Pentecost Monday (Pfingsten)???

I have a confession to make: I was raised Catholic.  Get it?  Confession?  Catholic...

One intentionally bad pun out of the way, lets talk about the recent German holiday.  First, to be fair, many other nations celebrate this holiday.  It's not just the Germans - though I am willing to bet no one celebrates it for quite as long... You'll see...

Growing up, we had 'holidays' such as Ascension Thursday, Pentecost Sunday, etc.  Because I lived in a Catholic/Jewish neighborhood, we had both the Christian and Jewish holidays off from school, so Good Friday was always a day off, as was Rosh Hashanna or Yom Kippur.  Of course, in my family, we were compelled to go to church on these 'holy days of obligation', and most of the Jewish kids went to temple for the Jewish holy days.  After church was another story, of course.  But you didn't take off for a long weekend.  You had church in the morning!  And if you skipped, this was a venial sin and you needed to go to confession, do your penance and be absolved so that you had a clean soul and could accept Communion the coming Sunday.  Of course, you could beat your wife and kids, nothing in the Bible against that, so no prob.  But you had to go to Mass.

Also, Easter and Pentecost were Sunday holidays.  This means you don't get an extra day off.  No 'Easter Monday'.  No 'Pentecost Monday'.  Holiday falls on Sunday, too bad.  At least, you don't have an extra day of mass that week.

This is all background, so that you can see how I sit in awe as I watch the Germans 'celebrate' these holidays.  The week of 'Himmelfahrt', J had the whole week off from school.  Not just Thursday.  The entire week!  Z had Thursday and Friday off - and then had the entire following week off for 'Pfingsten'.  J had to go to school that week - but they had all kinds of fun activities not associated directly to academics.  I assume that is because half the kids weren't there, because their older siblings in Gymnasium had the week off, and the family went on 'holiday'.

How in heaven's name (Ha ha. Second bad pun) does this country have the strongest economy in Europe?

Z spent the long weekend learning to wind surf with his soccer team.  We picked him up and on the way home, Z asked if M had read about a particular handball match in the paper.  M said in a very casual tone, "Oh, there is no paper today.  It's a holiday. "  This  conversation took place in German, so I had to clarify: "Wait.  There is no newspaper today?"  M looked at me as though I were insane.  "Of course not.  It's a holiday."  I started to break out into a cold sweat... "Are the HOSPITALS open????"  WTF??

We discussed the newspaper thing a bit, and at some point, I learned that the Kieler Nachrichten does not have a Sunday edition.  I could not hide my bewilderment.  M asked, "Well, does the NY Times have a paper on Sunday?"

Oh Crap.  We need to get back to the States. ASAP.