re: #7 ralphieboy

Long weekend here in Germany: Pentecost Sunday and Monday.

Funny, when I got here, I had to ask a dozen Germans just what they were celebrating before I found some to explain it to me, most of them just said “It’s a day off, I really don’t care”.

Will be camping out in an apple orchard outside Frankfurt playing music.
They call it “Pfinsten” here, so we will be plaing a lot of stuff by the Pfingsten Trio.

And Bruce Pfingsteen.

Isn’t it strange? All those godless Europeans have tons of official religious holidays. In Holland almost nobody I know ever goes to church, not even for Christmas and Easter, yet they get TWO days off for things like the Assumption of the Virgin, and Pentacost. The only people my age who even know why these days matter are historians.

There is a problem, though, with these clustered holidays. All the odd religious ones, and the Queen’s birthday, and Liberation Day, and May Day, all happen in a 6-week period between late April and mid-June. It is impossible to plan anything in these weeks without being tripped up by some holiday, so nothing gets done. The trash doesn’t get picked up. As an anal, hard-working American who lives (sometimes) in a European city, all these things are incredibly annoying.