Thanks for the help guys. I appreciate all your answers. I was thinking that the Cisco cert was the way to go, that just reasserts that to me.
Just checked the Cisco Written Test Information page for the CCIE and it's all greek to me, guess I got a lot of learning to do
Unfortunately, I also saw that you can only take the test in London or Chicago. That doesn't make things too convenient for me. At all.
Bugger.