The Foltice Family Blog

DIY - New Chairs! Neue Stühle!

2012-01-30T10:31:00.000-05:00

About 9 months ago, Bryan came home from work with a huge cache of furniture he picked up on the side of the road, also known as Sperrmüle. Several times a year here each neighborhood of the city has a Sperrmüle day where everyone is allowed to toss their old furniture and large household items (old TVs, computers, broken vacuums, etc.) on the side of the road and over the next day or two different official departments will come and pick it up. Some trucks come through and only take appliances, others only take metal, wood, or plastic, etc. But, usually the night before the official collectors come there, there is a frenzy of activity in these neighborhoods where thrifty people sort through everything and find treasures to bring back to their homes. Until each neighborhood's Sperrmüle day, everyone is required to keep their old furniture in their house and it is absolutely not permitted to try to toss this stuff out with the regular garbage.

This one day, Bryan came home with several items - 4 dinner chairs, 2 night stands, and a small dresser. Since we know eventually we will move out of this apartment and need to furnish our own apartment, we have slowly been collecting things and taking advantage of Sperrmüle whenever we can. It always seems like Sperrmüle in our neighborhood falls on a super rainy day, and they're nothing worse than going through other people's ~~trash~~, I mean Sperrmüle, in the rain.

These chairs that Bryan brought home were in good condition structurally, but they were really ugly. The white paint was all scuffed up and the seat cushions looked like someone has systematically spilled a glass of apple juice on each one. Realizing that I spend a ridiculous amount of my down time zoning out to other people's DIY blogs, I thought surely I can put some of this knowledge to use and improve on some of this stuff that Bryan brought home. So, I focused my attention on the chairs.

Here is the before:

They were just really dingy and in need of a refresh. So gave them a fresh coat of white paint and recovered the seat cushions and voila! New chairs!

They're not perfect, but it was a good first effort at recovering a seat cushion and using spray paint. My next project is to give this little bookshelf a new paint job. Any color suggestions?

First Interview's in German

2012-01-24T05:17:00.000-05:00

Since I was 15, I have done somewhere between 200 and 300 interviews, mostly with the newspaper, but quite a few also for TV and radio. My best quote to date happened as a freshmen in high school when I said (talking about a really bad game I had played earlier in the season), 'I did everything wrong that game but pee my pants.' I received a package of Depends Men's diapers from a friend after making that remark.

Last weekend, I did something new in an interview: I spoke in a foreign language. (Actually, I tried to do a newspaper interview in Spanish down in Mexico after a basketball game a few years ago, but answered the reporters question about the game with an answer about how beautiful the city of San Cristobal was. My translator stepped in and did his job after that.)

Anyways, last Sunday evening after a tough loss to Recklinghausen, I sat down and spoke my friend Jan, who is a radio reporter for Radio WMW here in Borken. He started the first question in English and I answered in (very poorly spoken) German. We continued our dialogue in German for the next 10-15 minutes. Halfway through I even though to myself, 'which language are we speaking? Oh right, we are doing this in German and I am actually totally following along!' Well, not totally, but enough to keep going. I needed clarification (in English) on a couple of the questions, but overall it was conducted in German.

My embarrassment is for your pleasure. Poor Jan had to edit our 10-15 minute conversation down to 20 seconds of coherent sound bites. Here is the link of the interview if you want to hear it for yourself. It's only two minutes long.

22.01. Einem US-Basketballer gefällts im Kreis by user9198427

I followed up that interview the next morning with a short newspaper interview in German (ok, I needed some help with clarifying a couple questions there as well.) The article is attached here.

Since we are on the subject of basketball (something that isn't talked about on the blog too much.) Here is a quick update and a couple of pictures from the season.

The team that I play for, RC Borken, is currently 3-8. We had to forfeit the first game that we won because one of our players wasn't registered properly. Only in Germany can a clerical error cost a team a game. So instead of being 4-7, we are down at the bottom of the standings, trying to stay in the league. Remember: the last two teams in each division at the end of the season go down a league. If you win the championship, you move up a league. If this were the case in American football, the Detroit Lions would be playing at the High School Junior Varsity football level.

Hopefully, we can win a few more games the second time around (we have played each time once) in the new year.

The team that I coach is currently 7-4 halfway through the season and is tied for third place. We have been playing well at home, but our away games have been generally tough. We need to keep winning these next few games in order to have a shot at the Championship towards the end of the season.

Here are some photos from this season so far:

Bed head and unshaven. Sorry ladies, this guy's taken

Christmas Game with Saint Nikolas

I will pretend to say that this shot was not blocked by the guy with arms two feet longer than mine.

Fadeaway. I need to tuck the elbow in more.

Recklinghausen Game

Dortmund Game

Actually going to not shoot it for once.

Vet Time For Oscar

2012-01-21T07:53:00.000-05:00

I've been a terrible pet owner since moving to Germany. We've lived here for nearly 1.5 years and I have never once brought Oscar to the vet. I know, I know - it's probably technically animal abuse, so a few weeks ago I finally made an appointment and took Oscar to get his vaccines updated and to talk to the Dr. about his mysterious barfing.

What's that, you ask? Oh yea, Oscar barfs occasionally. Usually on the days when he refuses to eat breakfast, his stomach gets all nervous and acidy and he barfs bile. Most of the time he does it outside and there's almost always a crowd of school children nearby who get thoroughly grossed out. To keep the barfing at bay, several days a week I slip him a 1/4 Talcid pill (German for Pepcid AC) and that has taken his barfing down from nearly once a day to once or twice a month. The barfing started shortly after we moved here, and I think the plane ride so royally freaked him out that he's had a nervous stomach ever since.

Anyway, I had a of things to discuss with the doctor. Including the barfing and outdated vaccines, the Rathaus (city hall) has been sending me reminder letters to turn in something called a "Certificate of Competency." I think I was on my last notice before getting fined, so this was an important one. I had assumed that this was a certificate that the vet authorized certifying that Oscar wasn't a danger to society, but when I finally got my hands on this allusive form, I realized that it was a multiple choice quiz to prove that I am a competent dog owner. There were about 6-8 questions like the one below:

It is not possible to teach an old dog new tricks.
a) I completely agree with this statement.
b) I think you can teach an old dog new tricks, but it is easier to teach them when they are young.
c) I think you should always wait to train dogs until they are older because younger dogs are unable to learn.

Thankfully I passed the test and the vet certified me a competent dog owner - phew!

I mentioned the barfing to the vet, but he was really more concerned about the complete lapse of keeping Oscar's vaccine's updated. Not only did he give him all new shots, but we have to go back in a month and get the shots all over again. Procrastination stinks. When we go back in February for more shots, we'll tackle the barfing issue.

The other thing the vet issued was a Pet Passport, which I thought I already had. Note for people moving to the EU with a pet - the Pet Passport you get to bring your animal on an airplane is NOT the same as the Pet Passport that you need to get issued by a vet in your destination country. This new Pet Passport is where the vet keeps a record of Oscar's vaccines, his microchip number and other important details and we must bring it with us if we take Oscar into a different EU country. Oops - guess he's traveled illegally to Belgium and The Netherlands. Every time we go to the vet I need to bring this little passport with me so his records stay up-to-date.

Oscar's little vet trip only set us back 122 Euros, which is really not bad. I think a trip like this in the States would have cost several hundred dollars. The low cost made me wonder if the 80 Euros we pay each year in Hundesteuer (dog tax) goes to subsidize the vet bills. Any German reading this who knows the answer to that, please comment!

Christmas in Maryland

2012-01-14T15:28:00.000-05:00

Oh boy, it's taken a while to get back to the blog since our holiday in Maryland with my family. After being there for 3 weeks (and taking nearly a week to get re-adjusted to the timezone in Germany), it's about time something was put up regarding our trip there.

Here's a brief re-cap in pictures:

We took Dylan to Homestead Gardens to check out the train garden. He was bonkers about trains (and still is) for the rest of the trip.

Lots of fun (and some arguments) happened around the ping-pong table. Even Dylan wanted to get in on the action.

Although he preferred being spun around in Dad's office chair.

After being there for so many days Dylan tried to be "just like Oma" and insisted on standing like her, eating like her and imitating her.

Bryan and I snuck out and took the train to DC where was saw Jersey Boys from the front row in the National Theater.

Uncle Dan is always good for a laugh. Dylan is particularly impressed with his shenanigans.

One of Dylan's favorite Christmas presents came from Uncle Dan and Aunt Robyn - a fireman's costume! He walked around the house pretending to put out fires.

Santa gave all the ladies the same sunglasses.

We brought Dylan to the Baltimore Train Museum which had - you guessed it - more trains! We even took a train ride with Frosty the Snowman through what appeared to be the area of town that is the basis for the TV show The Wire. It was an odd train ride listening to happy holiday songs and seeing Frosty meet and greet with little kids, then to look out the window and see burnt out shells of buildings, crack houses and a dump slowly passing us by.

We managed to bring Dylan to a sports bar (God bless the iPad for keeping him occupied) so we could watch some college football bowl games.

My parents live on a golf course, so when the weather was nice enough - which was most days - Bryan would take Dylan out there to swing the club around .

Our good travel fortune had run out, however, when we headed back home to Germany because we incurred one of the worst and longest travel days I've ever experienced. It started out all right and Dylan even fell asleep on the airplane, which is in itself a small miracle. About 45 minutes before landing in Amsterdam the flight became really turbulent and by the time we landed at least three small children around us (thankfully not Dylan) were barfing their brains out in the loudest most grotesque way possible.

After getting off the plane we learned that all flights to Germany were cancelled due to high winds and we were instructed to pick up our luggage and retrieve train tickets for the rest of our journey. 3 hours later, we finally got our luggage and train tickets but proceeded to get on the wrong train. This, in my opinion, was not entirely our fault since pretty much everyone else from our flight who needed to get to Düsseldorf did the same thing. The Schipol train station had scheduled two trains to leave from the same gate 2 minutes apart going to the same destination, except one was faster than the other. There was no indication which was which, so we got on the first one to arrive ... which happened to be the slow one. It dropped us off in Utrecht 25 minutes after our train to Düsseldorf left, leaving us stuck there for 1.5 hours until the next train departed. Finally on that train, we got off in Oberhausen, then switched to Essen, then got on the train to Borken. Finally at the Borken train station we tossed all our luggage (3 large suitcases, 3 backpacks, 1 carry-on roller bag, 1 diaper bag, and 1 stroller) into a taxi and finally got home after about 27 hours of traveling. Dylan was a champion traveler until the very end and he pretty much screamed from pure exhaustion (voicing what Bryan and I were feeling) for the taxi ride and went right to bed when we got home.

It's no wonder it's taken us a full week to recover and get back on the right time schedule. Glad to be back in Germany and back to our normal routine. Stay tuned for new posts coming up soon!

Happy New Year - Our Year in Review

2011-12-30T08:00:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year to our readers. It has been an incredible year. Before we look to 2012, we wanted to recap some highlights of our year as well as our blog.

We have had quite an active year living in Germany. If it wasn't enough living in a foreign country, we did a bit of travel out of the country. This year, we have travelled to (to name a few):

Berlin (April)
America (May) Dana and Dylan only
Austria (June) Bryan only
Netherlands/Belgium/France (August)

In 2011, www.foltice.com has had nearly 5,000 unique visitors in 98 countries. What has started as a way to keep our friends connected to our adventures has become an opportunity to share our story with readers all over the world. We really enjoy hearing from everyone and we would like to see our interaction with our readers increase in 2012 (read: please comment more! We love to hear from you!).

With that being said, we would like to like to hear from you. What would you like to read more/less in the New Year on our blog?

Year in Review in Photos:

Karneval, Köln

Berlin Wall

Annapolis, Maryland

Dylan turns 2

Achensee, Austria

Pröbsting, Hoxfeld, Germany

Anholter Schweiz, Nature Park, Germany

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Brussels, Belgium

Nord Paz de Calais, France

Germany vs. Bosnia basketball game, Bremen, Germany

Oma and Opa come to visit, Borken, Germany

Oktoberfest, Munich

Edgewater, Maryland for Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Foltice Family

2011-12-24T11:16:00.000-05:00

We wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. It's been a great year filled with unforgettable memories. We are so blessed.

Foltice Family 2011

Everyone made it safely to America where we will be relaxing and spending time with Dana's family in the Washington DC area.

Pip's Doppleganger

2011-12-19T03:00:00.002-05:00

We recently found my brother Pip's (real name Derek) doppelgänger. We had to travel 4,000 miles to find him, but we saw this picture on the train from Borken to Essen. Needless to say, we had quite a good laugh and were really gald we brought our camera along. Enjoy.

As you can see from the pictures below, I may resemble hockey great Steve Yzerman, but compared to the match that we found for my brother, Stevey Y is not my doppelgänger. My doppelgänger remains at large.

5 Tips for Eating At a Restaurant In Germany

2011-12-16T03:11:00.004-05:00

Our monthly University staff meeting affords us a nice lunch at various restaurants in Munster. It's also a nice way to pick up on small nuances of eating a meal with my German colleagues. Based on these experiences, I have some small differences that I would like to pass on to Americans that may find themselves eating a meal at a restaurant with other Germans. Here are the top 5 tips in no particular order:

Conserve your Drink. There are no free refills here in Germany, even at a fast food restaurant. If you want another drink, it's fine. You will just pay full price for it. This is a tricky rationing situation, especially if you don't know how long a meeting will last. I usually allocate half of my drink to before receiving our food and the other half after we receive the food.
Don't drink the water. Not because it's harmful for your health, but because if you order a water, you will pay for a full bottle of tonic water. The water here is usually just as expensive, if not more than any other drink. There is no such thing as a free ice water here. I haven't asked for ice water directly, but I am pretty sure that the waiter would suggest that I take an empty cup to the bathroom if I really wanted a free water.
Don't use your hands...ever. This nearly killed me the first time we had pizza. In Germany, the pizza comes whole, not cut into slices. Germans eat pizza from the outside in, with a fork and knife. I tried this tactic for a short time until I became so frustrated that I finally grabbed a big chunk and said with my mouth full, 'Forget this. This is how you eat pizza.' The same rule applies to burgers. People eat their hamburgers with a knife and fork. At this point, I put my foot down and refused to even try eating a hamburger with utensils. I can't imagine people eating Five Guys Burgers with a knife and fork. I think they would get thrown out of the restaurant if someone would try.
Finish your food and don't ask for a doggy bag. It is quite normal that everyone at the table, I mean everyone, eats every scrap of food on the table. I am not sure if eating everything on their plate is a story passed down from the grandparents ala a Wiemar hyperinflation story. No matter how much food is dished out, it gets eaten. I got laughed at when I asked for doggy bag. It's possible to get a doggy bag if you ask, but it is not a typical request. I would advise against it.
If it's your party, you pay. Normally, if you are hosting a celebration (graduation or birthday) at a restuarant, the honorary person (new graduate or Birthday boy/girl) pays the bill. This shocked me at first when we had a dinner celebration for a two guys who received their Doctorates in the Finance Department. At the end of the meal, instead of the dinner party coming up with the money to pay the bill, the two new graduates grabbed the bill and paid for our night.

Are there any other tips that I am missing?

I know the first place I am going to eat when we land in America over Christmas..Five Guys.

That's how you eat pizza.

More Weird German Children's Books

2011-12-12T06:00:00.001-05:00

Dylan insisted on getting a book about police (Polizei) out from the local library. I glanced at the book but didn't really get a good look at it until we got home and Dylan sat on my lap so we could read it together. I know that culturally Germans are very frank, realistic people and I guess I should expect no less when it comes to discussing the harsh realities of police work in children's books.

Let's teach our kids about Crime Scene Investigation and forensic techniques as early as possible. My favorite (if you can see it) is the blood dripping from the broken glass in the window on the right.

Terror in the train station!

This is like one of those "See how many crimes you can spot!" games. Or just a regular day in a park in Germany.

A Conversation With Dylan - written by Bryan

2011-12-08T06:00:00.003-05:00

This past weekend, as I was trying to recover from being sick, Dylan kept pestering me to read to him. I finally relented, but instead of reading a book about Bears or Cars, I read what I was reading, Crisis Economics, by Nouriel Roubini. Yes, readers, this is what I actually read for leisure.

Anyway, after I stopped reading my book for a while (he actually listened as I read why credit default swaps should be more regulated...are you listening Occupy Wall Street people?) we had a short but interesting conservation about what Dylan wants to be when he grows up.

To preface the two occupational choices that I gave Dylan, you must know that Dylan loves to count and he loves to pray. His prayer is adorable and he says it in German before we eat and before he goes to bed - "Dear Jesus, Danke schön für alles. Ich liebe dich. Amen."

