Happy Holidãos

Today was Monday. At the beginning of class, the teacher asked how my weekend was and then he corrected himself and asked how my "holiday" was. Interestingly, when he said the word for holiday he added an "ão" sound to the end of the word. He said feriadão instead of feriado.  Adding ão was an indication of a bigger, better holiday. I asked what was up and he explained that when a holiday falls on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday it is just a regular holiday, a feriado, you get your day off and you are grateful. But, when a holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, then it can provide a bridge to the weekend. Brazilians often get the intervening day off, making it a four-day weekend - a feriadão. This happened last week with the Corpus Christi holiday on Thursday. I missed it completely because I'm not Brazilian and I didn't even know. I'm making up for it though. Our 4th of July holiday is coming up on a Tuesday. I'm going to make like a Brazilian, take the Monday off, and have myself a happy holidão.