on the street, or in your apartment, you might feel like you’re actually in a small, stuffy room with forty other people all sweating and breathing loudly with no regard for personal space.
This unique delight known as hot yoga can be a wonderful, healthy part of your lifestyle; but you don’t want to feel like you’re living your life in a perpetually crowded hot room.
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Especially if the whole meditation and stretching components are absent entirely.
The claustrophobia is only worth it if your mind is occupied with breathing, stretching, and strengthening. Otherwise you might need to skip town for a bit.
2. Ice cream truck music is playing in your dreams
Who doesn’t love ice cream, especially when it is delivered to you on a nostalgic truck for an absurdly low price, and they have ice pops shaped like spongebob?
Well, sometimes the bright and peppy renditions of the simple melodies you learned in elementary school music class can start to lose their charm. Once you find them constantly stuck in your head, it is time to get away.
When you absent-mindedly whistle ‘Yankee Doodle’ on your morning commute, hum ‘pop-goes-the-weasel’ while you eat your lunch, and have ‘do your ears hang low’ playing in your dreams, then you start to realize that your brain space is being slowly overtaken by the ubiquitousness of ice cream truck jingles.
And that is not ok.
3. The sounds of children playing make you want to throw stale bagels at your neighborhood’s youth
With your windows open hoping to tempt any sort of breeze into your apartment, all the sounds from the street are welcome to drift in. One of these sounds, a sound that is typically whimsical, refreshing, nostalgic, and sometimes even downright adorable, is the sound of kids playing on your block.
By this point in the summer it has stopped being cute. It’s a street, not a park damn it (unless you actually live next to a park, that is).
The sound has morphed into an overbearing, loud and screechy symphony that only brings you headaches. If it has reached the point where you daydream about pelting your supply of rock-hard bagels at the noisy little derps plaguing your sidewalks, then it might be time to peace out for a while.
4. Your laundry hamper smells like a garbage truck
Is that smell the dumpster outside full of week-old Chinese take-out, or is that coming from your dirty-laundry bag?
We get it, you’re probably getting a little ripe from time to time after traversing through the steamy subway and walking beneath the sweltering sun. You probably live in a five story walk-up and leave a super thoughtful waterfall of sweat behind you on the stairs everyday.
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Your usual laundry concerns become five times more dire in the summer. Everything you wear on your body now smells like your gym clothes. What have you even been doing to accrue this much sweat on everything?
Well, it’s time to take your sweaty self elsewhere for a spell and put a safe distance between you and that terrifying hamper.
5. You debate showing up to work in your swimsuit
You’ve barely gotten the chance to wear it this summer, it looks really good on, it’s hot out, the color is so flattering, we get it. You shelled out a pretty penny for some swimwear and now you want to use it.
Everywhere you turn there are billboards of swimsuited people, every magazine you open has them, your Facebook feed shows everyone and their mother traipsing around some beach or another in their swimsuit.
Stop, wait, put the bikini back in your drawer. We hate to break it to you but unless you head somewhere besides work for a day, the oxford, the heels, the apron, the whatever-you-wear-to-work is here to stay.
,6. The thought of hot coffee makes you break out into a cold sweat
Typically the wafting scent of a fresh cup of coffee is enough to make you thank your lucky stars you live in a city where you can get fresh, delicious caffeine literally anywhere you happen to be.
But your hand would melt from holding the to-go cup, your tongue would probably try to hide from the fiery substance, and you know it’s iced or nothing at this point.
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If you find yourself contemplating a nice hot cup of coffee and wishing you could just flee to Antarctica instead, it might be time for a vacation.
7. You consider a rush hour cab ride to avoid walking in the heat
Even just thinking about that cool, dark, air-conditioned car interior makes you want to take all the bills out of your wallet and throw them at the nearest cab.
You can’t tolerate wading through the crowds and feeling the baking pavement beneath your feet any longer.
But it you find yourself stepping out to flag down a cab for a four block walk, then you might want to take a step back (literally) and give yourself a much needed day off.
8. You’ve seen every movie out just to have an excuse to sit in an air-conditioned room
Yes, you’ve finally reached the point where you have seen every movie that is playing in theaters. That’s right, everything.
Even the ones that are sequels of things you’ve never heard of, even the films that you couldn’t bring yourself to make direct eye contact with the ticket seller for, for fear of judging eyes. And it was completely worth it to escape to a chilly, dark room for a few hours.
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We all love movies, but if you find yourself searching for excuses to retreat to the theatre as much as possible, then you need to find a cool escape far away from your normal routine. You need some cold water to swim in, and a fresh place to cool off.
9. When your ice cube tray is empty, you consider taking a sick day
You have been looking forward to enjoying an ice cold glass of lemonade all day. You even bought bendy straws specifically for this purpose.
Or, you just rolled out of your oven-like bed and reach for the ice cubes to make your glass of water palatable. You find the tray is empty, and you see red.
When an empty ice cubes tray is the deal-breaker for your day, then you probably need to just GTFO of the city for a much needed vacation before you do something drastic like leave a passive aggressive note for your roommate, or try to put the plastic tray through your paper shredder.
Yeah, you need to GTFO. Check out 7 Exciting Escapes Away from NYC.
[Feature Image Courtesy: Buzzfeed]