Felices Fiestas

My office is empty. It’s been like this all week. Apparently, this year, the Christmas holidays started last weekend.

My bosses and many of my coworkers are already on vacation. It was a smart move on their parts. This year, with the way the holidays fall, to get off from December 20 to January 7, one need take just 6 work days. 6 days. To get a full 18 glorious days of vacation. Who wouldn’t take advantage of such a gift from the calendar gods? Of course, stringing together the days off would have been a natural step for people to take in any corner of the world. 18 days. Seems like a lot, right? Hardly. Here in Spain (or at least here at my company) where you get 26 paid vacation days and where the national tradition is to take a month-long vacation at least once a year… most people also took this week off (bringing their grand total of days off work in a row to 25). And so the office is empty. The cafeteria is empty. Heck, the METRO in the morning is even empty. Las fiestas have arrived.