When I first came to London a couple of weeks ago, I expected the usual signs of a bustling city: the fast pace, the crowds, and the relentless energy. What I didn’t expect was how seriously people treated something called a bank holiday.

Coming from a culture where public holidays often meant catching up on work or squeezing in errands, I was caught completely off guard. One Monday morning, I hopped on the Tube to run a few errands only to find unusually empty train cars. The streets were quiet, shops had limited hours, and nearly everyone I knew at my internship had turned on their “Out of Office” replies and disappeared to their homes or local parks.

That’s when the cultural difference truly appeared. In London, bank holidays aren’t just days off, they’re sacred. They are a full stop, a national pause, a shared understanding that work can wait.

At first, I was confused. How could a major city operate with so many people “switching off”? But then I started noticing that the people who returned to work after these holidays seemed refreshed. There was no praise for working through the weekend, no people bragging about being too busy to take time off. It was the opposite. Taking time off was normalized and even respected.

This moment became a turning point in how I viewed not just work, but rest. I realized that back home, I had adopted the idea that productivity was connected with availability. But in London, I saw that rest was integrated into the way of living. It wasn’t optional, it was expected.

That shift in mindset taught me a valuable lesson that culture isn’t always about language or food or attire. Sometimes, it reveals itself in more subtle ways, like how a society treats time, boundaries, and balance. I have tried to take full advantage of this aspect of London’s culture by using my free time to explore the city, visiting boroughs like Greenwich or attending West End shows. Learning to embrace bank holidays and time off wasn’t just about adapting to a new schedule. It was about adopting new values that respect personal time as much as professional production. Now, when a holiday comes around, I’m not struggling to stay caught up. I close my laptop, step outside, and let myself be part of the pause. And every time I do, I remember that I am somewhere new and that I have something new to learn.