May

May is not the easiest month to be in France. There are five (5) holidays in May. The first two this year, May 1 and May 8 were on Saturdays. This is both good and bad. I would guess that for the people that work Monday through Friday, a Saturday holiday is a nightmare. No day off, but the one day a week reserved for errands and shopping, Saturday, everything was closed. Yikes! That's worse than a holiday on Sunday.

While there were more closures on May 1 (everything was closed, even museums), the May 8 holiday had a lot of demonstrations which interrupted traffic.

Tomorrow is another holiday. Being that it is on a Thursday, all of France is in transit today and tomorrow and they will be again on Sunday. Traffic will be a disaster because everyone takes off on Friday to make a four day weekend.

The other two holidays are more than a week away, so there's a little time to re-group between holidays.

May is a big month in the US too, with Memorial Day at the end of the month. Many people take off on the Friday before Memorial Day to make it a four-day weekend. It is also the official start of summer, although Manhattan Beach is normally shrouded in "June Gloom" (fog and clouds) until the 4th of July. Luckily we only have one holiday in the month and we've had the intelligence to put it on a Monday so everyone knows they'll get a day off.

As I scramble to get bread (bakery will be closed until Monday they told me), check my activities to make sure things are open, I'm grateful that May is only 1/12th of the year.