When I moved to Germany in summer 1991, German shops closed at 6:30 pm on weekdays and 2 pm on Saturdays (and were closed all day on Sunday). But Thursday was "long Thursday", when the shops were open until 8 pm, and the first Saturday of every month was "long Saturday", when the shops were open until 6 pm. I quickly got used to planning my shopping around this schedule—so much so that, in a jet-lagged haze, a few years later I got mixed up about closing times while visiting my mother in Michigan. She was puzzled why I insisted we had to finish our Saturday shopping by 2 pm! (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 11 November 2026)