The title of this post could also have been '5 weeks vs. 2 weeks'. Once you are used to having five weeks vacation (or even six weeks when I lived in Germany) it is very hard to drop down to two weeks of paid vacation.
How do you not go insane on only two weeks of vacation? You plan your time off work very carefully and strategically - especially when you want to do trips overseas, which for me meant 'going home' to Europe. When you live abroad, going home is essential for not feeling gutted and not suddenly crying non-stop due to homesickness. It is one of the worst emotions I have ever felt. Yes, it gets better over the years but especially in the beginning those trips back home are necessary for the expat's/emigrant's well-being.
Some companies that I worked for didn't even allow its employees to take these two weeks at once. Flying to Europe for a week is possible but very exhausting. Coming back and feeling relaxed after a one week trip to the Old World from Los Angeles is an illusion. You'll need a staycation from the vacation!
So what do you do? First, you map-out how many public holidays there are that year. There are not a lot of public holidays in the U.S. - about seven, depending on what state you live in. There were 13 public holidays in Bavaria in addition to the six weeks vacation! So these seven days have to be used carefully for vacay-planning! Do they fall on a Thursday or a Tuesday? If so, you can take just one day off and have a 4-day weekend! This secures a trip within the U.S. I visited New Orleans on four day weekend like that over Thanksgiving. Other options from L.A. where the beautiful national parks nearby: Yosemite, King's Canyon, Sequoia, Joshua Tree, Death Valley, etc. Within flight distance, there were lots of possibilities for 4-day weekends: San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas (Vegas always works), Portland, Seattle, and even New York for the ones with lots of energy who don't need a lot of sleep.
Managing the longer Europe trip was more tricky. I never liked going back over Christmas. It was cold, everything was closed due to the public holidays, and the choices of what you can do are limited in the winter. I preferred going in May or September and both months have a public holiday: Memorial Day and Labor Day - and both are always on a Monday. It is also off-season and costs a lot less. It didn't save a lot of vacation days but at least one. Plus, I also always went on a two-week trip back to Europe when I was changing jobs. I always took two weeks in between every job change - and changing jobs frequently is not uncommon in the U.S. and not frowned upon at all (as it is in Europe) - to fly to Europe and stock up on all the goodies from home. Lots and lots of Milka chocolate, hearbal teas, Nivea products and prepackaged powder for making apricot dumplings! Yum! My 'weird purchase' when I went back home (and we all have that one weird thing we buy when we go home - and you know it because you do it too!) were silverfish traps! Yes, traps for those little f-ers in the bathroom. In the U.S., you can only get the hardcore poison that's bad for humans too but in Europe I could buy traps. Ha! What's your 'weird purchase'? You know you have one!
So don't freak out when you go from five weeks of vacation to only two. Just plan more carefully!
Read more about my American experience in my book 'LAlien-From the Austrian Alps to the Hollywood Hills' available as printed copy at https://www.mymorawa.com/self-publishing/gestaltung/publizieren/?books/ID47437/LAlien.
As ebook: https://www.amazon.de/LAlien-Austrian-Alps-Hollywood-Hills-ebook/dp/B01K0G7I8U/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1472482170&sr=8-1
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