A REALLY Long Weekend

A puente (pwen tay) is a bridge. It is also a four-day weekend ... bridging one week to the next. When a holiday falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday, it is a well-known secret in Spain that there will be a puente. I say a secret because the Monday or Friday holiday is not necessarily on the calendar.

Last week, there was a holiday on Tuesday in the city of Valencia. The Thursday before, we received a note home from school indicating that there would not be any school on Monday! Surprise! A free holiday! Free - because, since we were not in on the secret, we hadn't planned anything.

Had we known, we would have made PLANS, booked the SCHEDULE full of LOTS of things to do, JAM-PACKED our free-time with stimulating activities. GO- GO - GO! No rest for the weary! Hey! YEAH!

LIVE in the 21st century! RUN yourself ragged during your vacation from school and work, your holiday from your normally scheduled activities so you can schedule LOTS AND LOTS of not-normally scheduled activities.

I'm being sarcastic. I am describing what has become so common in the United States. The people of Spain certainly are not immune - though it is often countered with a "No Pasa Nada" attitude. Basically, "Don't worry! Be Happy!"

Since August, there has been construction in our courtyard to fix leaks in the underground garage. (Our courtyard is the gated area outside our apartment building.) We imagine that this same construction in the United States would have been completed a long-time ago. But, they are spending a lot of time and effort building "conversation clusters" or brick benches with planters arranged so children can play while parents relax and talk.

Valencia has numerous parks, boulevards, and walkways with benches and conversation clusters, fountains and flowers and bushes and statues. Relax. No pasa nada.