The clock is ticking down and two days from now, on Friday, August 1st, many European workers are going to be off the job.
That’s not because they are going on strike. They’ll be going on what the British call “holiday.”
Americans, of course, call that break from work “vacation.” And while many of us will indeed be “on vacation” in August, unlike our counterparts in at least some Continental countries, we’re not likely to take off the entire month.
From time to time I complain to my fellow citizens of the-good-old-U-S-of-A that if the Italians had landed at Plymouth Rock instead of those dour, Puritan-work-ethic-obsessed Pilgrims, we, too, would be enjoying one-third of the summer at the beach, in the mountains, or fishing from a dock on a bay or lake somewhere, far from the madding crowd of customers, co-workers and bosses.
So although (as far as I know, and at least at this moment), I have no plans to spend August in Europe, as a publisher and writer, I plan to take a “European holiday” of sorts, and take you along with me.
Here’s the plan.
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