I don't know how anyone could live in the east without air conditioning, especially on the higher floors of apartment buildings.
Your liver is probably grateful. If a Pole ever offers you home made wine, graciously accept then dump it down the drain when they're not looking! My partner is a first generation immigrant from Pierzchnica. She came on a student visa, loved Canada, got her PR then citizenship. That was before we met. She doesn't have the drinking superpowers like other Poles... thank god! She can smoke weed like a champ tho.
I would say that from freshman year (1979) until I moved away from the East (1990) I didn’t live with a/c.
From 1990 til 2019 I lived in California. From 2001 to 2009 I lived with a swamp cooler of marginal effectiveness.
From 2009 until 2019 I lived in raratt country in a poorly-insulated house with a/c that I ran as sparingly as possible. The low humidity makes a big difference,
Now I’m in the desert in a much better-insulated house with a/c. I am still miserly with the a/c which draws over 3 kW. (First smart meter)
I remember two places especially. Sophomore year I was in a 1-bd apartment with ALL the windows facing west and no fan to my name. You could slice the heat with a shovel in there around sundown in the summer.
Second place was the apartment we (my ex and I) rented in Pittsburgh in ‘88. That was a hot summer. Not much draft in the place, and nights could be a sweltering ordeal.
All that said, I prefer it too hot to too cold. There is something blasphemous about solid water.