Me: Dylan, what do you want to be when you grow up? Do you want to work in finance like Daddy, or maybe be a banker?
Dylan: Umm, I don't know.
Me: You could be a pastor and pray for people.
Dylan: No, Daddy. Mess with people.
Me: So you want to be a banker, then.
Dylan: Umm, Yes.

Date Night at the Essen Christmas Market

2011-12-06T04:03:00.001-05:00

Every date night is a reason to rejoice, but Bryan and I were particularly looking forward to our most recent date night in Essen for the Christmas Market. Dylan's babysitter came at 4:00 on Friday afternoon and we caught the 4:30 train to Essen. It always amazes us how close we are to nice, big cities like Essen, Münster, Dusseldorf and Cologne. And hour train or bus ride in any direction and we're in a pretty cool destination. And hour traveling in any direction in Jacksonville and we'd be, well ... probably still somewhere in Jacksonville.

Essen's Christmas market is very large and beautiful. Unlike Münster's and Cologne's markets where there are 5-7 mini-markets set up around the city, Essen's market all seems to wind its way through the main shopping district but always remains connected. So instead of traipsing through a large city on a cold day to multiple smaller markets, Essen's is one very large market that seemingly never ends.

Plus it has this:

I really wanted to go on this ferris wheel but Bryan distracted me with Glühwein and shopping, so we were pretty much in Dorsten (half way home) by the time I remembered that I wanted to go on the ferris wheel. Bryan has a selective fear of heights. He gets all willy-nilly at the top of the Eiffel Tower or on a ferris wheel, but his acrophobia miraculously disappears when it's time to go on roller-coasters or do something that he wants to do.

Anyway, our first order of business at the Essen Christmas Market was to get Bryan a wurst. This wasn't a difficult task because I think there is some Christmas Market Law that requires every 5th booth to be a wurst + pommes (Bratwurst + French Fry) stand. Our second order of business was to have a Glühwein (hot, spiced wine), which I'm easing myself back into drinking after a particularly embarrassing episode during last year's Christmas market where someone thought it was a good idea to give me a "bottomless cup" of Glühwein that turned into quite a debacle (Borken basketball people, you know what I'm talking about). German readers who aren't familiar with the American expression "bottomless cup" - it means free refills. This year to keep it under control (and avoid the worst possible hangover ever), we limited ourselves to two-cups each.

Bryan about to enjoy his bratwurst.

Less than 10 minutes later while I was buying the Glühwein, Bryan snuck off and returned a few minutes later with a second bratwurst.

Dear Glühwein, It took me 11 months to forget what you did to me last December. I forgive you. We can be friends again, but I will only take you in small doses.

We then spent the next 3 hours wandering from booth to booth, exploring the different kinds of Christmas decorations, jewelry, chocolate and other goods. A lot of factors went into this probably being my most favorite Christmas Market experience yet. I mean, leaving Dylan at home with a babysitter is enough alone to push this experience to the top of the list, but that combined with the size of this market, the good weather and the festive atmosphere made Essen's market one that I'll want to return to next year.

No, that is not a booth going up in flames behind me. The camera was doing weird tricks with the nighttime lighting.

If I ever forget that I'm in a foreign country, all I have to do is look at the names on these cups. Dieter, Ingo, Felix, Janus... Bryan said "Hey look, there's a Brian. Oh no wait, that says 'Biano.' Nevermind."

Our (Absent) Thanksgiving

2011-12-03T04:33:00.000-05:00

It has been a really busy fall season. Between school, basketball, and family, there hasn't been much else going on. It has been one big juggling act. I am actually typing this post on the bus heading to Münster, so if the post abruptly ends, you will know the exact point where I throw up coffee in a sweet old German lady's lap.

I have had basketball 5-6 nights a week for the past few weeks and am really in need of a break. Both my body and Dana are at the 'this schedule needs to end' point. We will get a long break over Christmas when we head back to America for the holidays. The schedule, once we get past January, should not be so hectic.

I am currently taking two classes, Econometrics and Experiments for the Phd program. While the experiments class is no major cause for stress, the econometrics class is a bear. Both of these classes are taught in English, though the Econometrics class might as well be in Greek. Oh wait, it is. If attrition is any indicator on how a class is going, we started the class with 25-30 students, and now are down to 10 as of the last class. It doesn't help that the class starts on Friday morning at 8:30 am in Münster. Unfortunately, I have basketball practice every Thursday night until 10 pm. That means, I don't get home until 10:30 pm and I usually don't get to sleep until 12-1am. My classmates must think I have a major drinking/and/or smoking problem when they see my puffy, red eyes every Friday morning.

The class that I am teaching, a Master's level Behavioral Finance class, is done with the class material and will be having the final exam in the middle of December. Here in Germany, it is typical to only have one comprehensive exam at the end of the semester that counts for 100% of the grade. The 60-70 exams will be waiting for me to be graded when we come back from America after the New Year.

Thanksgiving came and went in a blur. I taught the final Behavioral Finance class on Thanksgiving morning and had an away basketball game on Thursday night. We weren't able to have Thanksgiving dinner or watch any football. Fail.

The good news about not celebrating Thanksgiving in Europe is that Europeans get to jump into full Christmas mode earlier. In America, you usually wait to bring the Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. Or, in my parents case, on December 22 at the last minute. Here, we brought out our Weinnachtsbaum (Christmas tree) and our very few Christmas decorations the weekend before Thanksgiving. Christmas markets started here around November 20^th, and as you can see from Dana's previous post, it's impossible not to get into the Christmas mood when you have to walk through a Christmas market every day to get to the bus stop. Dana even has 4 different Christmas cookie batches under her belt. We both know that Christmas=break=sleep, which is probably why we are in the Christmas spirit so soon.

There are more things I would like to write about, like how I missed 4 free throws in two games or Dana's 6 month review of her role as Residential CFO of Foltice, Inc, but we will have to wait for the next bus ride.

Here is Dylan reading Frosty the Snowman. This "audio book" is narrated by his Oma and Papa, so every time Dylan opens it up he thinks he is talking to grandparents.

Our Christmas tree.

Here is Dylan "helping" Dana in the kitchen. By "help" I mean "eat cookie dough and lick the beaters."

Borken's Christmas Market over Thanksgiving weekend.

Dylan got to ride the lion on the carousel. No other seat would do - it absolutely HAD to be the lion. He actually waited a round or two until the lion was available.

He got to ride the lion once a day for the duration of the Christmas Market. He was really sad when we walked through town the Monday after the market was over and the lion was gone.

More Borken Christmas Market...

This is one happy little boy ... last time on the lion until next year.

German Things that Make Me Giggle

2011-11-29T09:14:00.001-05:00

Living in a foreign country is wrought with oddities and differences that sometimes leave me (Dana) shaking my head and other times just make me giggle. I snapped some photos around town this past week so I could share some of those things.

This sign translates roughly to "Have a good trip" but seeing signs like this one around Germany bring out the middle-schooler in me and I always giggle.

Here's what I imagine the brainstorming session was like for the people at Simba when they created these trampy dolls:

Marketing Guy 1: Dolls these days just aren't slutty enough. Let's give our new Mystic dolls goth chokers and mesh skirts.
Marketing Guy 2: Ohhh, neon fishnet stockings are really in right now. Except lets reinstate the mis-matched, one-high one-low fad.
Marketing Guy 1: Yea, and they each should have a rabid, feral looking pet cat.
Marketing Guy 2: These dolls look good, but something is still missing.
Marketing Guy 1: I've got it! A thigh tattoo!
Marketing Guy 2: That's sooooo hot.

This is a very literal translation to how I feel in the morning before I have my coffee.

Wall Street to Americans means the epicenter of finance and investing, but here in Borken Wall Street (or Wallstraße) is literally the street that has the town wall on it.

This is an ad for eyeglasses, but I'm so distracted by the dorky guy with the long red hair and full beard wearing tight red pants that I can't imagine this ad brings many customers into the shop.

Dylan was looking at the newspaper with Bryan and came across this article about a man who has more than 400 body piercings. Always ready to state the obvious, Dylan points at him and simply says "Big mess." Yes, son, a big mess indeed.

Kicking Off the Christmas Markets in Münster

2011-11-24T11:38:00.000-05:00

One of my absolute favorite things about living in Germany is the wonderful Christmas markets every November/December. Knowing that the Christmas Markets are coming makes the cold weather and short days almost tolerable. And by the way, the days here are crazy short. Way shorter than in Michigan or Florida or anywhere else we've lived. (Borken is 51 degrees latitude whereas Grand Rapids, Michigan is only 42 degrees latitude - we're almost 10 whole degrees further north on the globe which means 6 hours of day light in the winter and 18 hours of daylight in the summer).

Anyways, I've been desperate for a day where I can do some shopping just be out of the house by myself without dragging Dylan around with me. Because sometimes I just really need some time where I can dawdle and peruse shops at my own leisure without having to bribe Dylan to sit still and be quiet with brötchen or Gummie Bears. Bryan came to the rescue and on Monday night suggested that he stay home with Dylan on Tuesday so I can go to the Münster Christmas Market ganz allein. I was so excited for my day away that I got to the bus station at least 20 minutes early because I just couldn't handle sitting around our house any longer.

I got into Münster around 11:30, just after the Christmas Markets opened up for the day, so I got a really good slow tour of all the booths without having to jostle my way through any crowds. The booths featured toys, jewelry, Christmas decorations and lots and lots of food. The one thing the Christmas Market was missing, however, was music. It seemed really strange to have all these Christmasy booths selling Christmasy things but there was no Christmas music being played ... anywhere. And since I was there first thing in the morning, there weren't too many people around so it was kind of quiet. But I did still prefer the silence to the usual constant questioning from Dylan of "Whatareyoudoing, Mommy? Whatareyoudoing, Mommy?" and "What's that? What's that? What's that?"

After I got my fill of the Christmas Market I managed to spend some time going into stores that I usually don't get to go into because they either have breakable things in them or they have women's clothes in them, or both. The funny things about the stores in Münster is that they have names that either sound like clown name (Nanu Nana, Bibo) or they are a complete mouthful to say (Peek & Cloppenburg, Applerath-Cüpper) but are nonetheless fun to shop at.

By 3:30 I was wiped out and made my way back to the bus stop to being the hour long journey back to Borken. I must say that after taking the bus to Münster there and back, I have a lot more compassion and empathy for Bryan's daily commute. The ride alone is pretty tiring, and I spent the day shopping and lolligagging around town. I can't image doing it every day for work.

Here are some photos from my big day out:

Love, Love, LOVE the Christmas Markets!

The market huts get so pretty at night (or when the sun sets at 2pm) with all the lights and festive decorations.

Most scenic street to shop on.

The entrance to one of the larger markets in Münster

A view from above. Yes, I did get strange looks when I barged into a restaurant, took pictures out the window then left, narrowly missing a big collision with a waiter carrying a full armload of food.

Yummy falafel sandwich

I thought these polkadot rain boots were cute, but they were 189 Euros. Ummm, no thanks. This was one of those stores where everything was adorable in that thrift store / homemade kind of way, but nothing cost less than 100 Euros.

My favorite little Münster street artist is probably crazy rich. His Münster-themed paintings are really cool, but one of his little 10x10 centimeter paintings is 89 Euros. He's always doing business, so I'm pretty sure he lives in a penthouse on the Prinzipalmarkt.

The "Occupy" movement has come to Münster. The sign says the demonstration is for "Democracy, No Criminalization, Against Exploitation, Suppression and Fighting." There were about 10 really cold looking people with tents near the sign.

Dylan's "Cars" Obsession

2011-11-18T06:00:00.002-05:00

Dylan is completely obsessed with the Disney/Pixar movie Cars these days. When Bryan went back to the States in September he returned with the Cars DVD, which we watch in 30-45 minute installments with Dylan, usually during dinner time so Dylan doesn't interrupt us while we try to enjoy our meal. The unintended outcome is that Dylan is bonkers about this movie and all its characters.

Since Dylan speaks 1/3 English, 1/3 German and 1/3 unintelligible-Dylan-speak, he references all things Cars as "Auto Movie." I'm pretty sure if you said to him "Dylan, do you want to watch Cars?" he'd have no idea what you were talking about, but if you said "Want to watch Auto Movie?" he'd go completely bananas. He also only refers to Lightning McQueen (the red one) as "Daddy Auto" and Sally (the blue one) as "Mommy Auto" which is just pretty darn adorable. The only character he gets right is "Mater" the tow truck.

Do you see the theme here?

He also does a really funny thing with his toy tractors after seeing the movie. If you haven't seen Cars, the characters go tractor tipping (like cow tipping), which Dylan thinks is absolutely hilarious. He now does this with all of his tractors:

He even pretends his Tonka Tow Truck is "Mater" from the movie.

This is the scene from Cars or 'Auto Movie' that he is constantly trying to emulate.

St. Martin's Day Lantern Parade

2011-11-16T10:17:00.000-05:00

Last Friday, November 11, was St. Martin's Day (Martinstag) in Germany. This was a completely new holiday for us to celebrate and we had no idea who St. Martin was and why we should celebrate him. In fact, now that the holiday is over, our education about St. Martin and why the German Kindergarteners love to celebrate him is still a little fuzzy, but I'll give it my best shot at explaining.

St. Martin was a Roman soldier who was baptized as an adult and later became a monk and eventually the Bishop of Tours (whatever that means). His is famous primarily for two things. 1) Cutting his cloak in half and giving it to a street beggar to save him from freezing to death and 2) not wanting to be a bishop so badly that he hid in a barn, but a bunch of geese made too much noise and he was discovered. This is why Germans traditionally eat geese on St. Martin's Day, I guess, to eternally punish them for outing St. Martin's hiding spot.

I'm still not really sure why children make paper lanterns and go on a little around-the-block parade in the evening - maybe it's to symbolize the hunt for St. Martin while he was hiding in the goose barn? Not sure. Martinstag is also the official beginning of Karneval season, so perhaps the children's parade is a precursor to the many Karneval parades in the future. Maybe a German reader can comment on this post and clarify the reason for the parade and the lanterns.

Anyway, I was determined to take part in a Martinstag parade with Dylan, primarily so I could blog about it since I promised our readers for more frequent updates. I didn't start out very well, though, because I completely blew the assignment to help Dylan make a lantern for his play group. The day all the kids were supposed to finger paint their lanterns (two paper bowls that will be stapled together to make an orb) Dylan flat out refused to participate. I guess art projects just aren't his thing. So the teacher sent me home with the bowls and told me to get Dylan to decorate them somehow and bring them back to the next class. Since I'm terrible at understanding German, I comprehended the "Get Dylan to decorate these" instructions, but missed the "and bring them back to the next class" part. So when we got home, I knew the only thing Dylan was going to do with these paper bowls is wear them on his head and pretend they're hats, so I threw them away. At the next play group, another mom asked me if Dylan's lantern was ready and I just looked at her blankly as she held up her son's two decorated bowls and then it dawned on me that I had thrown away Dylan's first-ever homework assignment. They managed to find some surplus supplies and make a new lantern for Dylan, which he had completely destroyed along with the battery powered lantern light that I had bought him by 6pm that same night - 3 days prior to the actual Martinstag.

I still wanted to see what this parade was all about, so our local tourism office told me when the Kindergartens were having their parades, so one evening last week Dylan, Oscar and I just showed up to a random school's Martinstag parade and pretended like we were supposed to be there. I'm pretty sure the other parents were whispering to each other:

"Who's that lady over there? Why doesn't her kid have an elaborately decorated lantern like ours? Is her son in your kid's class? No? Mine either. That's really creepy to show up at a nighttime children's parade at a school where your kid doesn't even attend. Let's move over here and get away from her."

The parade wasn't all that exciting. There was a high school kid dressed in a red cape wearing a silver helmet who was supposed to be St. Martin, and there was a brass band that played music while all the kids and parents sang songs about lanterns. We then took a very cold walk around the neighborhood and when we got back to the school all the kids and parents went inside for refreshments. I was tempted to crash the refreshment party too, but since I had Oscar with me I thought it would be better to just go home. Here are some photos:

Here is Dylan eating pretzels in his stroller watching all the kids with their lanterns.

Everyone getting ready for the parade.

St. Martin in the red cape.

Parade of lanterns.

Back from Hiatus

2011-11-08T09:53:00.000-05:00

Well, this is embarrassing. It's been almost a month since anything new has been posted here, and definitely a month since I've contributed. I wish that I could say the absence of blogging has to do with all of the awesome things we've been doing, but alas, that is not true. Truthfully, the reason we haven't been posting much is that we just haven't really done much - but that's going to change! We have a lot of things lined up from now through the end of the year, so stay tuned.

