So the title of this post doesn’t fit very well, but it does
indicate that we have watched both seasons of Homeland since the last blog
post. Therefore, you must read the quote
in Saul Behrens voice for it to make any sense.
We’ve been quite busy in the last couple of months. In order to catch you up on our comings and
goings I will try to get everyone caught up.
May 1-6: I went to
Florence Italy to give a presentation at the Florence workshop of Behavioral
and Experimental Economics. This was my
first conference presentation (30 minutes) and my first conference outside of
Finance. I learned very quickly that the
dress code for an Economics conference was much more relaxed than Finance
conferences. I arrived in Florence all suited
up, Barney Stinson style on the first day, and finally relaxed and wore my
jeans on the third day. Meanwhile, a lot of the participants started with jeans
on the first day and somehow drifted into even more comfortable clothes (I am
pretty sure someone was wearing pajamas in their presentation) by the third
day. Nevertheless, I had a great time
learning and networking there. It was
also nice to get a presentation repetition in, as I suspect that this paper
will also be my job market paper, when the time comes.
I had an extra afternoon/evening after the conference to do
some sight seeing, and a couple of new friends from Paderborn that I met at the
conference were gracious enough to let me tag along. Some other highlights from this trip were:
Drinking 2 euro Tuscany wine at a small wine bar/shop off
the beaten path and conversing with a Chinese girl who was literally a Masters
student in wine (and looked exactly like Charlyne Yi). I didn’t believe her at first, but after a
few probing questions, it turned out that she really knew her stuff. She told me that they must take 7 different
types of Chemistry courses in order to complete the program in order to work at
a vineyard after graduation. She had a
great sense of humor, referring to her extensive learning only to work at a
vineyard as ‘a great tragedy.’
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| Charlyn Yi's look alike really knows her wine |
Hearing a native Italian speaker properly saying my name
over the loud speaker at the airport. I
had no idea I had such a beautiful sounding name if said correctly. The reason my name was called was because I
was sitting at gate 83 when the entire was/had boarded at gate 83a. It’s a small, but crucial detail to miss at
5:30 am. Fortunately, I made the
flight.
Oh yeah, the sight seeing was nice.
Seeing what looked to me a lot of long lost family members. I didn’t realize that I /my Dad/my grandpa
Foltice looked so Italian (we all look the same…Dana knows exactly what I will
look like at age 60 and 88. See photo below).
I received so many questions for directions, confirming my idea that I
really blended in there.
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| Dear Dana, this is what you get to look at for the rest of your life. |
The month of May had so many Holidays and long weekends, we
spent a lot of time around Hiltrup relaxing.
Unfortunately, the weather was so cold that it was tough to do much
outside. The holidays are different
here, and I love the religious meaning of the holidays. Here is the list of German holidays for May
alone:
Wednesday May 1: May Day (Maifeiertag) – Not sure of the
history behind this holiday, though I know that a lot of people go “tanzen in
dem Mai” (Dancing into May). Unfortunately,
I am too old to do so.
Thursday May 9: Christi Himmelfahrt (Ascension Day) – The
day Christ went to heaven 40 days after his resurrection.
Monday May 20: Pfingsten (Pentacost) – The fiftieth day after
Easter when the Church received the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-6)
Thursday May 30: Fronleichnem (Corpus Christi) – 10 days
after Pfingsten, celebrating communion.
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Picnic in the park
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| We love our balcony and spend a lot of evenings here. |
Fathers Day in Germany is somewhere in May, but we
celebrated Mothers and Fathers day on the American dates, so I have a good
excuse to watch the US Open golf tournament all day.
This year, Dylan busted me on my Mother’s Day and my
Anniversary gift on two separate occasions.
For Mother’s Day, he and I went to the ‘Allstadt’ to get Dana
a gift, but got distracted and went to the Mukk toy store, which is like the
German version of FAO Schwartz, instead.
He wanted to get her a ‘bow for her hair’, but unfortunately we ran out
of time (and good behavior) to go find one. The next morning, I went out to ‘go workout’
but Dylan told Mommy as soon as I left that we had forgotten to get her a
present and that I was out buying her something last minute.
Side note: Dana recently found a broken hair clip in our
bathroom. Our sneaky 4-year old had a
plan the whole time to replace it as a Mother’s Day gift.
Due to time restrictions, I had to take Dylan shopping down
the street to buy a watch for our Anniversary (11 years already). Despite my pleading for Dylan not to tell
Mommy about her gift he blurted out not 5 minutes after Dana came home,
“Mommy! We got you a present! You should open it! It’s a clock for your arm. We bought it at
the store down the street.” I guess
we’ll have to wait a while before Dylan is included in the gift giving process.
The last weekend of May was the annual Hiltruper
Frulingsfest (Spring fest), which blocks off our entire street for a full
weekend. With our location, we had one
of the three stages facing our apartment.
The good news was that we could watch concerts from 12pm until 12am on
Saturday and Sunday. The bad news is we
couldn’t escape the noise for two full days.
The boys slept just fine, so it wasn’t too much of a problem for us. Additionally, that Saturday night was the
Champions League final, with my favorite team Dortmund playing Bayern
Munich. I was really excited for the
game the entire day and we made plans for Dylan to stay up late so we could
watch it together. The game started at
8:45 pm, so it would be a special late night.
Hopefully, Dylan will grow up to be a Dortmund fan as well and I didn’t
want him to miss the experience. Years
from now, I was hoping we could remember this memorable day. 30 minutes before kickoff, we walked down the
street to the public viewing in Hiltrup and upon seeing the crowd of people
Dylan instantly did not want to be there (are you noticing a trend of crowd
aversion from Dylan yet)?
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| "It's the playoffs. You gotta let em know you're out there." - Our future face painter |
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| Hiltruper Fruhlingsfest |
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| Hiltruper Fruhlingsfest from the balcony |
Instead, we watched the game in the Tapas y Vino bar
directly below our apartment. It was
packed, but the owner let us sit at his family and friends table. He is from Peru and Dana and I always try to
unearth our previously learned Spanish while speaking with him. I was really encouraged
this evening that I got my order right (spoken in Spanish) when the others at
the table were asking me if I was Spanish.
Anyway, we made through the first half until Dylan was toast and needed
to go to bed.
I watched the second half online in the living room while
the concert outside played on (with nobody watching). For the final ten minutes of the game, the
concert actually stopped so the band members could watch the conclusion. Bayern scored in the 89th minute,
ripping my heart out in all too familiar fashion (a common theme, especially
for a Michigan State/Detroit sports fan).
I can’t recall a time when I was so sad about an outcome of a soccer
game. I sat in my chair dejected for the
next hour while the band played in the cold rain in front of about 8 dancing
Bayern fans. What made it really sad for
me was that this would very likely be Dortmund’s only chance at a Champions
League title while we are living in Germany.
I ate a full bag of cookies, which made be feel better.
Dylan turned four in the first week of June. I am going to save the ‘pimmelman’ for Dana
to write about, but his German is passing our understanding, and it can be
quite embarrassing for us. He is so
German that when we asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner, he
responded without hesitating, “Bratwursts, Pommes (French fries), and as much
ketchup as I want.” He is a funny
kid.
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| Dylans Birthday |
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| The aftermath |
Oma and Opa Mohr made it here yesterday and will be staying
with us for the next week. I have a full
week of vacation and hopefully a little time to catch up on some blog
posts. I have so much that I want to
write about, but so little time to type it.
Hopefully that changes this week.
Have a great week.
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