Having just spent 7 years in a country which takes their public holidays very seriously, its hard to work out what effect a public holiday has on life.
Australia Day long weekend. Australia Day is always 26th January. This year it fell on a Saturday. In D'land that would mean that the shops would be shut. Commercial life would stop and everyone would duly go celebrate with loved ones in an appropriate manner (using involving either cake or beer, preferably both).
Here, the long weekend is a sacred thing - so Monday has been declared a holiday in addition to the Saturday.
So what happens here? Three days with no shopping? Shopping on Saturday but not on Monday? Or visaversa?
I really didn't know and didn't want to assume. So I asked around at uni.
My fellow students looked at me rather curiously when I asked them when the shops would be open over the weekend.
"Normal times ... duh!"
Normal times? So shut on Sunday, shut on the holiday? No! No! No! Open ALL the time! For example, Officeworks (D'landers insert Staples here) is open Sunday 9am-6pm AND Monday (the long weekend Monday) for the same hours! (and they were open Saturday as well).
My whole family raised their eyebrows at this information. Shopping? Everyday? Even on special days? No hoarding ... no panic buying ... no grabbing the last milk from the shopper next to you?
Not sure how we will deal with this information.
Sorry, I don´t get it - why would you have a bank holiday in the first place? And the important question: Which way of "celebrating" it do you prefer?
ReplyDelete"Australia Day" is 26th January. It commemorates the beginning of the European settlement of Australia which is now, of course, tinged with the tragedy of what "we" did to the original owners of this land.
ReplyDeleteWhen I grew up, we had a public holiday ON THAT DAY. We 'commemorate' with community breakfasts which celebrate great citizens and people who take out Australian citizenship.
Now, however, the holiday automatically a longweekend - which means that financial and government sector businesses are closed on the 26th - AND on the Monday attached to the weekend. All shops are open on both days (or so it seemed to us).
It is just so different to public (bank) holidays in D'land where EVERYTHING is shut.
This weekend, I did appreciate the opportunity to get things done (we bought office furniture for the kids)even though I fundamentally disapprove of taking long weekends just 'because' ...
does that make sense?
France is littered with 'closed' days, public holiday/saint days, plus Mondays in some regions, Wednesdays in others, recently we went to a museum in Paris Jenny you will remember, which was closed on Tuesdays, swimming pools closed during the holidays, and last night I had a nightmare that I took friends to a seafront restaurant which was closed because it was Thursday (the walls are closing in...). My friends in England on the other hand can go shopping and eat out on any day, at any time, there are even supermarkets open all night!
Deletethe funny thing is ... they don't open late where we live. I have been sauntering into the grocery stores at 6pm wondering why the parking lot is empty ... 3 minutes to store closing and I have to buy everything I need in that time! With families (esp women) working longer hours, I just was surprised that demand has not pushed opening hours back till 8pm. Seems that in this respect, D'land was far in advance.
DeleteThe concept of a day where stores are closed does not ever really exist here. There are so many little things like that, that you have to readjust to. Also, everyone around you can understand English which is a bit strange for me.
ReplyDelete