But until those things happen, here's a lame recap of what we've been up to:

Bryan
Bryan is never sure what day it is - he is just working all the time. He has school/work all day and basketball every night. Starting yesterday, Bryan will go about 25 days without any days off. Don't expect to hear a lot from Bryan.

Dana
I got a new Kindle for my birthday and haven't been doing much of anything now that I have an endless supply of books at my disposal. This is probably the primary reason why I haven't been blogging. That, and we were kind of broke in October and didn't have any money to do anything worth blogging about. We saved money by becoming "Weekday Vegetarians" and we only ate meat on the weekends. Bryan was so busy with work, he didn't even notice that he was a vegetarian.

Dylan
Dylan keeps us occupied with his 2-year-old nonsense. He's ridiculously fussy about his clothes and somedays just flat out refuses to wear pants altogether. I bought him a bunch of new clothes recently because he grew out of all his old ones, but he will only wear about 25% of them. I can usually find a shirt that he is willing to put on, but pants are a big challenge and it's nearly impossible to hold him down and force pants on him. He's a strong little kid.

His favorite thing right now is anything that has to do with Disney's Cars movie, which he refuses to call "Cars" and instead calls "Auto Movie." He goes around the house all day pretending to be a race car and saying "Ka-Chow!" over and over again, like Lightning McQueen does in the movie.

We're also working on potty training Dylan, which so far is going really well as long as Dylan doesn't have pants on. If he runs around here completely naked on his bottom half, he will go in the "Big Boy Potty" every time and not have any accidents. So his refusal to wear pants most days is actually working in our favor, unless there is somewhere that we really need to go. In that case, his screams from being force-dressed are really brutal and our neighbors probably think we're torturing him.

Oscar
Oh yeah, we still have a dog. I almost forgot. We call him "Oscar Afterthought" for a reason - he doesn't get much of our attention these days, but all in all Oscar is good.

My little man in his all-time favorite shirt. Tie-dye with tractors on it - classic!

Dylan was learning how to use a baseball glove. We've taken the baseball away from him, though, after he ran into a room where I was using the computer and flung it at me, nearly smashing the computer screen.

This might be the first picture we've taken of Oscar since Dylan was born 2 years ago.

Running around the castle moat...

Dylan was very proud of himself to ride on the back of a Lion while wearing his Lion's sweatshirt.

I also took a photo of Dylan in the same spot as one from last year to see a good comparison of how much he's grown ... take a look:

Last year, October 2010

This year, October 2011

Foltice Fehlt (Missing)

2011-10-15T04:47:00.000-04:00

Our local newspaper here in Borken hit the nail on the head with the headline last week, ‘Foltice Fehlt’ (Foltice missing.) That has been the story of my life over the last few weeks.

It all started with the news that my Grandpa Foltice passed away. After hearing the news on a Friday, I became really homesick for the entire weekend. It was the first time truly becoming homesick and, after spending a full year in Germany without travelling back to America, it finally hit…hard.

That Monday afternoon, I received permission from my boss to go to Michigan and booked a flight to Detroit that had me leaving the next afternoon. Unfortunately, the flight left so early in the morning out of Düsseldorf that I had to spend the night in Düsseldorf the night before (trains don’t go out that early in the morning.) Monday evening, after running home and packing, I was on a train to Düsseldorf.

Fast forward to Tuesday night, after 23 hours of travel, I found myself in Byron Center, Michigan, trying to remember which townhome is my brother’s girlfriend’s house is. I made 3 guesses, all of them wrong, to which house was hers. At 11pm, I am sure I was an instant hit with the neighbors. My brother finally heard my voice through an open window and let me in.

Most of my week was spent either with family or doing work at various Biggby Coffee shops around town. I was still able to get a lot of work done on their free WiFi Internet while drinking a lot of their strong coffee. Between the jet lag, busy schedule, and sleep deprivation, the rest of the week was kind of a blur.

Sunday afternoon, I was back on a plane to Düsseldorf. I landed in Germany at 8am on Monday morning after the ‘red eye’ flight from Detroit. I took the train directly to Münster and went straight to work. I made it back to Borken late in the afternoon on Monday and somehow got to basketball practice on time at 8pm.

I tried to see Dana and Dylan as much as possible over the next 2 days, because on Thursday, I was back on a plane to Münich (Regensburg) for the German Finance Conference.

Regensburg

More Regensburg

Regensburg was beautiful (about 1 hour south of Münich) and the conference was very interesting. By the end of the conference, I noticed that all of the young (and female) student assistants would blush and smile when I would walk past them. I thought, for a moment, maybe by comparison to other finance academics, that they thought I was cute.

I was quickly reminded that, on Friday night, as we were heading into a meeting, I said in German to one of the assistants holding a sign close to the entrance, ‘I am getting warm.’ As in, her sign was helping me get warmer to the ultimate hiding place. ‘Red Hot!’ ‘Red Hot!’ ‘You’re on fire!’

What I didn’t know was that ‘I am getting warm’ to a German is a highly sexual phrase that I would rather not elaborate too much on it. Apparently, that comment was passed on and that’s why they would blush/laugh at me.

I missed the first basketball game of the season on Saturday night. Both teams (the team that I play for and the team that I coach) ended up winning, though the team I play for had to forfeit the game due to a 'clerical' error. Evidently, one of our players wasn't registered with the league, so we had to forfeit our win.

Sunday morning, we left Regensburg and tried to take the train back to Münich. The train was so full of Oktoberfest revelers (it was the last day of Oktoberfest) that we couldn’t even step onto the train and were forced to share a taxi (there were 8 of us) to get to Münich. Although it was more expensive to take the taxi, about 25 Euros each, it was a much more comfortable ride compared to the packed train of already drunk people.

We made it to Münich in time for our Oktoberfest tent reservation. One of my colleagues reserved a table for us from 11am to 3pm in one of the tents, (die Armbrustschützenzelt) or ‘crossbow shooting’ tent, to be exact. 4 hours was more than enough to capture the Oktoberfest mood and I was happy that we weren’t there for any longer. We made it back to the train station just in time to pick up our luggage and get on the direct train to Münster within one minute of its departure.

Heading into the 'Cross-Bow Tent'

Inside

For some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to ride the really high swings. At least I was able to take a good picture.

Heading out on the way to the train station

Overall, I was pleased that Oktoberfest was not totally a tourist trap, overrun with drunk American tourists. Although it wasn’t nearly as fun as Karnival in Cologne, it was still a good experience to do one time (for four hours).

Sunday night at 11:55pm, we arrived in Münster. Monday was ‘German Unification Day’ so the first bus that ran from Münster to Borken wasn’t until 10 am. Finally, around noon, I made it home to Borken to see Dana and Dylan. I think Dana was just as exhausted as me after the last two weeks of taking care of Dylan without a break.

Since then, we’ve gotten back into somewhat of a routine (that involves me in some capacity) and life is back to normal…(well, as normal as it possibly could be, all things considered.)

German Children's Books Are Weird

2011-10-12T03:22:00.000-04:00

What's going on with the cow and the goat?

I got this book for Dylan at the library so he can learn both the English and German names for animals. We were going through the farm animals and Dylan said "P-U moo-moo-cow!" I said to him "Yes, Dylan. Moo-moo-cows can be stinky." And he said "No Mommy, P-U moo-moo-cow!" and he pointed to the cow's rear end where it is clearly peeing. We had the same conversation about the goat. The German children's books certainly don't gloss over the details about bodily functions, especially with farm animals.

Family Fun with Oma and Papa!

2011-09-25T10:34:00.000-04:00

Oh dear, I have really been neglecting this blog.

All week long I've been meaning write this post and put up these pictures, but I've been majorly procrastinating everything. My parents were here all last week (Sept. 10-19) and when they left on Monday, Bryan left also. Sadly his grandpa passed away and he went back to Michigan for the week to be with his family. Dylan and I went from having a very full house of people to a very quiet house. Better late than never, I suppose.

On the day that my parents arrived, Dylan and I went to his buddy's birthday party in the morning while Bryan went to the airport to fetch my parents. By the time we came home from the party, I knew my parents would be at our place, so I kept saying to Dylan that Oma and Papa would be at our house when we got home, but he didn't really believe me. As we climbed the stairs to our apartment Dylan began chanting "Oma, Papa, Oma, Papa, Oma, Papa" with every step. As we opened the door, my dad was standing there and Dylan froze in complete shock that he was actually here. Then he started pointing and shouting "Papa! Papa! Mommy, Papa's here! Papa's here!" He then set out to find my Mom who was upstairs resting from the long trip, and we all climbed up the stairs and Dylan in pure elation of having both his Oma and Papa here literally jumped up and down for joy.

Dylan was quick to show Papa his basketball skills, which he still calls "shots." It's pretty funny to have your two-year-old constantly telling you that he wants to go do shots, but we understand he means basketball and not vodka.

This is the only family photo that we got, which was taken just a few hours after Mom and Dad got off the plane. I had told them over and over again to plan for fall weather and the day they arrived it was in the 80s. Good thing they each brought one pair of shorts.

Our friends loaned us some bikes for my parents so we could all take bike rides together. Our first day we headed out to Hoxfeld / Probsting area to the playground.

Dylan got really revved up going down the big slide with my dad. Both of them had dirty pants from going down the slide so many times.

We also enjoyed a picnic. Check out Mom and I both making sure Dylan doesn't spill his cup of juice.

Bryan had a basketball scrimmage that we all went to and Mom and Dad got to see how attending one of Bryan's games doesn't actually mean that you get to watch the game. I estimate that in the 40 minutes of game time, I get to really watch about 10 minutes of it and the rest of the time is spent keeping Dylan from running out onto the court.

Oma and Papa brought Dylan some new books to read. He loves his "Little Golden" books, especially when Papa reads them.

Against our advice, Dad tried to teach Dylan how to use the iPad. Mom and I would snicker each time we could hear him in the kitchen with Dylan saying "No, Dylan. Gently." and then we'd see Dylan stab his finger into the screen like he was trying to break through to the other side. Good idea, Dad.

We took a nice bike ride to the Schloss Gemen and Dylan had a monster temper tantrum. He wanted me to carry him the entire lap around the castle and when I wouldn't he laid like this in the middle of the path and screamed for about 15-20 minutes. It was hard not to laugh at him, so we took this picture.

We were able to get a babysitter for an entire afternoon and evening so the four of us went into Dusseldorf and left Dylan at home. We did a semi pub crawl and tried 4 different kinds of Alt Bier (special to Dusseldorf) and had a delicious schnitzel dinner and enjoyed wandering around the city.

Dusseldorf's riverwalk along the Rhein is really nice, especially when you don't have to chase a very fast toddler through the crowds.

While Bryan was busy at work, the four of us rode our bikes on a super windy day to Raesfeld to check out the castle.

One .. . two ... three ... swing! This never gets old to Dylan.

Wherever Papa was, Dylan wanted to be also. If he sat down, Dylan sat down. If he went upstairs, Dylan followed. If he went into the bathroom and didn't lock the door, Dylan was coming in ready to say "What are you doing, Papa?"

Sometimes the only way to get Dylan to look in the direction of the camera is to hold out something in front of him (like keys, candy, etc.).

A familiar pose in photos with Dylan is holding him back so he won't run away when the photo is snapped.

We also rode our bikes to Ramsdorf where we walked around town for a while. To Dylan, this was a really big rock.

On Friday, we went into Muenster and walked along the promenade while Bryan worked. Dylan's favorite park here has an old airplane that you can climb in and pretend to fly. He's a very demanding little kid, so he climbed up the ladder and shouted "Papa! Oma! Sit down!!" and he had all of us sitting in the tiny little seats while he "flew" the plane.

Dylan and Oma flying the plane.

At any given moment throughout the day, Dylan would drop everything and shout "Papa! PRACTICE!" And he would drag my Dad into his room and close the door and make him practice basketball and golf with him. My poor Dad was not allowed to leave the room, and although Oma and Bryan were allowed in, Mommy (me!) was definitely not invited in the room. Dylan created a special little club in there, but whenever I tried to come in and see what they were doing he would shout "No, Mommy! Close the door!" and shove me out and slam the door in my face. Now that no one is here anymore, I'm invited to "practice" but it was kind of nice to be Dylan's least favorite playmate that week.

Roughhousing with Papa - the highlight of Dylan's week.

We had a fantastic week, and thankfully fantastic weather the whole time. It was so sad on Monday morning when Dylan woke up and immediately asked for Oma and Papa and I had to tell him that they had to go home. He took it really well and seemed to understand, but every day this entire week the first thing he says when he gets up in the morning is "Papa here? Oma here?" We're already looking forward to Christmas when we'll get 3 whole weeks at Oma and Papa's house.

5/6 of the Way To Being a World Traveler

2011-09-12T03:53:00.000-04:00

I can’t remember exactly where I saw this definition, but I have always defined being a world traveler by how many different languages you can order a drink/food. Based on this definition, if you can order drinks/food in six or more different languages, then you are a 'real' world traveller. I realize this is far from the truth, but I can’t help but define our travel experiences by adding as many new languages as possible to that number. That is part of what made our recent trip so exciting. I was able to get two steps closer to becoming a world traveler (as defined by me).

Learning how to order something is really easy, though sometimes pronouncing it correctly is the difficult part. You really just need to learn six words: hello, one, two, three, please, and thank you. Learning these six simple words enables you to order up to 3 things from anywhere at any time. If our family grows, then I would have to learn the number four as well.

Netherlands (Dutch)- ‘Hallo, een bier alstublieft’ (Hello, one beer please.)

After you receive the beer, you say, ‘Dank je weil.’ It’s as easy as that. Unfortunately, I got the ‘please’ pronunciation wrong while practicing at the Rotterdam ‘HM’ store and needed to have the cashier write out the correct pronunciation on a blank piece of paper, which kind of looked like I was getting her phone number from Dana’s standpoint across the store.

When I finally got the pronunciation right at a 'Quick' fast food restaurant (Quick is a McDonald's like burger chain as well as one of the few places that accepts 2 year olds) I did a huge fist pump, shouted 'yeah, baby!' and startled the cashier as I lunged over the counter to give her a high five.

Belguim/France (French) – Bonjour (Hello) S'il vous plaît (please), merci (thank you), un, deux, trois (one, two, three)

I got this one correct on the first try and even had the waitress believing that I was a fluent speaker. That ended when the final tab came and I gave her the ‘I don’t understand you’ blank stare that we have now perfected over the past 12 months.

No high fives were exchanged in Belgium or France (they are not really the high fiving type of people, in general), but I was able to easily tick French off the world traveler list.

This means that I officially have 5 languages (English, Spanish, German, French, and Dutch) down and 1 more to go before officially becoming (in my own mind) a world traveller.

Basketball Season has begun. Our first regular season game is Oct. 1

Now this is a care package. It had something for everyone, including Oscar. Thanks Amy.

I end this post with two questions: 1. Are there any other world traveler benchmarks to be striving for? 2. Should your native language count as one of the 6 languages? I already know Dana's answer for #2.

One Year German Update- This is More Difficult Than We Thought

2011-09-02T08:36:00.003-04:00

Germany vs. Bosnia. Yup, we had pretty good seats, though we didn't meet Leonardo DiCaprio or Jack Nicholson sitting court side.

Chris Kaman and his awesome wife, Emilie: My only friend who signs autographs for me after hanging out.

Our one year anniversary of living in Germany is fast approaching and my day of reckoning is drawing near. What do I mean by 'Day of Reckoning?' Let me take a step back and fill you in.

Last year, when we first arrived in Borken, there was a press conference set up for the local newspapers about us coming to live in Borken and play for the basketball club, RC Borken. We arrived in Düsseldorf the morning of September 10, and the press conference was in the evening on our first day there.

I don't know if it was the jet lag or the excitement of living in a new country, but the first statement I blurted out at the press conference was quite bold. I confidently opended up the press conference by declaring, 'I fully intend to do this press conference next season totally in German.' Everyone nodded their head in approval and wrote it down on their notepads. I was convinced in my mind that this wouldn't be any problem whatsoever.

That was when I believed that I would have German mastered in 6 to 9 months. The extra 3 months would give me time to really perfect my German speaking and listening comprehension. Maybe I could even learn some big words that would really impress the writers.

In the following months, I found out that learning German is not something that can be achieved in 6-9 months (at least not for me). In fact, I have been told by other native English speakers living in Germany that it's closer to 2-3 years before you even start to feel comfortable trying to speak German. I believe them. Learning the language has proven to be a very long and difficult process.

At this point, I am known as a 'streaky' German speaker/comprehender. That means I sometimes have good days and sometimes really bad days.  There are days when I track (most) everything that's being said and can respond with the appropriate answer in German.   The very next day, I could be talking to the exact same person and I will not understand a thing they are saying. The worst part about being so streaky is that if someone sees me on a good day, they don't believe me when I tell them I have no idea what they are saying.

