(Continental) Europeans, with their ~35 weeks of vacation a year and 4.7 hour workdays, crack me up with their blithe ignorance of Americans' time/work attitudes. (This is not a criticism - I genuinely find it funny.) Just got pinged by visiting French acquaintance: "Hey, let's hang out a few afternoons next week. Maybe shopping or drinks?" This isn't a relative visiting from Antarctica who could reasonably expect me to sneak away at our busiest time of year for an hour or two for lunch or something; I *just met* this dude. The funnier example I see so often on craigslist apt swap: "I seek a swap for 7-8 weeks..." yeah, well, that's 4x the vacation time that most Americans get in a YEAR, so good luck with that. *not bitter*