Today's Room for Debate in the New York Times asks, why Americans don't have longer vacations. Interesting topic. To read the debate and join it click here. Austria has 13 national holidays. The minimum vacation time is five weeks. As a reporter in Vienna in the 1990s I got so much vacation time (plus the national holidays plus compensation days for working Sundays) that there was no way I could have spent it all. Unfortunately for my employer the unconsumed days and weeks carried on to the next year and further to the next. When I quit my job the paper had to pay me for all the free time not taken which added up to almost three months salary. I spent it all.
Culture, Lifestyle, Politics: An Immigrant from Austria Explores L.A. and the America Beyond It