Here is our 1 year German assessment, broken down to 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses.

Strengths

Getting Around Town - This has become fairly easy for us. We can perform most basic communications with other people around town and feel comfortable doing so. Returning something at the department store is no longer a terrfiying experience that keeps us up at night and getting our haircut is not a nightmare anymore.

This is still far from perfect. Just last week while at the grocery store, as I put my bottle of water and soda on the conveyer belt, the cashier was saying something to me about a sign at the end of her lane. I asked her to repeat what she said (this actually sometimes works now) but I still couldn't understand. I then went into 'assumption' mode and tried to anticipate what she was saying. Did she want me to leave the line? Did she want me put the bottles upright on the conveyer belt?

I put the bottles upright on the belt, but that didn't stop the cashier from wagging her finger at her sign at the end of the lane. Finally, I just looked at her and said in plain English, 'I have no idea what you are saying.'

The cashier huffed, and finally a 60 year old guy standing in line spoke in very clear English, 'she was wondering if you could make sure her 'closed' sign was in place.'

I checked the end of the line and, yes, the sign was in place. I gave her the nod of approval and that was all she needed.

When it was finally my turn in line, she didn't give me the total, she just faced the screen that said, '€1.35' at me. It was like my first day in Germany.  Very embarrassing.

Basketball

Again, this is far from perfect, but I am now able to understand a lot of what we talk about at basketball practice. Because 95% of basketball practice is in German, I get a lot of good listening and speaking practice. Additionally, I can ask questions about basketball in German and understand the answers. I am always surprised when I try to explain a drill in German when I am coaching and the players actually do what I intended them to do.

Small Talk

Basketball is also a great time to make small talk with my teammates and coaches. Although it's probably very painful for my teammates to listen to me explain in 5 minutes (when I could explain English in 15 seconds), what I did over the weekend. I can almost hear them thinking, 'For the love, Bryan, just speak in English. You are killing me with your bad German.'

For the most part, I feel comfortable speaking to people about their weekend, recent vacation, or school. As long as we stay on the surface, I can hang in there and stay engaged, all in Geman. I can also make basic plans with other people (picking up the car, or getting the keys for the gym) and confirm when I am supposed to be somewhere.

In my opinion, this is the best part of speaking a new language; going end to end in a conversation all in German. The first few times this happened, I questioned whether I explained myself correctly or if we actually agreed on the same time.   Now, I am more comfortable knowing that what I intended to say actually came out of my mouth.

Weaknesses

Telephone

This is easily our biggest weakness. Using the telephone eliminates the option of reading someone's body language or watching their hand gestures. We have had some really awkward conversations over the phone. It seems that even as we learn more German, we are right back to step one if someone calls on the phone.
It's so awkward that we fight over who is going to get the next phone call. We brace ourselves everytime the phone rings and always breathe a sigh of relief when we hear English on the other end.

Writing/Reading

I am hoping this will improve over time, but this has proven to be very difficult for us. You can see from my German writing example that I have a really long way to go. I try to send out emails in German when they are basic, but overall, I don't get a lot of German writing practice.

I am getting better at reading the newspaper and other emails at work that are written in German, but I still need to use Google translate more than I would like to admit. I am getting better at understanding the articles written about our basketball games and reading the sport section of the newspaper.

There is a really easy to read newspaper called 'Bild.' Not surprisingly, 'Bild' (German for 'pictures') is full of pictures and is complimented by easy to read articles. It also contains 2-3 bare chested women per day (most other newspapers only have 1-2 bare chested women per issue) which makes it very awkward to read on a public train or bus. Can you imagine USA Today or better yet, Grand Rapids Press having a front page and a Page 2 naked woman on it every day? Would Cornerstone and Calvin ban periodicals/news sources from campus?

Lengthy Stories

I was so happy when I could start making comments in German that would make people smile or laugh. (Maybe they were laughing at me, not at what I said, but who is keeping score? A laugh is a laugh in my opinion.)

One thing that I can't do yet is tell a full story entirely in German. Too frequently I need to search for the right word or fill it a detail in English. By the time I am done telling the story, the audience has worked so hard trying to understand the story that all meaning is lost. There are no smiles and certainly no laughter. Normally, it ends with a puzzled, 'huh, interesting.'

We will keep you posted on how our learning progresses. For our expat friends, how long has it taken you to learn German?

Deutschland: Meine Heim- Unser Zweiste Urlaub Woche (Und erste Deutsch Post)

2011-08-31T15:29:00.001-04:00

For the English version, please scroll down.

Wir hier in Deutschland seit fast eine jahre (9. Sept letzen jahre) so das ist zeit für meine erste Deutsch schreiben. Sorry für die schlechte schreiben (das ist schwierig).

Überall, unser urlaub war ser güte, aber reisen mit Dylan für acht tage war voll stress. Die nächste woche auf urlaub wir blieben in Borken. Manchmal, blieben auf dem haus ist besser als reisen.

Ich war erwache früh mit Dylan im dem morgen on Dienstag, Donnerstag, und Sonntag morgen (so ist einem urlaub für Dana auch.) Die andere tage waren ser schöne wiel ich kanne bis sehn uhr schlafe. Die wetter war schöne, so ich was drausen währen der tag gehen dunkel haut und lesen einege Jack Reacher bücher.

Dienstag war eine einkaufen tage, und wir im Essen für Ikea einkaufen (ist nicht ein or zwei stunden für Ikea, ist ein halb oder ein voll tag.) Zwei betten und €200 später, und wir züruck in Borken auf 21.00 uhr.

Sonntag war ein schwimmen tag mit Dylan bei Aquarias. Dylan ist ser lustzig wenn schwimmen. Er hat keine angst. 90 minuten da ist normallich güte, und wir beide müde wenn fertig.

Jetzt, unser urlaub ist fertig und basketball training und die nächste semester sind fast beginn, so ich jetzt habe viele arbeit.

Jede tag auf dem speilplatz/ Everyday at the Playground

Vor der basketball speil: Duetschland gegen Bosnia in Bremen
Before the Germany Bosnia game in Bremen

Written in English for our English Readers

We have been here in Germany for almost one year (last Sept 9) so it is time for my first German writing. Sorry for the bad writing (this is difficult.)

Overall, our holiday was very good, but travelling with Dylan for 8 days was stressful. The next week of vacation we stayed in Borken. Sometimes, staying at the house is better than travelling.

I was awake with Dylan in the morning on Tuesday,Thursday and Sunday (this was a vacation for Dana as well.) The other days were beautiful as I was able to sleep in to 10 o'clock. The weather was also very beautiful, so I was able to get a tan outside and read some Jack Reacher books.

Tuesday was a shopping day, and we went to Ikea in Essen (shopping at Ikea cannot be done in 1 or 2 hours, it's either one half or one full day.) 2 beds and €200 later, and we were back home in Borken at 9 o'clock.

Sunday was a swimming day with Dylan at Aquarias. Dyan is very funny when swimming. He has no fear. 90 minutes is normally good and we both become tired and ready for sleep.

Now, our vacation is finished and basketball practice and the next semester is almost begining, so I have a lot of work to do.

Nord pas de Calais, France - Our Family Vacation Part 4

2011-08-20T09:50:00.000-04:00

I kind of feel like this past week I've been forcing our blog readers through a grueling old-fashioned slide show of the most mundane details of our recent family vacation. I mean, how many photos of Gravensteen castle can I post, right? (Note: there are LOTS more in my iPhotos folder. Want me to post them? Anyone? ... Anyone?... No. Ok, your loss.) Are you guys groaning "Nooooo! Not more vacation photos!" For those of you who find this boring and painful to read - don't worry, this is the last one and we'll be back to regular, more exciting blog topics like how the Netto grocery store that I went to every day has closed and how this has ruined the flow of my daily life by forcing me to find a new grocery store within a reasonable walking distance. So, as you can see, this is the best we've got as far as exciting topics to write about.

Anyway, back to Calais. I'm pretty sure we're the first people ever to spend 3 full days in Calais, France. When booking the hotel, they gave us the 3rd night free, which we thought was great until we realized that - tricks on us! - there are not 3 days worth of activities to do in Calais. If this part of the world was known for its spectacular weather instead of its spectacularly crappy weather, then 3 days at the beach in Calais would be perfect, but instead it's a bit disappointing not being able to enjoy the nice beaches. This photo of Dylan about sums up the beach weather in Calais:

"Umm, Mommy, this is not how I remember the beaches from Florida. "

To be fair, the weather wasn't totally terrible. On Friday we spent the day driving from Calais to Cap Blanc-Nez and Cap Gris-Nez, which are two large cliffs that overlook the English channel and where you can see England's "White Cliffs of Dover" on the other side. We did have really nice weather this day (It was so warm for about 30 minutes we took our jackets off! Wow!) and enjoyed the high cliffs and sandy beaches.

First glimpse of the water, just as the sun is beginning to burn off the clouds...

My handsome guys...

White Cliffs of Dover ... the whole time Bryan was humming the Eric Johnson "Cliffs of Dover" tune that was his favorite to play in Guitar Hero. Funny at first, annoying by the end of the trip.

Beautiful views

We got in about 30-45 minutes of beach time before the tide came in.

Gorgeous beach.

Dylan was trying to make friends with the kids who had the shovels. They weren't into sharing.

The water was freezing and Dylan would shriek every time his toes got wet.

Bryan tried to teach Dylan how to skip rocks.

It was so nice to have nice weather, even if it didn't last long.

Saturday morning in Calais was super rainy, so we went to the mall. At least it was a big indoor place where Dylan could run around and get his energy out. We didn't do a whole lot else this day because Bryan was quite ill from the gross sandwich he ate from a street vendor the night before.

For dinner on Friday night he ordered a monstrosity called "The Texan." This sandwich was on a massive hogie bun and included: 2 or 3 hamburger patties, nacho cheese, slices of ham, scrambled eggs, spicy sauce, grilled onions and was topped with about 1/2 pound of French fries. We guess that this sandwich had about 2,500 - 3,000 calories in it, and anyone would have gotten sick by eating the whole thing as Bryan did. (Note: Here's a new rule of travel - don't order sandwiches named after America or have an American sounding name in a French speaking country. This backfired on us when we were in Liege, Belgium and ordered "The American" which was one of the grossest sandwiches I've ever had.)

The only good thing (for me) to come from Bryan's illness is that he stayed in the hotel room with Dylan while he napped and I was able to have a few hours on my own. By this time on Saturday the sun was out again, and I had a chocolate eclair and a glass of wine at a local Brasserie, sat in the sun and read my book in peace. Probably my favorite part of Calais.

Sunday morning came and we hightailed it home in about 4 hours. More than anyone, I think Dylan was excited to be home. By the time we got to France he had started to ask about home by saying "Mommy, home?" and giving me a quizzical look. While we had a good time and got to see 4 cities we've never been to and experienced things we'll always remember, Bryan and I agreed that our next vacation will be a little more stationary and we'll probably rent an apartment or house and stay in 1 location for the duration of the trip.

Bent on Gent: Our Family Vacation Part 3

2011-08-18T06:00:00.003-04:00

We were ready to hit the road after 3 nights in Brussels and checked out pretty early Thursday morning. To our surprise, we made it to the highway without getting lost and were closing in on our next destination, Gent, within about 50 kilometers. After booking our hotels and researching the destinations we realized that Calais, France (our final destination) might not have enough activities to keep us occupied for 3 full days, especially if the weather was bad, so we planned to spend our Thursday "morning shift" before Dylan's nap exploring Gent, Belgium.

I really wanted to check out the Gravensteen Castle, which is located in the center of the city and has a really cool medieval vibe to it. The castle was built in the 1100s and is known as the "Castle of the Counts." The castle was not "stroller friendly" and didn't look very compatible for a 2-year-old's energy. It had countless narrow, windy staircases and lots of high ledges with no railings for Dylan to fall off of, so Bryan graciously took Dylan to a nearby park while I got to explore the castle uninterrupted.

For a castle, Gravensteen isn't really all that big, so I was able to do a thorough tour in about an hour. There was a huge room full of fighting devices (swords, knives, clubs, axes, hammers, armor, etc.) followed by an equally huge room full of terrible medieval torture devices. And there were lots and lots of great viewing points along the tower walls to take gorgeous panoramas of the city of Gent below.

A view of Gent from one of the tower walls.

Thank you, stranger, for taking my photo.

Good ole' fashioned guillotine.

Another view of Gent from the castle walls.

Gravensteen Castle.

Chapel room in the castle.

Spooky dungeon.

Gravensteen Castle

After the castle tour I met back up with Bryan and Dylan and we had a really great lunch at a local cafe. It was a rare moment where Dylan was peaceful in his stroller and we were able to enjoy our meal together. We enjoyed Gent so much that, in hindsight, we should have left Brussels a day early and spent more time in Gent. Regardless, we were glad we took the time to detour our travel plans for half a day to see this charming town.

Bryan and Dylan exploring Gent.

Beautiful view of Gent

More beautiful Gent

Gent, Belgium

Best lunch of the whole trip.

We packed ourselves back into the car, yet again, in the early afternoon and made our way down the road to Calais, France for the last 3 days of our trip.

Brussels: Where it Rains Often - Our Family Trip Part 2

2011-08-16T10:28:00.000-04:00

Bright and early Monday morning we set off for our next destination - 3 nights in Brussels, Belgium. We weren't on the road but for a few minutes when we had a slight driving snafu. There was very little traffic and about 1/2 mile up the road we noticed a large bird right in the middle of our lane. As we got closer, both Bryan and I started shouting "Move! Move!" and waving our hands, and we could tell this massive bird (a hawk or an eagle, perhaps?) was just sitting there watching us as we bear down on it. Right at the last second this enormous bird/possibly endangered eagle finally tried to move, but it was too late and it hit the frame of our car next to the windshield, feathers exploded everywhere and our antennae bent to a 90 degree angle. Luckily, it didn't hit our windshield; we would have been in big trouble. The whole incident reminded us of this steamroller scene in the first Austin Powers movie:

We made it to Brussels around noon, but it took us until about 2:30 p.m. before we actually found our hotel, The Van Belle. Yes, we drove around Brussels for 2.5 hours shouting out street names as we passed them by and fervently searching our pathetic GoogleMap seeing if those roads were within the quadrant that we had printed out. We had written directions, but like other large European cities, Brussels is deficient in clearly displayed street signs, so we missed our first turn off the highway and were immediately lost. We finally parked, walked to the nearest hotel we could find, which happened to be the very hoity-toity Royal Windsor Hotel, and asked for a map. Then we asked if they could show us where we were on the map so we could get our bearings. The snooty concierge wasn't amused.

We decided that we were done driving for the next three days and parked our car. The first night we went to the Grand Place and the shopping district and wandered around, but had to dash in and our of places because every 30 minutes a rain cloud would pass by and downpour on us. I didn't realize that it rained so much in Brussels until I saw a T-shirt in a tourist shop that said "Brussels: Where it Rains Often" and had an image of a person under an umbrella. That's not really a great catchphrase for a city, but it certainly fit the bill.

Rainy day at the Grand Place.

Bryan puts on a brave face after driving us through Brussels for 2 and 1/2 hours. At least we remembered our umbrella. Although, it did turn inside-out several times due to strong wind gusts.

Getting ready to rain again ... time to take shelter.

Seeing Baggers (German for excavators) are the highlight of Dylan's day, no matter what city we're in.

Taking shelter from the rain once again.

I can't remember the order that we did things in Brussels, but it often felt like a lot of walking in circles. Here are some of the other things we did and saw:

Bryan got a Dylan-free lunch on the famous Coin de Mer street where he ate the famous Mussels in Brussels. It was his favorite part of our trip to Brussels.
It was so cold that I had to buy a scarf to stay extra warm.
We went to the famous Jeu de Balle flea market which had lots of cool stuff and lots of junk all mixed together.
There was a big carnival near our hotel that was set up in the median of a major thoroughfare. This greatly added to the confusion when we were trying to find out hotel.
Our room was so tiny that a travel crib didn't fit anywhere in the room. Dylan had to sleep on a mattress on the floor. PS, don't expect too much from a 3 star rating in Europe. It's not like a 3 star hotel in America. 4 stars here and you are in the clear. 3 stars and under, and you are booking at your own risk. Our Rotterdam Hotel was 4 stars and our Brussels & France Hotel were 3 stars. Huge difference.
The Mannekin Pis (statue of a boy peeing) is really tiny. Not sure what all the fuss is about, but it's always surrounded by about 50-75 tourists taking pictures.
Walking tours in English were super expensive, so we didn't do any. In fact, I still know very little history of Brussels even after being there for 3 days.
The chocolate is too expensive. I couldn't justify spending 6 Euros on a 100 gram chocolate bar when I can buy a 1 kilo Ritter Sport at Netto for less than 2 Euros.

