+1 on this. Hiker+Trail-Runner here. So I sometimes encounter cows on high mountain passes where taking a detour can mean hours of delay. But after getting kicked like that once, I am very careful around herds, esp. when they have young ones / horns (as they often do grassing on mountains) / bulls in the mix.

As a parent, EVERY kid feels like your kid. This made me cry.

I’m glad to hear it’s not an issue in your experience / industry.

German here: I have yet to witness these “European-style” vacations mentioned in the post title.

Most workplaces seem to frown at people taking >2 consecutive weeks of vacation, esp. if they don’t have kids and do it in main travel season / during school holidays. Handing in ~3 weeks of holidays often at least needs some kind of explanation to the team-lead, e.g. “I have school kids who have their summer holidays and we need to keep them busy until school starts again.”

I have yet to see a single company going easy on someone saying “I’ll be off all of August KTHXBYE”.