Valentines in the City

Who would have thought that Americans take Valentines Day so seriously? I was really shocked by the amount of flower bouquets/ hearts and chocolate presents I saw people carrying around the city this week. Passing by Mulberry Street in Little Italy last night I saw that this area seems to be the Valentines mekka and the cheesy, more American Italian looking restaurants must have been making the revenues of the year on Thursday...
Lots of my colleagues took off early on Valentines to prepare for their dinner witht their loved ones and many of them didn't come in on Friday - as Monday is President's Day they took a 'Valentines vacation' although I don't really consider taking a day off a vacation but actually, most Americans do. According to study I recently read they also waste on average 9.2 vacations days a year. Insane, when you think about many of them only getting 10 days a year. I have a feeling that traveling is also not something that many of them are big on. Maybe as people get older they do, but I think families really don't travel as much as Germans do. Might have economic reasons but it's also a bit of a cultural thing- at least it's not very common to travel outside the country as illustrated by the fact that so many Americans don't even own a passport.  It's gotta be said though that this country has a lot to offer in terms of nature, cities and culture so given the vast variety of things you can do here, you might not feel the need to explore other areas of the world as much...
On my way to Boston now, not that I haven't explored that before but really like Cambridge with its studenty feel to it and already on the bus I'm seeing a lot more snow up here...