Good view over Brussels. No, this is not the view from our hotel room, although that would have been nice.

Lovely streets to walk down through the city center.

We can get about 15-20 minutes of peace by buying Dylan and ice cream cone (followed by a 45 minute sugar rush, but it's worth it!)

Family photo, minus Oscar.

Jeu de Balle flea market - very cool!

Oops. I snapped the photo right as he tripped and fell. Time to hug it out with Daddy.

Aren't my guys the cutest?

Finally, no rain in the Grand Place. Dylan is actually clapping his hands, he's so excited.

Grand Place - gorgeous!

More Grand Place. Lots of people come out when the rain stops.

Coin de Mer - best food in Brussels right up this narrow alley.

Mannekin Pis - translation "Little Boy Pees".

There weren't a lot of places in Brussels to let Dylan run around to expend his ample energy. This made him 'ready' to do something as soon as we tried to sit down and have any sort of meal together. 'Ready' is the word that he would shout and let the area square block know over and over again when he was ready to move on from remaining stationary at a shop or restaurant. This made for some really quick and stressful meals while we were out.

In case you haven't noticed by now, each day was broken into two parts. The morning shift, which starts at breakfast and last until Dylan's mid afternoon nap, and the evening shift, which starts around 5pm and lasts until Dylan's bedtime (anywhere from 8:30 to 9:30 on our trip). Our meals were usually eaten either one at a time, or very quickly eaten together while Dylan ate a snack or an ice cream cone. Needless to say, we weren't eating at any fancy establishments. At least that helped us stay within our budget.

Overall, Brussels was a very nice city to visit...without a 2 year old. The city center was beautiful and everything was accessible by foot.

After 5 days on the road and a stressful Brussels trip under our belts, we briefly considered calling it quits and heading back to Germany. But, we are too stupid for that. On Thursday morning, we checked out of our closet, I mean Hotel room, and headed onward.

9 Days, 4 Cities, 3 Countries, and 1 crazy 2 year old - Our Family Trip Part 1, Rotterdam

2011-08-15T07:18:00.000-04:00

We just got back yesterday from our big family vacation and are going to try to update the blog quickly while it's still fresh in our minds. Ideally, we would have liked to have booked a flat somewhere (in one location) for an entire week, but everyone else in Europe was also on vacation last week. Anything that was available was really expensive. So, like the crazy parents we are, we decided to book hotels in three different cities with our 2 year old monster in tow. Dylan was good for our 5 day trip to Berlin in April, so we decided to push our luck and proceeded to book a 9 day and 8 night vacation spanning 4 cities and 3 countries. Oscar stayed in Borken with a friend.

The first stop on our itinerary was Rotterdam, Netherlands, a city that we knew nothing about. We chose Rotterdam for no particular reason other than it was in between Borken and Brussels (our second stop) and based on Google searches, it seemed like a decent place to kick off our holiday. We could have gone to Amsterdam, but we've "been there, done that" and weren't really interested in going back.

Rotterdam turned out to be very cool. We stayed at the Novotel Hotel near Erasmus University and were just a short walk to the metro station, and 5 stops away from the city center. Rotterdam has a variety of open air, pedestrian malls, all pretty close together. The most popular one is The Beursplein and is very large and has all the typical European commercial establishments we've come to expect (aka: an H&M every 100 meters). There was also the Lijnbaan, which I promptly pointed out to Bryan as we window shopped, "This was the very first outdoors pedestrian walking mall in the world," a fact that I learned while researching the city, to which Bryan scrunched up his face, slid imaginary glasses up his nose and said "Ohhh, really?" in his 'nerdy' voice. We also enjoyed walking up Nieuwe Binnenweg, which has a nice eclectic mix of shops and bars.

Bryan and Dylan walking through the Beursplein.

A popular brand and store in Europe ... this explains why skinny jeans and capri pants are so popular for men here - they shop at Sissy-Boy.

Walking along the river in Rotterdam.

In the evening of our first night, as we were walking into the train station someone came out and kindly told us that there has been a security threat in the train station in the city center and all the metro trains were shut down, therefore we had to walk. So, we walked a long way and ended up hungry and near the city center just as it began to pour down rain and we realized Dylan's rain jacket and our umbrella were still packed in the hotel room. We took shelter in a local park and got a pizza, and wandered around in the rain before taking the light-rail (apparently not affected by the metro bomb scare) back to the hotel. It turned out that some unlucky traveller had forgotten their suitcase in the train terminal and the Rotterdam police took extreme precautions to ensure it was not an explosive.

We did come across the famous Rotterdam Cube Houses which, although cool to look at, seem painfully awkward to live in.

On Sunday, we spent the morning walking around the Delfshaven neighborhood, which is like Rotterdam's "Old Town." This area of town was spared from being completely bombed during WWII, so many of the buildings are very old. Being the dork that I am, I also pointed out to Bryan that this is where the original Pilgrims set out from on their journey to America. Unfortunately, their original boat, the Speedwell, was very leaky and barely made it to England where they all transferred to the more famous Mayflower. He didn't appreciate the history lesson, but I like to know these details about the places we visit. Delfshaven was really my favorite place in Rotterdam. The old architecture and canals reminded me of Amsterdam, but without the prostitutes and drugged up tourists.

Delfshaven, Rotterdam, Netherlands

The Pilgrim's Father's Church - they held their last service here in 1640 before setting off on the Speedwell to America.

Bryan trying to hold Dylan still enough to take a photo.

Dylan was enamored with this old blue car and really wanted a picture with it.

"Onward to America!"

Delfshaven architecture.

Running through the streets of Delfshaven.

Finally, it's not raining!

Being a rascal, as usual.

The old windmill. Dylan calls this a "Big Fan!"

Inside The Pelgrim brewery and bar. Bryan got a "Dylan-free" hour in the bar to sample some original brews while I chased Dylan around Delfshaven.

Being a Sunday, we were expecting to only be able to walk around and window shop, but to our delight and surprise around noon everything opened up. All of the retail shops in the shopping centers opened from noon to 6 and even the grocery stores were open! Bryan even took Dylan for an hour and I got to shop alone and uninterrupted - what a gift!

We missed Oscar (who stayed with a friend). But he wasn't too far from our thoughts. This cute statue even has a characteristic "poo" pile that's easy to trip on if you're not paying attention, much like regular dog poo left on the sidewalk.

These creepy street performers were everywhere. We stood and debated whether or not this was a fake or real. After a couple minutes of analyzing, I dared Bryan to touch him. It turned out to be a really cool place to lock your bike.

After two good nights of sleep, we checked out of our hotel on Monday morning and moved on to our next destination, Brussels Belgium.

Anholter Schweiz - A Day a the Nature Park

2011-08-04T06:00:00.001-04:00

This week Dylan and I went with my friend Kristin and her daughter, Amy, to Biotopwildpark Anholter Schwiez - aka: a nature park. The weather was finally warm enough to wear shorts and we even had to put sunscreen on - it actually felt like summer!

Dylan and Amy had a blast chasing each other around the park, seeing the animals and playing on the playground. This day trip is best described through the photos.

Amy is a stroller diva.

This is pretty much the last time they were both in their strollers for the day.

They had fun chasing each other down the paths.

We saw lots of bears, thankfully all were behind double, electric fences.

Dylan and Amy both exclaimed "Woooowwwww, bears!"

By the look on her face, I don't think Amy wasn't too happy to share the tree stump with Dylan.

That is, until they both discovered how fun it is to inspect the rocks and tree bark at their feet.

Taking a break on a bench.

They held hands for a while - so cute!

This is how Dylan walks when he's deep in thought.

In the "petting zoo" area, Dylan and Amy chased the goats around.

Yes, they literally ran after the goats.

Dylan kept calling the donkeys "Oscar." Oscar does sometimes have that same dopey, blank stare.

Uh oh. Don't leave your buggy unattended with donkeys near by!

"Nobody messes with my buggy!"

We had to wrestle multiple items of Amy's away from this donkey. He really wanted to take off with her apple juice and bananas.

"Peek-a-boo Mommy!"

More Peek-a-boo...

Two tired kids at the end of a fun day.

Lazy Sunday - German Style

2011-08-03T08:17:00.001-04:00

One of the things that I miss the most about America and that I will never get used to in Germany is that everything - I mean, everything - is closed on Sundays. This really limits what we, and everyone else in the country, can do on Sundays. Because nothing is open (other than some bakeries, ice cream shops and a few restaurants), people are pretty much forced to stay home and spend the day with their family.

The law here actually enforces that retail establishments be closed on Sundays based on a clause in the German constitution that Sunday should be a day of rest and "spiritual elevation." As recently as 2009 this has been contested and, if you're interested, here is a link to an article about it: http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/court-rules-shopping-sunday-germany/story?id=9236076

I find it really hard to not have the option of going to the grocery store on Sundays. Every day of the week I make a quick trip to the store to buy what I need for that night's dinner, and this daily shopping habit has made me nearly incapable of planning both Saturday and Sunday's meal on the same day. I often budget into our weekly shopping expenses 8 Euro's for Buddy's Snackhouse on Sunday nights because I know I'll forget to buy food for Sunday dinner.

So, what do we do on Sundays? One of three things:

Literally, nothing. We stay in our pajamas as late as possible (sometimes all day), fight over who has to get dressed to take Oscar out and play Angry Birds on the computer while Dylan incessantly requests that we read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish to him over and over again.
Take Dylan and Oscar to the park. Normally a trip to the park is in our daily itinerary, like going to the grocery store, but on Sundays the park is so completely overloaded with people (because there is nothing else to do) that I prefer to stay away from it.
Walk around town and window shop and/or get ice cream.

This past Sunday, however, we had access to the van so we decided to go into Dusseldorf and walk along the Rhein River. Bryan had been to Dusseldorf on his own while Dylan and I were in America (see Bryan's re-cap here) and had really enjoyed it, so we thought at the very least we'll find a park and some ice cream and get to see a new place.

Dusseldorf was delightful on a Sunday afternoon. Not only were bakeries open, but there were multiple Starbucks and nearly every restaurant that we saw was open and full of people. It seemed like everyone in the entire city was out and about, enjoying a leisurely stroll by the river or through Dusseldorf's impressive shopping and dining area. It was a nice change from our usual Sunday routine around Borken.

River walk in Dusseldorf - so many people it's easy to forget it was a Sunday!

Also, so many long sleeves and jackets it's easy to forget it was late July!

Bryan with a sleepy Dylan at the end of the boardwalk.

The people give the illusion that stores are open.

Another great walking area in Dusseldorf on a Sunday

Even the street performers were out. No "day of rest" for them.

No Cell Phone, No Problem

2011-07-26T06:00:00.003-04:00

Some of our readers may be shocked - SHOCKED - to hear that this 29-year-old Gen-Y'er doesn't own a cell phone. (gasp!) I am a marketing and demographical anomaly. Surprisingly, I find it quite simple to go through daily life here without a "handy," as the German's like to call them.

Even when I did have a cell phone back in St. Augustine, I had the cheap "free" phone that came with signing up for our AT&T plan (although, that's more of a product of my cheap, I mean frugal, husband than my cell phone preferences), and I didn't really use it all that much. I went through college and several years post-college without a cell phone and it wasn't until I took a job that had me frequently traveling across town to and from meetings in a less-than-reliable car that I finally got one. My first several cell phones were so seldom used, in fact, that I had pay-as-you-go plans instead of regular monthly plans. And I have never had a phone that can access the Internet.

When we moved to Germany last September, I had a pretty humorous "exit interview" with AT&T about my future plans for phone usage. I could tell the person conducting the interview was a young girl probably just out of college, and I was throwing her through a few loops.. Here's how some of the conversation went:

AT&T: Can you share with me why you have chosen to cancel your plan?

Me: I don't need it anymore.

AT&T: So, you're leaving AT&T for another provider?

Me: No.

AT&T: What do you plan on using for your mobile communication?

Me: Nothing.

AT&T: How will you make phone calls?

Me: We have a landline for local calls and I use Skype for long distance.

AT&T: Do you have plans to get a mobile phone in the future?

Me: No.

AT&T: How old are you?

Me: 29.

AT&T: (silence)

So, daily life here in Germany really isn't complicated enough to need a cell phone. Here are 3 reasons why:

I don't receive enough phone calls to warrant a cell phone. If someone calls while I'm not home, I can see who it is on caller ID and call them back. We don't even have a voice mail for our local calls! (Note: Our phone is equipped with a voice mail, but it's all in German and we don't know how to set it up).
I don't drive anywhere (I don't know how to drive a manual car... but during August Bryan is going to teach me ... stay tuned for a he said / she said blog post next month about that adventure). There is no fear of venturing out in the car, getting a flat tire and needing to call for assistance. That scenario just isn't going to happen.
I don't want to pay the bills. We live a remarkably low-bill lifestyle right now and want to keep it that way as long as possible.

So, regarding phones, I am essentially living up to mid-1980s technology standards and don't mind it one bit. Bryan, on the other hand, does have a cell phone, but he never knows where it is, so it is of little use. He told me that in December he put 15 Euros worth of minutes on it and still has 13.80 remaining. The only time we make sure to locate it and charge the battery is when we get a babysitter so she can reach us in case of an emergency. Our first few dates here sans cell phone were oddly liberating. It was scary and freeing to say to the babysitter as we scurried out the door "We don't have cell phones so use your best judgement. Just call 112 (Germany's 911) if there's an emergency. See you around midnight - bye!"

What I've Been Doing - Bryan's Update

2011-07-24T06:36:00.003-04:00

I have had a really busy summer so far. Work/school has been in full swing and basketball has been going 4 nights a week. Yes, Tuesday is currently the only evening I am home during the week. Occasionally, I can make it home in time to play with Dylan for a while and say hello (while eating dinner) to Dana. These past weeks have been grueling and could be a recipe for a total breakdown somewhere towards the end of the long basketball season, but I am trying to strategically use my ample vacation to minimize the insanity and prolong the inevitable burnout.

Speaking of Urlaub (Vacation), we will be taking a couple of weeks off in August. We can't wait to share our adventures with you. We have established our budget and have made our accomodations (I will let Dana share the details of where we are going if she wants.)

Since I spend most of my week on a bus and in the gym, here are a couple of noteworthy updates from me this summer.

Enjoying Germany's Public Transportation/ Mastering the 'Do Not Disturb' face

After 6 weeks of riding the bus from Borken to Münster every day, something happened. I stopped getting sick when reading/doing work on the bus. This was a far cry from my first two weeks where I almost needed to get off the bus halfway through the trip so I could throw up and was totally sick for the first 20-30 minutes once I got home.

This is huge for me, as it means I get 10 extra hours of work in per week.

I also noticed that I am typically the last person to have someone sit next to me on the bus. Normally, if there is room, each person has two seats to themselves (one for them and one for their bag/jacket). When the bus becomes more crowded, the people getting on must ask if they can sit next to someone else (implying that they move their crap, I want to sit down.) I have learned that it must be important that you ask permission before sitting down. I once sat without asking and the woman glared at me the entire 55 minute ride.

Usually, asking for permission to sit is the end of the discussion with the person until it’s your stop and you need them to move again. German’s aren’t very chatty when there isn’t beer involved. This is a good thing, because the commute is more of a work time for me now and I would rather not be obligated to make small talk with somebody every day.

Anyway, I have noticed that all other seats are totally filled before somebody asks me to move. I have thought about this quite a bit and can only think of a few reasons why.

1. Maybe I smell. You can’t rule it out.

2. Maybe I look like I don’t speak any German. Unfortunately, this theory does not work in other situations. We currently blend in well here (although I still won’t wear black socks under sandals and Dana won’t wear a scarf when it’s 90 degrees /35 degrees Celsius outside.) Also, nobody on the bus knows if I speak German or not (see above: we don’t speak, period.)

3. Maybe I am incredibly good looking or really ugly. I am still not sure which one I am, but it could be why nobody wants to sit next to me.

4. Maybe I have developed a great ‘do not disturb’ face.

I am pretty sure it’s not number 1, 2, or 3. Therefore, I am fairly certain that it’s #4.

The purpose of the ‘do not disturb’ face is to make someone feel (in the ½ second they walk by my seat) that asking me to move over would be a really inconvenient/confrontational task for them and for me, so they might as well ask somebody else.

To successfully pull this off, it’s important that you must do it in a very discrete way. Because you ride with a lot of the same people every day, you can’t overtly stare at somebody and say with your eyes while shaking your head, ‘there is no way you are sitting next to me.’ After all, it still is public transportation and you might be asking them to sit the next day.

