Monday, June 1, 2009

Holidays in Spain

No work today, but only in Barcelona, such is the holiday system in Spain.   Basically, you have national days like Christmas, New Year's, the Spanish National Day (October 12th), May Day etc.  Then you have regional ones that depend on the autonomy's history or a saint that is related to the region. An example of this is September 11th, which is the National Day of Catalunya and La Merce (also in September) who is the Virgin for the region  Finally, you have municipal ones that are only applied to the city.  For example today is la segunda pasqua (the second Easter). But if you job requires you to work outside the city in one of the many industrial parks, then you have to work today.  Confusing isn't it?

2 comments:

  1. Hi there!
    I'm a Spanish teacher of English in southern Spain and have just borrowed your text: "You know you've lived long enough in Spain when..." to post it on my class blog. I found it really funny and pretty accurate (though generalizing is always risky).
    Anyway, what I wanted to ask if it's fine for me to have borrowed it (otherwise I'll just delete the post).
    Cheers and thanks!!

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  2. No problem Maribel. I'm glad you liked it and you're right, generalizations are risky! But it gets students talking ;-)

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