I had a meeting with my boss yesterday over something else, and I broached the question of a lengthy amount of time off (3 weeks to be specific) so I could go to Europe some time in April through June of next year.
"Do you have the vacation time?"
"Yeah, enough for that and plenty more."
"Oh yeah, you have like 5 or 6 weeks saved up, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Well sure. That sounds great. Feel free to take it off."
I then proceeded to gleefully jig in his office as my boss looked on laughing.
Now I just need to drop some serious bank on a ticket and wrap up that whole passport thing, and I'm doing this, but for real real. Consider me excited.