My key to becoming the last person with an open seat is to become very serious (and very intense) about what I am reading/working on at the time. I don’t look up from my work, which I think helps add to the ‘do not disturb’ face. It would almost appear that I would also be surprised to see you as well as annoyed if you were to ask for the open seat.

If the theory ever breaks down (and it does occasionally), it is important to be extra nice when someone actually asks you to sit next to them. If someone asks me to sit, I give an overly friendly, ‘kein problem’ (‘not a problem’) just to show them that there are no hard feelings and that the ‘Do not disturb’ face was not an ‘I’m a mean person’ face.

Bryan's note: Ok, I just realized after proof reading this that I spend way too much time on this bus. Sorry to bore you with those details. Here is the other update:

Basketball Boot Camp

The basketball team that I coach (2^nd Mens) have been working really hard this summer. We decided at end of the season, as a group, that we would do some sort of fitness program in the 13 weeks of summer that the gym is open to replace just having open gyms. What they didn’t know is that they were about to join ‘Bryan’s Boot Camp.’

For the last 12 weeks, we have met two days per week and spent the first 45 minutes doing various basketball centric exercises. The rest of the time is working on our individual games (shooting, 1 on 1, etc.)

For the fitness part, we first do jump rope (we currently do 1200 as our warm up.) Second, we do the Medicine Ball 200, which is the core muscle workout used by the University of North Carolina basketball team (essentially 200 sit ups/crunches.) We recently did the Medicine Ball 200 twice in a row.

After that, we play cards. Not in the way you’d think. We currently go through an entire deck of cards one card at a time. However, all red cards are sit ups and all black cards are push ups. Jacks count for 11, Queens count for 12, Kings are 13, and Aces are now 15. That means when the entire deck is finished, we will have completed 210 push ups and 210 sit ups. Add this all together and you have Bryan’s Boot Camp.

I figured we would be doing the last workouts with 4 people maximum. I had originally said that these practices were optional, so only the serious guys would come. What actually happened was the group grew in size. We started with 12 and the group grew to about 18. It’s back down to about 14 down each workout, but I have been pleasantly surprised how many guys are serious about getting better at basketball. Even Dana and Dylan come to the gym most nights while we are working out and Dylan gets involved by doing jump rope (without the rope) and sit ups. He did 30 sit-ups on my lap the other night. I'm so proud.

When one of my players calls me ‘Drill Sergeant,’(and they do) I am quick to point out that I am doing the exercises right next to them (and I also point out that I am the oldest in the group) and a real drill sergeant would only shout the orders. I am more of a crazy fitness instructor that really enjoys hearing people yelling in pain.

As of Friday, we are finished with the 13 week program. We did our final fitness test on Wednesday (and had the celebration party at my house on Friday.) I am really proud of my team for working so hard this summer. They have improved so much (with fitness and their overall basketball game) in the last 12 weeks. I can’t wait for the season to start.

Bryan's note: That story wasn't much better. I will go try to get a life in the next month and come back with more interesting stories.

Here are some photos of other things we've been doing lately:

Bryan played in Philip Lensings "transition game" from being a Wulfen player to a Borken player. This was a friendly game in which Philip played for 1 team during the first half, then switched to the other team for the second half to represent his switch to a new team. This photo is after the game when Philip was giving a speech to the 300+ people who attended the game.

We went to a birthday party for one of Dylan's friends who has a trampoline. It was so cute watching all 6 kids jump and run around together. Miraculously, no one collided and bumped heads.

For the end of summer training celebration, we had Bryan's team over. I still can't believe we fit this many people in our living room.

Dylan had a blast at our little party too. Each time the buzzer rang and a new person showed up Dylan would point and shout "New one! New one!" excited that there was somebody new for him to pester, I mean, play with.

Here is Dylan's reaction every time we watch the video of him and his "Papa" (Grandpa) on the choo-choo-train at a park in Maryland. It never gets old.

Dylan's Dream Come True - Open House at the Fire Station

2011-07-17T04:51:00.000-04:00

One of Dylan's favorite things to do is walk by the fire station every day an see if any of the fire trucks are out in the parking lot. He gets so excited he jumps up and down, points his fingers and shouts "Mommy! Weee-oohhhh! Weeeee-ooohhh! Tee-tee taa-taaa!" (the sounds that a fire truck makes in Germany) and runs around the parking lot in a crazed state of excitement.

So, we knew it was going to be a pretty exciting day for Dylan when the fire station had its annual Open House last Sunday. They had food and beer tents set up, all of the trucks were out and to Dylan's delight they allowed kids to sit in the drivers seat, climb around and push all the buttons they wanted.

We planned on taking Dylan over there after his nap, but since we live directly behind the fire station there was simply too much noise and excitement happening outside of his window to make a nap possible.

The day would have been perfect had Dylan taken a nap. It also didn't help that in the morning we tried to tire him out by taking him on a picnic to a nearby playground and lake, and let him run around for a few hours in the sun. But it was clear after 45 minutes that he was not going to sleep, so we gave in and walked over to check things out.

Everything started out pretty well and Dylan was generally well-behaved until he realized that he was actually allowed to sit in the trucks and play with things. He was good with sharing the back seats with other kids, but he went off the rails when he had to wait in line to sit in the driver's seat. He cried and screamed a little louder with each kid who got a turn before him and, of course, like magic the tears immediately ceased when it was his turn. He pushed all the buttons and pretended to drive the truck, but when his turn was over getting him out of the seat was a huge task. Bryan had to grab him by the legs and was holding him completely horizontal while Dylan held on for dear life to the steering wheel and screamed at the top of his lungs. Yes, we were those parents and he was that kid. Needless to say, we didn't stay too much longer after that incident. A pregnant lady looked on in disgust as she plugged her ears to stifle Dylan's nearby shrieks. Bryan said to her as we passed, 'Just wait, your time will come soon.'

I asked him who he was talking to and he said "Oma" (Grandma)

This looks like a kid who's on a fast track to a meltdown.

Smiles after watching a demonstration of how the crane works.

Finally, it's his turn!

"Don't you dare try to take me out of here!"

Watching another demonstration...

Dylan fought off some older kids to sit on this seat. All those sit-ups and push-ups that he does at home (seriously... but that's a story for another blog post) have paid off.

Last photo taken on our way back home. He was one tired kid.

Day Trip "mit Fahrrad" to Ramsdorf and Velen

2011-07-04T02:47:00.000-04:00

Dylan is crazy over bike rides and multiple times a day he grabs his bike helmet and says "Mommy, Fahrrad? Fahrrad? Yeah? Go? Mommy? Fahrrad? FAHRRAD????" Dylan prefers to call bikes by their German name, Fahrrad, and when I give in and take him for a ride he cheerfully claps his hands and shouts "Yaaaaaaay, Fahrrad!"

So this past Friday I decided to take Dylan on a long bike ride to see some nearby towns. I particularly wanted to go to Velen, a town about 20 kilometers away (12 miles) because there is a famous Schloss (castle) there that we haven't seen yet. So around 10:30 a.m. Dylan and I packed a bag with snacks, drinks and diapers and headed out.

Our area of Germany has fantastic bike routes from town to town that take you on lightly traveled country roads through farms and forests. The paths are mainly 1-lane paved roads (farmers use them for their tractors and cars), but sometimes they are dirt paths and all are extremely well maintained. The route that we chose started in Borken (our town) and took us through Gemen and around the castle there, then Ramsdorf and Velen. We've been to the castle in Gemen many time (it's about a 10 minute bike ride from our home), but I had never been on this particular trail before and saw the castle from a completely new angle that makes it look larger and more like it's from a fairy tale.

Schloss Gemen

Onward we went through the country roads about 8 km/5 mile to Ramsdorf, a tiny little village between Borken and Velen. Another great thing about these bike trails is that although the majority of the riding is through the countryside, when you get to a town, the trail takes you directly through the center so you get to see the city instead of riding around the perimeter.

Ramsdorf, Germany

Church in the center of Ramsdorf, Germany

After our short tour through Ramsdorf, we headed out for the remaining 12km /7.5 miles to Velen. I can't say enough about how great the bike trails are. Another amazing thing is that whenever you begin to doubt or wonder if your going the right way, there are intelligently placed "Bike" signs on trees and fence posts the entire way. At every crossroads there is always a sign with an arrow, and whoever put them up placed them in easy to see spots so I was never searching for a sign.

I did wonder a few times if pranksters ever flipped the signs around or tampered with them to mess people up and I had a few flashbacks of the "Jamborree" scene in the movie Troop Beverly Hills when the nasty Culver City "Red Feathers" turned the signs around so Troop Beverly Hills had to walk through snake infested swamps and cross dangerous log bridges to win the competition. Thankfully, no tampering has been done between Borken and Velen.

Rest assured, you're on the right track!

Taking this bike trail was very excited for Dylan because we got to see a wide range of farm and wild animals along the way. There were tons of cows and horses, and we also saw chickens, roosters, bulls, goats, sheep, bunnies and even a deer. He's getting really good at his animal sounds.

The trail dropped us off in Velen right at the Schloss, and there really isn't a whole lot else going on in Velen. Officially called the Sport Schloss, this castle is actually a pretty swanky hotel and has a driving range, tennis courts, places for archery and a whole bunch of other sports and activities that you can partake in. Dylan was super excited to get off the bike and run around, but unfortunately sitting in the bike seat for a solid hour make his legs immobile and he took two steps and promptly tripped and scuffed up his chin and his hands, so our first 15 minutes we spent sitting on a bench 'hugging it out' while he cried.

When he finally calmed down we walked around the perimeter of the castle, took in the beautiful grounds and fed the ducks.

Making around around the moat...

Dylan doesn't notice the ducks slowly creeping up behind him, but he soon will.

Lovely moat. Even has a swan and lilly pads.

"Umm, Mommy? Why are all these ducks here?"

Dylan was happy to share his crackers with the ducks until one of the brazenly snatched one out of his hand. Then is was time to go. One bad duck had to ruin it for the rest of them.

Velen's Church

The front of the Sport Schloss Velen

We got some lunch at a local bakery and sat on a bench outside the church and ate. We walked around the town center for a few minutes, but it was getting late and I wanted to get Dylan home for his nap. So we headed back to our bike. We began our journey home and I quickly realized that the weather was not going to be cooperative.

No more than 10 minutes into our bike ride, it began to downpour on us. Dylan really doesn't like to be wet in his clothes and I could hear him getting upset behind me saying "Mommy! Wet! Oh, nooooooooo! WET! MOOMMMYYYYYY!" So I turned into the nearest driveway and saw an open garage door. We sped into the garage and nearly crashed into the farmer who was in there working on his own bike. No explanation was necessary for why we crash landed in his garage, and he was friendly enough to let us hang out the 15-20 minutes it took for the rain passed by.

Onward we went and 25 minutes later we were back in Ramsdorf where it began to rain again and we took shelter in someone else's garage for another 15 minutes. We finally made it home around 2:30 in the afternoon, 1.5 hours past Dylan's usual nap time, so he happily ran into his bedroom and jumped into his "sleep sack" to fall asleep.

So, for someone who normally rides her bike 3-5 kilometers (2-3 miles) per day around town, a 40km (24 miles) bike ride through the country was an excellent way to get some exercise. Although, I must admit, I was in great pain just about every time I turned over in my sleep that night and my legs have been sore for many days.

Uh Oh. We're going to get wet.

Taking refuge in Farmer Stefan's garage.

And again in someone else's empty garage in Ramsdorf. Dylan, who is not known for his patience, was excellent.

German Language Update

2011-07-01T12:03:00.000-04:00

So, we've been here for 10 months now and our German is progressing ... slowly. Very, very slowly. We really underestimated how difficult this language is to learn and thought that surely after 10 months we would be able to speak and comprehend much better than what we're currently able to do. Even though I had the advantage of taking a beginner German course, Bryan is leaps and bounds ahead of me with being able to speak. Now my course is over, I have completely plateaued with my progress. Here are some common situations that I get myself in:

Going out with Dylan: Dylan is a chatterbox and he says "Hallo" and "Morgen" and "Guten Tag" to just about everyone we see on the sidewalk. He also will say "Bless You" if he hears someone sneeze (even Oscar) and has been known to go up to strangers carrying recognizable bags from the bakery and holding his hand out for a piece. He's so cute that even the most dour German passerby brightens up and talks to him. This usually leads to them talking to me, and I can get through about 2 questions (What's his name? How old is he?) before I just smile, nod, laugh if they are laughing at whatever they said and slowly walk away.

Walking Oscar: Like Dylan, Oscar has a "freundliches Gesicht" (friendly face), and I get stopped on the street several times a week by people asking me what kind of dog he is. For Americans, stopping a stranger to ask a question isn't that unusual, but for German's this is out of the ordinary and in general, people here don't acknowledge others passing by unless they know them personally. One person even passed us in their car, turned around and pulled into a gas station, got out and flagged us down on the sidewalk just to ask about Oscar. The problem I run into with this is that even though I can easily see that they're going to ask about Oscar, the framing of the question is less predicable than the questions I get about Dylan. Sometimes they start with "Is he a boy or a girl?" Which shouldn't be too hard, but boy (Junge) and girl (Mädchen) for people is different than a boy dog (Männchen) and girl dog (Weibchen). Do you see how girl/person and boy/dog are almost exactly the same? This is super confusing when you don't catch the subtleties of German pronunciation. (Side note about that: words that should be such an easy translation are hard because of the pronunciation. Example: I asked someone what "fan" was in German and they said what sounded like "fenty lahtour" which I thought was ridiculous in comparison to such an easy word like fan. Then I saw the German word in writing - ventilator. Also an English word. Duh!)

Back to Oscar, I don't get through many rounds of questioning before my true identity as a non-native German speaker is revealed. It usually happens when I say "Er ist ein Golden Retriever mit Poodle" and Golden Retriever and Poodle are said with a completely American accent. Conversation ender.

Giving Directions: If you are lost and you need to ask for directions, what kind of person do you target to approach? Someone who looks friendly and like they live in the area, right? Well, the lady walking a chatty kid and friendly dog are very likely targets for direction seekers, so I also get frequently stopped with this type of question. If the destination is too difficult, like a doctor's office on a specific street (I still don't know any street names here, just landmarks), I shrug my shoulders and say "Ich weiss nicht" (I don't know). Usually when I attempt to help give someone directions, it backfires. A few days ago I very confidently told someone that the bank was on the "links" (left) while I emphatically pointed to the right.

Dylan loves pushing Elmo in the cart!

This is his "sad" face. Drama students - take note.

At the park on a really cool pulley/trolley thing.

Cowboy hat and gym shorts constitute a complete outfit in our house.

With Mommy in Winerswijk

Dylan calls this the "Bunny Auto" for obvious reasons.

Day Trip: Liège (Luik, Lidje, Lüttich) Belgium

2011-06-26T08:14:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week the president of Bryan's basketball team told us that the team van was available on Thursday and Friday if we wanted to use it. Since we don't often have access to the car anymore and Bryan had a four day weekend, we took him up on the offer without really having any solid plans of taking the car anywhere. But after waking up on Thursday morning, we quickly consulted Google Maps and searched for places to visit within a 2.5 hour radius, and settled on either Maastricht, Netherlands or Liege, Belgium.

A trip like this, where we generally pick a location or region and head there with no particular agenda or plans, we have dubbed "free stylin' travel" and it has been Bryan's dream to do trips like this for a long time. I usually intervene his free stylin' plans and make concrete travel agendas for us, so he was pleasantly surprised when I went along with his idea.

1 hour later, we had packed lunches, Oscar's food and bed, an overnight bag anticipating that we would spend the night somewhere and we were on the road by 10:30 a.m. About 30 minutes into our drive, as Bryan was making the comment of how impressed he was with our teamwork and packing efficiency, I said to him, "Don't we need our passports to check into a hotel?"

An hour later, after returning home to get our passports, we were once again driving through Oberhausen on our way to The Netherlands and potentially Belgium. The good thing to come from our 1 hour delay was that Dylan fell asleep at approximately this point, giving him a solid 2-hour nap in the car before arriving at our destination.

We passed through Maastricht (didn't look like much was going on there) and continued on to Liege. It was around this point where our Google Maps directions came to an end. It's quite a difficult task to read our directions, which were in German, while also reading the street signs, which were in Dutch, and eventually French. We kept seeing signs for 'Luik' 30 km's away, which was really confusing. Where was Liege? To make matters worse, once we arrived in Belguim, the Luik signs became 'Lidje' signs. (When we came home we told our neighbor we went to Liege, Belgium and he gave us a completely blank look. Finally it came to him and he said "Ahhh, Lüttich!" This city apparently has many names.)

