It's funny you mention that. My father worked for a company which also had a lab in France. He was telling me about how they just automatically get vacation hours. Here you've gotta WORK to get that vacation (and you can only start accumulating it after you've been at the job for X amount of time) and (as you know with my case) then you can barely afford to take it!

BOOOOOO.

Yes, you automatically get annual leave when you start a job here too. You don't have to work for it.

I think it honestly just depends on the place you work. I have to accrue vacation hours (I get 3.08 vacation hours and 3.69 sick leave hours per 80 weeks worked 8-|), but Josh gets a set number of days per year without having to accrue it. Although, until he's been at his job five years (it's a government job), he only gets 10 days a year (after five years it goes to 15), whereas I can accrue many more than 10 days a year by working for my hours.

10 days a year!?! That's ridiculous. If he worked for the government here he'd get more than double that. Plus public holidays!

Wow, that's obviously supposed to say: I get 3.08 vacation hours and 3.69 sick leave hours per 80 HOURS worked.....

I was so busy going 10 DAYS A YEAR in horror, that I didn't even notice.

Thank goodness I live in the UK! Work to live not live to work.

I would live in NYC.

I would absolutely LOVE to live in Dublin, Ireland again. I lived there for a few months (ok, I was in Kells, Co Meath) and I absolutely loved it, and my heart cries every single time I have to leave the place. I'd also love to go around and see the country as well. Mind you, my "home" country is France.

I would move back to Germany, or I would move to Ireland. Germany was beautiful, and I've always be facinated with Ireland. I usually say, anywhere that isn't Wyoming. It's true, so very, very true.

The Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland?

Republic Of Ireland.

There are a LOT of places I'd like to VISIT, but I wouldn't want to LIVE outside the US.