Another Holiday?



Don Quixote of La Mancha

Today is the day of the region in Castilla La Mancha and it's a holiday. Each region in Spain has it own day, thus it's not a holiday anywhere else. So what happens during this day? Absolutely nothing, at least not in the town where I live. All shops and businesses are closed.

Public holidays in this country are a dime a dozen. Spain has one of the highest number of bank holidays in Europe. (This is without counting "puenting", which I'll leave for another blog entry.) Spanish people are all for taking off as many days as possible from work. It always amused me when I used to work in the Spanish public school system how my peers were eager to see the published school calendar for the upcoming year, count how many holidays there were and if they were on a week day. If a holiday falls on a Sunday it isn't moved to a Monday like in the US.

My question is, how can Spain ever come out of the economic crisis we are facing when it seems like at least once a month there is a holiday?

15 M, A Year After

So today is the first anniversary of 15 M, a movement created here in Spain by people who call themselves "indignados". At first I was excited by this movement who seemed to act in pacifistic ways to acknowledge there is something wrong going on in this country. But then there were government elections and I thought something would happen in the urns, but lo and behold, the PP (right wing, conservatist group) won. WTF?? So it seems this movement had no effect in the voting and is once again gathering in Sol (Madrid) and other important Spanish cities, but what for? I don't get it...