Somehow, we found the city of Liege/Luik/Lidje/Lüttich without any problems. There seemed to be ample parking, and we parked at one of the first available spots. There was good reason for the ample parking. We were in the hood. Bryan summed it up when he asked, "Are we in Belguim or Tangiers?" To which I responded "If this is a culture shock to us, then we will never survive Tangiers."

The ghetto was a neighborhood called "Huy", and all the stores were either doner shops, hair salons, clothing stores where traditional Muslim apparel and head covers could be purchased, or import/export "emporiums" where a few Arab-looking fellows were haggling with each other over the cost of a cheap lamp or mattress. There were virtually no people out on the street and it appeared as though someone in every building had recently been evicted due to all the household crap laying on the sidewalks. We took a brisk walk around the block and headed back to our excellent parking spot in search for a more populous part of the city.

Just arrived in Liege, ready to see the sights!

The "Huy" neighborhood, French for "ghetto"

The worst part was that we couldn't read the map to find a new part of the city. So, we blindly ventured on, crossed to the other side of the river and voila - a bustling, populous city emerged that looked much more like the one we imagined Liege would look like. We parked near the train station, picked up a map from the Best Western and quickly got our near bearings of where we were. Dylan, Oscar and I took a 20 minute slow walk around while Bryan popped into an Internet Cafe to try to find a cheap hotel for the night. His search was broad and he looked in Liege, Maastricht and Aachen, but the best deal was 100 Euros/night at the Best Western, which was more than we were willing to pay. So, we did what we like to do best in a new city ... wander around.

Wandering the city...

The weather in this part of the world has been really strange. It's been in the mid-60s (sometimes colder) and every couple hours a rain storm comes through, downpours, then the sun comes out again. About an hour into our wandering, exactly that happened and we had to duck into a sidewalk cafe for a drink while the storm passed through. We were looking forward to trying to Belgian beers, so I ordered a Leffe Blonde and Bryan ordered a Kriek. I was also really hungry so I ordered a ham sandwich, mainly because the only word I knew in French on the menu was "jambon." Unfortunately, they were out of ham and most other ingredients, so my only options were the "American Sandwich" or something else that I didn't know how to translate. Our waitress suggested, in French, something about an American sandwich and I said, 'ok.'

I was really looking forward to having an American style sandwich, but when they brought it out, it was obvious that whoever put the menu together had never been to America and had no idea what an American sandwich should looking like. It was basically a crusty hogie roll with a weird tomato paste scooped into the center. There truly was nothing American about it.

Taking refuge from the rain at a sidewalk cafe

Kriek + Leffe + Peanuts = Yum!

The most un-American "American" sandwich.

3...2...1... Temper Tantrum!

It was really strange trying to communicate in a French speaking country after struggling so long to communicate in German. French is a language that I know 13 words, total. I can count to 10, say hello, goodbye and thank you. Most of the time I forgot all 13 of those words and my communication was broken down to pointing and grunting, then saying "danke schon, I mean thank you, I mean ..... ummmmm ... merci!" I'm pretty sure Bryan didn't even attempt to speak to anyone, as I did all the ordering and talking everywhere we went.

Dylan had his usual temper tantrum at the restaurant, so Bryan took him to a nearby park to let out some steam. I drank both beers and ate my sandwich in peace, then joined the boys at the park. We then made our way to the central part of town which was really cool. Lots of sidewalk cafes, bars, shops and a fair amount of Frites (French Fries / Pommes) stands. It was around 6:30, so we got some fries and Dylan chowed down two foot-long curry wursts plus some fries during the hourly downpour of rain. That's right - Dylan ate his age in curry wursts.

Dylan made two older kids sit down in the train while he "drove" it.

The church in the town center.

Scooters...(Bryan's comment: What a random picture to add, Dear.)

My free stylin' husband

Liege's cool town center...

One of the sights to see in Liege is this really long staircase that has over 400 steps and some historic significance of which I don't know (part of the drawback from free stylin' is that due to the lack of planning we have to read on Wikipedia the history behind all the cool sights that we see after returning home). We couldn't decipher where on the map these famous steps were, but we found ourselves walking up a steep hill and thought surely this must run parallel to the steps and we'll be rewarded with a magnificent view of the city once we reach the top. So higher and higher we went, taking turns pushing Dylan in his stroller up this crazy hill - even Oscar kept turning around to look back down the hill wondering where we were going. Our effort didn't really pay off, except for burning a lot of calories from eating the fries, since there were some new construction homes blocking the perfect view.

Here we go up the hill...

Would have been a great view had it not been for those new homes!

And, back down the hill.

It was getting close to 9 pm, which was the time we agreed to leave and head back home, so down the hill we went and back to the car. Poor Oscar passed our from exhaustion as soon as we got to the car, and was even so tired the next day that he didn't even ask to go for a walk until close to 11:00 a.m. Dylan eventually fell asleep in the car as well, and we were home before midnight.

All said and done we spent about 60 Euros on gas and less than 20 Euros on food/fun while getting to see a new city and go to Belgium in the time it would take us to drive from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Detroit.. I would say it was a good day for free stylin' travel.

Also, Dylan saw this ad and insisted that it is a photo of his Mommy and Daddy. :)

Stupid Finger/ Stupid Bryan

2011-06-22T10:12:00.003-04:00

My broken finger is feeling better these days, but it hasn’t without drama.

When I originally broke my finger in the first week of April, the Dr. put my finger in a soft cast and told me to come back in 10 days for a checkup. In my cynical, American capitalist mind, I figured the Doctor wanted me to come back in 10 days so she could take a 30 second look at my cast, tell me to come back in two more weeks, so she could bill me and my insurance company for my extra visit. At least that’s how it works in America.

So, for the next month, I decided to play Doctor myself. The pain in my finger wasn’t going away, so I decided to forego the 10-day checkup and ended up coming back a month later, on my own prescribed timetable, when the pain in my finger still wasn’t subsiding. When I finally saw the Doctor, she took off the cast and inquired why I wasn’t in two weeks earlier.

As I tried to answer her, I tried to move my finger. I couldn’t move it! I couldn’t move it at all! Was it still broken? What was happening? I started to panic.

It was at this moment that the Doctor started to yell at me in German. “This is really bad! This is totally bad. Why didn’t you come in earlier?” She stormed out of the room leaving me alone with an immobile finger.

I sat in the room alone trying to move my finger. It hurt now worse than even breaking it in the first place. Would I ever be able to move it again? Was it still broken? Did it heal wrong? I remember breaking into a huge sweat from both the pain and stress of thinking I was done playing basketball and would only have to live with this pain for the next 50 to 60 years of my life.

After a couple of minutes of sitting alone, the Doctor and her assistant stormed back into the room. She said that if I ever wanted to move my finger again that I would wrench on it every day until I got movement in it. There is nothing more scary than, 1. Someone yelling at you in German 2. A Doctor telling you that you may not be able to ever move an important body part for the rest of your life. 3. Not knowing 100% if you are understanding what you are hearing correctly.

Any thoughts of not understanding what I was hearing became clear a couple of seconds later when the doctor grabbed my finger and began to push and pull on it to a point where I thought for sure that she was trying re-break my finger so we could start the healing process over again. As tears swelled up in my eyes (I am almost 100% I swore at her) she finally relented, gave me some final yelling instructions ('Immer Bewegen' or in English, 'Always Moving') and stormed back out of the room, leaving her assistant standing there shrugging her shoulders at me. She told me to come back in two weeks and that she 'hoped' I would be able to move my finger by then.

Technically, my finger wasn’t broken anymore, but, because I left my finger immobile in a cast for too long, my capsule became inactive and it needed to get reactivated. For the next two weeks, I would have to push and pull on my finger until either a.) I couldn’t take any more pain and/or, b.) my finger would swell up too much and become too tender to touch. The next day, the swelling would go down and I would repeat the process.

Exactly two weeks later, I was back in the Dr. office to show her my progress (I wasn't going to test her on the timetable again. I am terrfied of the Doctor now). I had regained about 90% mobility in my finger since I had seen her last. She was really cold to me at first, but was really happy to see my progress. I even thought that she might actually even care about my well being (I also learned that you don’t even need to pay a copay to come back for a re-visit, so it wasn’t a revenue making scheme in the first place.) She shook my hand as she was leaving and told me that I could start playing basketball again.

Since then, I have regained a total of 95% of my total finger mobility, which is not perfect but a far cry from my time a month ago in the Doctor's office. I have started to practice basketball, and my finger hasn’t given me any problems. In fact, the extra time off helped my ankle recover more fully. It’s nice to be healthy again (knocking on wood right now) and I can't wait for the new basketball season.

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T13:58:00.000-04:00

I am been quite absent from writing anything decent on the blog as of late (Dana has been totally absent, but says that she will start writing again when she is done reading “The Girl Who Played With Fire” by Stieg Larsson.) She doesn’t want to be interrupted until it’s done (by anyone or anything). I am the PhD student. Why is my wife the dorky one of the two of us?

Anyway, we are enjoying a nice Father’s Day together. Germany’s weather in June has been more like March weather, so we are stuck inside listening to another lame Nickelback song on accuradio.com on another 60 degree rainy afternoon while Dylan takes his long afternoon nap.

Yesterday, we went to our friends pig farm for the day for a tour of the farm and a barbeque. Dylan was not too excited to see the pigs, goats, and chickens as he was too preoccupied with riding a kid sized tractor around the farm. Unfortunately, we currently have no pictures from our excursion due to an ‘exhausted’ camera battery.

German’s really know how to do a ‘barbeque.’ This was our 3^rd or 4^th barbeque of the year, so we knew what to expect. Our first BBQ had some surprises as there are some significant differences between a German barbeque and an American barbeque.

First, there is a lot more variety in a German BBQ. American BBQ’s traditionally stick to hamburgers and hot dogs. German’s start with bratwurst and move into a large varieties of different meats. If our hosts are thoroughly prepared as they were on Saturday (or a trained chef, like our first BBQ here) the meat has been marinating in different kinds of sauce. Variety advantage goes to Germany.

German BBQ Variety

Secondly, the pace of a German BBQ is much slower than an American BBQ. I learned this lesson the hard way on our first BBQ here. There, I ate a ton of meat as soon the first round of meat came off the grill as I would in America, where it becomes an every man for himself free-for-all as soon as the food is served off the grill. I didn’t understand at the time that this was only the first round of many and the key was to pace your self, and not initially gorge yourself. So, I sat there for the next three rounds of meat trying to eat on an already full stomach. I get indigestion just writing about it.

Now that we have a little experience under our belts, the staggered eating is quite nice. In addition to enjoying a nice conversation with those around you, it’s nice for someone with a big appetite like me to secretly eat a lot of food over the course of the meal without drawing a lot of attention to myself. Advantage: Germany.

Finally, American BBQ’s (at least as I know them) revolve around a football, baseball, or basketball game. There is no association to a game being played on TV in the background in our German BBQ’s. Until we start having BBQ’s that have Dortmund games in the background: Advantage, America.

Our trip to the farm confirmed that I really want a ‘Schrebergarten.’ A schrebergarten is a small plot of land desiginated as a summer garden and a small guest house, normally equipped with a small kitchen and bathroom. From a distance, it looks like a village for ‘small people.’ (Actually, that’s what I would always tell guests when we would pass a schrebergarten community on a train. I kind of believed it myself.) After eating home-grown strawberries, cherries, lettuce, and veggies yesterday has me really wanting to grow my own fruits and veggies. I have already searched a couple of places online for our own weekend garden.

Happy Father's Day to all of the Dad's out there.

A Schrebergarten in Germany,

A 'little people' village.

Not a BBQ, but we got together with our neighbors for an evening Germany Euro Cup Qualifier Soccer Match.

Back on Track

2011-06-16T13:20:00.000-04:00

It has been nice to get back into a normal schedule this week after the last five weeks of Dana and D in America and me in Austria. I arrived home from Austria just in time for Dylan's 2nd Birthday. We had a nice party with some of Dylan's closest friends for a couple of hours on Sunday in the evening. Dylan loved playing with Amy and Erik and the three of them ran around our house on a two hour sugar high. Dylan had so much fun, he has asked for Amy and Erik to come back every afternoon since his party.

Even though we were all back in Borken, I had to work in Munster every day last week from Monday through Saturday. I didn't get home until 8pm on Saturday night. From Sunday to Tuesday this week, we have all been at home enjoying a long three day weekend, thanks to Pfingsten?! I am not sure what the holiday is or what we say to people as we pass them on the street. 'Happy Pfingsten?' Either way, its a day off and we are happy about that.

I woke up with Dylan Sunday morning, giving Dana a well needed break. The sun rises at 5am these days and goes down at 10pm, which means Dylan is awake anywhere from 6-7am these days. Borken is located at 50 degrees N latitude, putting us well north than Grand Rapids, Michigan which is only at 42 degrees. And to think you don't learn anything reading our blog.

We have a short work week (3 days) both this week and next week. We will likely hang out around this part of Germany, but it will be good just to spend time together as a family.

Dana and I had our 9th Anniversary on this week, but we are waiting to celebrate on Friday night when we can get a babysitter. I guess you can delay these kinds of celebrations when you have been married this long.

That pretty much catches you on things around here. More details to come when I can sit down and write more.

Dylan and his new 'einkaufswagen.' Isn't much easier to call it a 'cart'?

Dylan's new bike. He is quick to correct us when we say, 'bike.' 'It's fahrrad, Daddy.'

Triple trouble at Dylan's Birthday Party

Sugar rush

Dylan even let his girlfriend open the presents.

One bite down and only bite to go. This was right before he stuffed the rest of the cupcake in his mouth.

Achensee Austria Trip

2011-06-09T04:02:00.000-04:00

I am back from our ‘work’ week in Austria. I had a really good time and it was really nice to get to know the 11 students as well as my colleagues. This group had a lot of really smart guys with a lot of potential. I can’t wait to see what they are able to accomplish after graduating the Master’s program.

Highlights of the week included white water rafting (Austrian style), playing some Apline golf, losing in 2 on 2 beach volleyball, watching the Germany/Austria Euro Cup Qualifying match, and wandering through nearby towns (Achenkirch, Maurach, Pertisau).

We rafted on Tuesday just outside of Innsbruck through 18 km of rapids. I had previously rafted on the Colorado River on our Senior trip in high school but had never experienced rafting like I did last week. My overall goal of the trip was not to fall out of the boat. I am not that strong of a swimmer and just preferred not to swim in the really cold rapids if I could help it.

That goal was broken in the first 5 minutes of our trip when the instructor made us all jump out of the boat 4 people at a time after a short tutorial (in German) of how to fall out and jump back into the boat. From there, we proceeded to play games that included standing on top of the boat and trying to walk around the raft while going down the rapids. If I had to guess, we all fell out about 3 times each playing various games in between the really intense rapids. I don’t believe you would be able to do this in America where the rafting companies are likely to be subjected to a more litigious legal system.

To cap it all off, at the end of the excursion we were instructed to purposely tip the boat over, swim to safety and help the instructor flip the boat back over in order to finish the trip. I was happy that it wasn’t too traumatic to get back to the boat and flip it back over. Needless to say, I was happy to reach the shore alive when the trip was finished.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the rafting (and me wearing a very attractive looking wetsuit.)

I will explain the rest of the week in pictures.

View from my Hotel room

Our Hotel

Hiking trip to Hochplatte on Sunday.

View from Hochplatte (1800m)

Achensee

Gotta love the self photo from Pertisau.

Breakfast. More bread than you will ever want to consume in one week.

Nice view from the driving range.

Professor Langer and me.

Andreas and me. I agreed to carry his clubs up and down the hills if he let me use his left handed clubs. I saved €20.

Austrian Hospitality

2011-06-02T05:45:00.003-04:00

I am in Austria for the week with some Masters students for a Summer Seminar class. Each student has 4-6 weeks to work on a paper about a particular finance topic that they choose. This class has about 12 students in it, and each of the 4-5 ‘Mitarbeiters’ (PhD students) help coach the students and grade their papers. For this class, I have 3 students that were willing to write their papers in English on Momentum Trading Strategies.

Each student hands in their paper 3 weeks before the trip. That gives us time to grade the paper, give each student feedback on their results, and give them 2 weeks to prepare a presentation to share with the group during the trip, which counts for 40% of the grade.

That means, we are ‘working’ this week and not totally on vacation. But it also means we have plenty of time to have fun.

Achensee, Austria

We arrived in Achenkirch, Austria (located in the Alps and on the Achensee/lake) Sunday morning after riding in the bus overnight. After breakfast (and a 45 minute nap) we took a 6 hour hike to the top of one of the mountains. Achansee is located about 900m (3000 feet) above sea level. We climbed to about 1900m (6000 feet.) The mountains were beautiful and it was perfect weather. By the time we ate dinner, I was done. The bed felt really good and I slept like a rock for 11-12 hours.

