Happy National Day, Germany.
It is very funny that I only got to know this after a Colleague trainer managed to tell us that tomorrow it National Day. Wednesday, 03 Oct 2007 happens to be my off day and I was telling them that I want to get some gifts for my friends back in Singapore. I planned to travel to Dresden, a bigger town where there are more shopping centers. Ines was telling me that it's a holiday and most shops aren't open. I asked and she didn't tell me the exact holiday name. She just told me it's the day when the East and West got unified. As I am bad with history, I didn't even think of it as a National Day. As we're working on shifts, it's still working days for us. But it's my off day, I lamented. Now, I have no place to go.Sigh, but when I learned that it's Germany's National Day and being in Germany, I feel that it's just right that I say Happy Birthday in my blog.
And by the way, it's different in Germany, it's a public holiday and MOST SHOPS are closed, so it's another Sunday to our dislike.
Hope all my German colleagues who's having day off can enjoy and have a good party celebration.
German Unity Day (From Wikipedia)
The Day of German Unity (German: Tag der Deutschen Einheit) is a national holiday in Germany, celebrated on October 3, which commemorates the anniversary of German reunification in 1990.
An alternative choice would have been the day the Berlin Wall came down, namely November 9, 1989, which coincided with the anniversary of the founding of the first real German Republic in 1918 and the defeat of Hitler's first coup in 1923; however November 9 was also the anniversary of the first large-scale Nazi-led pogroms against Jews in 1938 (so called Kristallnacht), and the day was thus considered inappropriate as a national holiday. Therefore, October 3, 1990, the day of formal reunion was chosen instead.
Before reunification, in Western Germany the "Day of German Unity" was June 17; this was an interpretation of a failed 1953 revolt staged by East German workers mainly against a raise in work quotas. The revolt was crushed with Soviet aid; the exact number of fatalities is unknown, but estimated at somewhat above 100. In East Germany, the national holiday was October 7, being called Day of the Republic (Tag der Republik).
