Exactly. I get 2 weeks and can't bank more than 4. When you look at how big the USA is and how spread out everyone's friends and families are, its pretty obvious why I can't leave the country whenever I feel like it. Add in weddings, funerals, reunions, vacation people have to take when their kids are home from school over the holidays, the fact that people are getting screwed out of their pensions, and the median income in the USA is a lot lower than people around the world realize.

This year alone, 850$ round trip ticket to San Diego plus hotel and food(funeral and wake), 600$ round trip to North Carolina plus hotel and food(family wedding), I can't remember how much for my trip to a friends wedding in Denver but it was a lot, I went to NYC to visit family and check out some museums and a Broadway show. Plus student loans and savings towards a college fund for the kids plus my private health insurance.

I did go to England and while trying to watch football be subjected to questions about "soccer" which I politely informed them was a name the British Isles gave the game a long time ago, a shortened version of association football. I also was able to inform said drunken Enlish the reason football has three codes, and shares its name with other codes called football, is because when it was invented any game played with a ball ON FOOT was called football. Hence the three venerable sports that share the name, and its not named football because you kick the ball with your foot. I like to educate ignorant cultures that don't get out too much.

Them: (After a rambling lecture on USA politics and sport) Herp derp, you should call it eggball, herp derp, you don't even use your foot! (They all smirk like an intelligent point was just made)

Me: (Condescendingly) You really should open up a book and get out more often, take some vacations to different cultures. (After all, when in Rome...)

I've decided to try South America next time because I have friends and family who will speak the language and know the locals. I've always wanted to go to continental Europe, but I've heard too many bad stories from people having their food spit on for being American, getting price gouged, and spending a mint just to travel around looking at old buildings and such things. Maybe East Asia some day when I'm retired, if I ever get to retire.