Hochplatte was our highest point of Sunday's hike.

This morning after breakfast, I decided to travel to some of the nearby cities alone. I received a guest bus pass from our hotel, which meant I could ride any time for free. I had the bus schedule in my hand and knew I needed to get on the 4050 headed to Maurach, the nearby city I wanted to visit.

When I came to the bus stop, the Bus 9850 was arriving. The bus said “Maurach,” but I figured I should wait for the 4050, just to be sure. The 4050 was on the other side of the street, and I assumed that it would turn around and come to me because we were on the last stop of the route.

He never turned around. We just looked at each other for a while. I finally said, “I thought the 4050 would be here. Aren’t you the 4050?” He explained something in German that I didn’t understand.

Finally, I understood. He wanted me to come with him on the bus. Ok, I thought, now we are getting somewhere. Maybe he was taking a 5 minute break and we would resume the trip when he was ready. It never occurred to me that I was the only person sitting on this bus.

Instead, the bus driver drove down a side street, pulled over and turned off the bus. Uh-oh, I thought. What is he going to do with me? He then instructs me to get off the bus. We head over to a smaller transporter car. “Very economical,” I thought as we walked over there. I figured maybe they take a smaller vehicle if they don’t have a lot of people riding. I was wrong. It was the bus driver’s car.

I assumed that I was getting a personal lift to the destination that I wanted. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have a destination. So, I looked on the map and told my personal chauffer to stop at the first stop of Maurach. He asked why that stop, and I told him, “I don’t know. I am just looking around.” We small talked (all in German) and we drove to the end off AchenKirch (the city where we are staying.) He said, ‘this is my house’ and stopped the car. For a minute, I thought there may be a chance I will never be heard from again.

As we got out of the car, we were a few yards/meters away from the bus stop. We had gotten in front of the 9850 bus headed for Maurach and he was dropping me off so I could take that bus. He waited with me at the bus stop and spoke to the bus driver about where to drop me off. Now that’s service.

Unfortunately, the stop I randomly chose was not in the city and worse, there was no walking path to get there. The bus driver of the 9850 insisted that I get off at this stop and convinced me this was the right place. I waved my hands, ‘no’ and tried to explain, ‘I know, but I would like to stay on longer.’ After some back and forth we continued on to the city center of Maurach. There, I was able to get a cup of coffee (that’s really all I wanted) and walk around the Lake (See).

Austria is a beautiful place. I will keep you posted as more interesting stories come along.

The Hotel we are staying this week.

A Taste of My Own Medicine

2011-06-01T07:00:00.003-04:00

Our trip back to Germany from the US last Tuesday went fairly well. Dylan wasn't quite the superstar traveler that he was on our way there, but all in all, we survived it. Thankfully, there were a few extra seats on our long flight, so as soon as we were airborne, a stewardess asked the man sitting next to us if he wanted to move so Dylan and I could have more room (otherwise Dylan would have sat on my lap the whole flight). I've never seen anyone move that fast on an airplane as that man did as he vacated his seat for less cramped, quieter quarters.

Our layover in Amsterdam (a city 2.5 hours away from our home via car) was 3.5 hours long, and the flight to Dusseldorf was only 30 minutes of air time. It was really irritating that the layover time was longer than the amount of time it would take to drive home, but for whatever reason it was less expensive to end our trip in Dusseldorf than Amsterdam.

Another irritating thing about Amsterdam's Schipol airport was the security check for people coming into the country internationally. I don't mind having to do the conveyor belt, metal detector thing again, but what I do mind is watching a TSA agent take Dylan's half-empty sippy cup with water in it (that she watched him drink from!!!) and remove it from his clenched little fist causing him to scream and cry and freak out, and pour it out in front of him because it is their "policy" to not allow any liquids to come in through the security check. I gave this lady a look of death straight in the eye and said "He's literally drinking that, and you're still not convinced this isn't a hazardous substance?" Her response was a weak "It's our policy."

So here is my message to TSA if anyone from any airport authority ever reads this:

"Please get your heads out of your butts and use some common sense!"

Good representation of TSA and its "policies"

Now to tie this rant-filled blog post into the headline - a taste of my own medicine - only four days after returning and finally feeling somewhat normal, Bryan headed off on Saturday night for Austria for the whole week with a team of colleagues from his work. Somehow spending a week at a lakeside, mountain lodge in Achensee, Austria is actually part of a class that students can take.

So here we go again being apart, except this time Bryan is off having fun. So Dylan and I (and Oscar) are doing our own thing this week, which basically means we're not doing much at all. Bryan said he wasn't all that excited to go, but I don't believe him. He's going hiking, golfing, to the beach, water rafting - oh yeah, and it's in AUSTRIA. How could you not have fun in this place?

Achensee, Austria

More Achensee, Austria

Not the "lodge" Bryan is staying at, but in Achensee nonetheless

‘Mist Deutsche Bahn’ – My Tuesday Evening in Düsseldorf (Essen and Munster)

2011-05-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

For all of the times we have traveled to nearby Essen and Köln, we have only stopped in Düsseldorf one time. Our only recollection of that trip 8 years ago was going into a bar and wondering why we weren’t getting any service. After 15 minutes, we realized we were in a gay bar and quietly walked out. That was our first and last trip to Düsseldorf.

Tuesday evening after work, I traveled by train to Düsseldorf in order to give the city a second chance. One thing lacking about Düsseldorf compared to other big cities in Germany is that it doesn’t have the ‘awe factor’ when you walk out of the train station. Köln has the best awe factor when you walk out of the train station and immediately see the Dom Cathedral, and even Essen has some awe to its city center to a certain point. Düsseldorf has a doner shop outside of their train station and that’s it.

This time, I took the U-Bahn (subway system) from the train station towards the Rhein River and arrived at a really cool part of Düsseldorf. I have never heard so much English being spoken by other people since we have been in Germany. Dana and I can go there when we get homesick.

Dusseldorf

The Rhein River in Dusseldorf

Had a great conversation in German with this lovely couple.

The sun going down means that I should already be on a train back to Borken. Instead, you get to laugh at my misfortune.

Anyways, Düsseldorf was a beautiful city. The real story happened on the way home, however. I had a train change in Essen and was planning on taking the last train to Borken at 10:30pm. Unfortunately, the train that I was on arrived in Essen 5 minutes late. That means I was 1 minute late for the last train to Borken. The next train to Borken was at 6am and I was not in the mood to pull an all-nighter as a homeless person in Essen.

I ended up walking the streets of Essen for an hour going from one full hotel to another. The only two open hotels were €100 and €140, respectively. For that price, I would rather sleep in the park and save the money.

Instead, I went back to the train station and looked at my options. There was really no way back to Borken before 6 am, even through a different city. I decided to take the midnight train to Münster…a place I was at least more familiar with. In Münster, I could see if there were any night buses towards Borken (at least try to get me within taxi range.) There were no options, so I decided to walk to my office.

When I arrived there at 1:30 am, I was really tired and upset. My office was empty and smelled of new

paint. I opened the window, laid down my jacket as a make-shift pillow and tried to sleep for a few hours. After a few hours (ok, 3 or 4) of tossing and turning and a major case of permanent rug burn on my arms and legs, I woke up and walked back to the bus stop and took the first bus to Borken.

When I spoke to Dana the next day, I only wanted to talk about my time in Dusseldorf. I mentioned, in passing, that I happened to miss the last bus to Borken and had to spend the night in my empty office in Munster. She busted out laughing and insisted that I write a post about it. So, here it is 9 readers; my post about my night in Dusseldorf, I mean Essen, I mean Munster.

German (Pop) Culture Shock

2011-05-27T07:00:00.001-04:00

This is a follow up to the American (Pop) Culture Shock post written last week.

Since our audience of our American and German readers are split almost direct in half (ok, it’s 5 to 4 to be fair) I’ve decided to give a top 3 Pop culture list for Americans who really want to fit into the German culture when you come visit Germany. You will win instant friends over here if you add any of the below in normal conversation.

1. Eurovision Song Contest. This is Europe’s American Idol, before American Idol became lame several years ago. You can bring the European Song Contest up with anyone and they will instantly engage you in a conversation. In fact, the main reason I came home early last Saturday night from Dortmund was to watch the Eurovision Song Contest final that started at 9pm (oh, I can’t believe I am admitting this).

I am not sure what is worse: the song ‘Lipstick’ from Jedward* or the fact that I know the words to the song.

*Jedward was Ireland’s entry. ‘Jedward’ is the combination of John and Edward. Quite frankly John is getting ripped off. His brother is getting all of the letters but one. Ireland, you must be so proud.

The jump kicks at 35 seconds and 1 min 20 are the best!

*John and Rachel Scott, you are permanently moving to a country where this is the new #1 single. Just sayin'.

On a brighter note, I now know that the country Azerbaijan exists. Congratulations Azerbaijanian’s.

2. Daniella Katzenberger: Naturally Blonde. Ok, before you start judging me, I primarily watch this show because Daniella Katzenberger uses such a simple German vocabulary that I find her show very informative and use it as a German learning guide. This is probably why my German is still so bad.

I have asked around and, she is a savvy business woman with a successful/profitable coffee shop in Mallorca.

Don’t judge a book by her poor German.

3. Herbert Gronemeyer. This is Germany’s Bruce Springsteen. A professor at the University let me borrow one of his greatest hits CD’s that was sung in English and now I am hooked. He sells out every soccer stadium in Germany. My goal is to not only go to a Herbert Gronemeyer live concert, but more importantly, understand his German songs.

Honorable Mention: Dortmund won the German Bundesliga Championship. Hey, Duetscher Meister, BVB Borussia!

Bryan's Three Week Time-Out

2011-05-25T15:33:00.000-04:00

Week 2 and 3 of Dana and Dylan being gone were lonely and quiet weeks for me in Germany. I have had some fun, but have done most things alone (or with Oscar). My office in Münster was getting a fresh coat of paint and new furniture this past week, so I have been working from home. The upside with working from home is that I get a lot of work done, and extra sleep. The downside is the lack of human contact.

Adding to this lack of human contact is my awkward phase of German speaking. I can now speak enough German to get by, but not enough to be interesting enough for anyone to really want to engage me in a deep conversation. The people I have actually talked to are 50-something year businessmen and nice old lady telling me about her sick brother in law. Other than that, nobody else wants to speak to me.

Two Saturday's ago, I traveled to Dortmund to watch the final soccer game of the regular season and experience the German Bundesliga Championship celebration for my favorite team, BVB Dortmund. Before you jump to any bandwagon conclusions, you must know that I have been a Dortmund fan for the last 7 years. I would even try to watch on the Internet as many Dortmund games as possible on Saturday morning’s while living in the US. Actually living in Germany during a Championship run has been really special to watch. I was not going to miss the celebration.

I was not alone. The entire city was packed with Dortmund supporters, young and old. It was a phenomenal sight. I ended up watching the game from the sidewalk of a bar in a residential neighborhood between the Stadium and City Center near Kruetzstrasse.

As soon as the game ended, the party around the entire city instantaneously went into overdrive. The parties spilled into the streets and the orderly mayhem ensued. The riot police did a good job keeping things in order. The mass of people filtered from the stadium to the city center in an impromptu parade through the streets.

City Center in Dortmund 3 hours before game time.

Watching the game.


Everyone heading back to the city center from the stadium.

Impromptu parade heading back into the city center.

By the time I ate dinner and reached the city center, the party was humming along. I took it in for a while and ended up leaving Dortmund around 8pm, before the real party started. I was back in Borken in time to watch the Finals of the Eurovision Song Contest (More to come on that.)

America: Week 3

2011-05-23T12:22:00.000-04:00

Well, this week has been a little different than the last two. Dylan came down with a nasty cold on Sunday that sidelined us most of the week. He was "croupy" Sunday and Monday - the first time since he was a little baby - and by Wednesday morning he still wasn't getting better so we took him to the doctor. Dylan hasn't gone to the doctor since last August, so of course it is inevitable that when we're traveling he needs to go. They thankfully checked his ears and caught an ear infection and put him on antibiotics. Within 24 hours of starting the antibiotics he was like a completely different kid. He is still on the mend, but recovering quickly thanks to the meds.

Sick Dylan.

Dylan lay on my lap like this for about 30 minutes while I tickled his back and face. Rarely does he sit still that long for anything.

So a sick Dylan made for a really super cranky Dylan, especially during the transitional period after he started the meds but before he started to feel normal again, so we still didn't do all that much. Our first outing with him other than to the doctor and the drug store was on Friday (nearly a week after he got sick) when we went back to Watkins Regional Park so he could ride the train again. Here is a video of Dylan's reaction when the train ride started:

Here are some other pictures from Watkins Regional Park:

Friday night we felt Dylan was well enough to be left with a babysitter so my parents and I could go out to dinner and have some time together that wasn't interrupted by Dylan shouting "Oma!" "Papa!" "Mommy!!!" all the way through our meal. We headed into downtown Annapolis for a yummy open-faced prime rib sandwich at The Federal House - highly recommended. I wonder what "open-faced prime rib sandwich" is in German? Dylan was a dream for the babysitter - no crying, no fuss; just the kind of a report a mommy likes to hear when she comes home.

His reward for good behavior is a yummy ice cream cone.

On Saturday we ventured into D.C. in the morning and walked around the DuPont Circle area where there are tons of restaurants, bars, shops, boutiques and fun places and people to see. Dylan had a great time holding "Papa's" hand and pointing out all the taxi's, busses, police cars, trucks and "autos" that we walked passed. We also had amazing cheesesteak sandwiches at JJ's Philly Cheese Steak on 14th Street for lunch, almost ruining out appetite for dinner.

Dylan and "Papa" on the street in D.C. I think Dylan got the "Mohr" long-and-lean body type gene.

Sunday we spent the warm morning walking around the Naval Academy in Annapolis and enjoying the nice weather. Dylan enjoyed sitting on top of the cannons. In the afternoon I packed all of our stuff up and am still trying to squeeze it all into my suitcase.

Good thing it's not loaded.

This one is just his size.

Dylan peaked inside the mail slots of every single home and business in downtown Annapolis.

I can't believe our three weeks went by so fast! Well, for Bryan and Oscar they were the slowest three weeks ever. Bryan said that Oscar just sits around the house and cries all day for no reason. Bryan probably does the same. Hopefully our long journey home will be as uneventful as our long journey here and that Dylan will be well-behaved.

America: Week 2

2011-05-18T13:15:00.002-04:00

Dylan and I now have two of three weeks back in America under our belts. Wow - this trip is really going by fast! We haven't been super busy and most of our time is spent playing with Dylan around the house, in the yard or on the neighbor's swing sets.

One of the things I like best here is the simple pleasure of going to the grocery store or to Target. It's amazing how HUGE all of the store are here, especially Target, and all of the different options we have in America. I plan to take a photo of the cereal aisle in the grocery store for one of my friends in Germany who didn't believe me that there could be such a huge cereal selection.

Last week we had two big outings - one to Watkins Regional Park and the other outing was to the National Zoo.

Watskins Regional Park is about 15 miles away and has a train, small farm, carousel and massive playground. We first tackled the train, which was a cute little amusement park style ride that took us on a 10 minute train ride through the woods and around the farm. I have never seem Dylan so overjoyed and excited about any kind of ride as he was on this train. He giggled and smiled ear-to-ear the entire time. Even after the train ride, whenever he heard it nearby he ran to the fence to watch the train go by. He also loved checking out the chickens, peacocks and other birds, but he wasn't really into the larger farm animals like lamas or ponies. He tired himself (and Mom and I) out running around the playground with about 100 other kids who were there on a field trip. We all needed long naps when we got home.

The very next day, we took Dylan to the Smithsonian National Zoo in D.C. He was a great little traveler that day and loved walking around holding "Papa's" hand and checking out the animals. His favorites were the elephants and the panda bear. He goes crazy now whenever he sees an elephant on TV and his impersonation of an elephant is pretty funny.

Dylan has come down with a nasty cold this week and we learned today that he has an ear infection also, so our third and final week in the U.S. is pretty low key. He's been in good spirits despite feeling super sick, but hopefully in another 24-48 hours the meds will kick in and we'll be able to have some more fun the final few days that we're here. Keep us in your prayers that nobody else comes down with what he has!

Here are some pics from the week:

Playing with the neighbor's toys

Boy, those chickens are noisy!

Dylan and Mommy on a tractor!

He is soooo jealous of everyone on the train.

Riding the carousel with "Oma."

Look at all those chickens!

Dylan can barely contain his excitement for being on the train.

Look Mommy! Elephant!

Walking along the wall at the zoo with "Opa."

In front of the lions...

Guess who's in the barn?