European Vacation

I've had an on-going joke with a co-worker in the France office concerning vacation time. It seems that every time I email him, he's either on vacation, about to leave for vacation or just returning from vacation. I was aware that Europeans received more paid time off, but wasn't really aware of the specifics. I finally asked yesterday. Based on my level of seniority, how much vacation time would I be entitled to if I worked in France? Here in the US, I get 3 weeks, or 15 days per year. If I worked in France, I would get 8 weeks, which is 40 days per year. I'm not much of a math whiz, but that works out to 3.3 days per month!! I could take a week of vacation time, every other month, and still have 10 days left over! I could take an entire month off (figure about 22 work days in a month?), and still have more vacation time left-over than I currently get here in the US. I could bunch it all up and take two ONE MONTH vacations per year. Can you believe that?? My French co-worker reminded me that, "the grass is always greener." I responded that my grass would be very green indeed if I had 40 days a year off to tend to it!! As soon as I finish posting this, I'm checking out job opportunities in our European offices!! 40 days per year...EGADS!!
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My son will be coming home on leave from the army May 25-31, so my blog participation will be somewhat limited during that time. I'd like to say that's because I'll be spending all my time with my son, but I suspect he'll be spending all his time with his girlfriend. (I liked it better when I was the #1 woman in his life!) Our computer room is my son's bedroom when he's home on leave, which limits my ability to access to the internet during that time. I will try to work in some hunky firemen posts between now and then. I want my blog to be listed among the top 10 links when doing a Google search for "Hunky Firemen". Everyone needs to have a goal.