“Previously at Home(land)” – The Latest Updates

So the title of this post doesn’t fit very well, but it does indicate that we have watched both seasons of Homeland since the last blog post.  Therefore, you must read the quote in Saul Behrens voice for it to make any sense.

We’ve been quite busy in the last couple of months.  In order to catch you up on our comings and goings I will try to get everyone caught up. 

May 1-6:  I went to Florence Italy to give a presentation at the Florence workshop of Behavioral and Experimental Economics.  This was my first conference presentation (30 minutes) and my first conference outside of Finance.  I learned very quickly that the dress code for an Economics conference was much more relaxed than Finance conferences.  I arrived in Florence all suited up, Barney Stinson style on the first day, and finally relaxed and wore my jeans on the third day. Meanwhile, a lot of the participants started with jeans on the first day and somehow drifted into even more comfortable clothes (I am pretty sure someone was wearing pajamas in their presentation) by the third day.  Nevertheless, I had a great time learning and networking there.  It was also nice to get a presentation repetition in, as I suspect that this paper will also be my job market paper, when the time comes. 

I had an extra afternoon/evening after the conference to do some sight seeing, and a couple of new friends from Paderborn that I met at the conference were gracious enough to let me tag along.  Some other highlights from this trip were:

Drinking 2 euro Tuscany wine at a small wine bar/shop off the beaten path and conversing with a Chinese girl who was literally a Masters student in wine (and looked exactly like Charlyne Yi).  I didn’t believe her at first, but after a few probing questions, it turned out that she really knew her stuff.  She told me that they must take 7 different types of Chemistry courses in order to complete the program in order to work at a vineyard after graduation.  She had a great sense of humor, referring to her extensive learning only to work at a vineyard as ‘a great tragedy.’

Charlyn Yi's look alike really knows her wine

Hearing a native Italian speaker properly saying my name over the loud speaker at the airport.  I had no idea I had such a beautiful sounding name if said correctly.   The reason my name was called was because I was sitting at gate 83 when the entire was/had boarded at gate 83a.  It’s a small, but crucial detail to miss at 5:30 am.   Fortunately, I made the flight.

Oh yeah, the sight seeing was nice. 

Seeing what looked to me a lot of long lost family members.  I didn’t realize that I /my Dad/my grandpa Foltice looked so Italian (we all look the same…Dana knows exactly what I will look like at age 60 and 88. See photo below).  I received so many questions for directions, confirming my idea that I really blended in there. 

Dear Dana, this is what you get to look at for the rest of your life.  

The month of May had so many Holidays and long weekends, we spent a lot of time around Hiltrup relaxing.  Unfortunately, the weather was so cold that it was tough to do much outside.  The holidays are different here, and I love the religious meaning of the holidays.  Here is the list of German holidays for May alone:

Wednesday May 1: May Day (Maifeiertag) – Not sure of the history behind this holiday, though I know that a lot of people go “tanzen in dem Mai” (Dancing into May).  Unfortunately, I am too old to do so. 

Thursday May 9: Christi Himmelfahrt (Ascension Day) – The day Christ went to heaven 40 days after his resurrection.  

Monday May 20: Pfingsten (Pentacost) – The fiftieth day after Easter when the Church received the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-6)

Thursday May 30: Fronleichnem (Corpus Christi) – 10 days after Pfingsten, celebrating communion. 

Picnic in the park

We love our balcony and spend a lot of evenings here. 

Fathers Day in Germany is somewhere in May, but we celebrated Mothers and Fathers day on the American dates, so I have a good excuse to watch the US Open golf tournament all day. 

This year, Dylan busted me on my Mother’s Day and my Anniversary gift on two separate occasions. 

For Mother’s Day, he and I went to the ‘Allstadt’ to get Dana a gift, but got distracted and went to the Mukk toy store, which is like the German version of FAO Schwartz, instead.  He wanted to get her a ‘bow for her hair’, but unfortunately we ran out of time (and good behavior) to go find one.  The next morning, I went out to ‘go workout’ but Dylan told Mommy as soon as I left that we had forgotten to get her a present and that I was out buying her something last minute. 

Side note: Dana recently found a broken hair clip in our bathroom.  Our sneaky 4-year old had a plan the whole time to replace it as a Mother’s Day gift.

Due to time restrictions, I had to take Dylan shopping down the street to buy a watch for our Anniversary (11 years already).  Despite my pleading for Dylan not to tell Mommy about her gift he blurted out not 5 minutes after Dana came home, “Mommy!  We got you a present!  You should open it!  It’s a clock for your arm. We bought it at the store down the street.”  I guess we’ll have to wait a while before Dylan is included in the gift giving process. 

The last weekend of May was the annual Hiltruper Frulingsfest (Spring fest), which blocks off our entire street for a full weekend.  With our location, we had one of the three stages facing our apartment.  The good news was that we could watch concerts from 12pm until 12am on Saturday and Sunday.  The bad news is we couldn’t escape the noise for two full days.  The boys slept just fine, so it wasn’t too much of a problem for us.  Additionally, that Saturday night was the Champions League final, with my favorite team Dortmund playing Bayern Munich.  I was really excited for the game the entire day and we made plans for Dylan to stay up late so we could watch it together.  The game started at 8:45 pm, so it would be a special late night.  Hopefully, Dylan will grow up to be a Dortmund fan as well and I didn’t want him to miss the experience.  Years from now, I was hoping we could remember this memorable day.  30 minutes before kickoff, we walked down the street to the public viewing in Hiltrup and upon seeing the crowd of people Dylan instantly did not want to be there (are you noticing a trend of crowd aversion from Dylan yet)?

"It's the playoffs.  You gotta let em know you're out there." - Our future face painter

Hiltruper Fruhlingsfest

Hiltruper Fruhlingsfest from the balcony

Instead, we watched the game in the Tapas y Vino bar directly below our apartment.  It was packed, but the owner let us sit at his family and friends table.  He is from Peru and Dana and I always try to unearth our previously learned Spanish while speaking with him. I was really encouraged this evening that I got my order right (spoken in Spanish) when the others at the table were asking me if I was Spanish.  Anyway, we made through the first half until Dylan was toast and needed to go to bed. 

I watched the second half online in the living room while the concert outside played on (with nobody watching).  For the final ten minutes of the game, the concert actually stopped so the band members could watch the conclusion.  Bayern scored in the 89^th minute, ripping my heart out in all too familiar fashion (a common theme, especially for a Michigan State/Detroit sports fan).  I can’t recall a time when I was so sad about an outcome of a soccer game.  I sat in my chair dejected for the next hour while the band played in the cold rain in front of about 8 dancing Bayern fans.  What made it really sad for me was that this would very likely be Dortmund’s only chance at a Champions League title while we are living in Germany.  I ate a full bag of cookies, which made be feel better.

Dylan turned four in the first week of June.  I am going to save the ‘pimmelman’ for Dana to write about, but his German is passing our understanding, and it can be quite embarrassing for us.  He is so German that when we asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner, he responded without hesitating, “Bratwursts, Pommes (French fries), and as much ketchup as I want.”  He is a funny kid. 

Dylans Birthday

The aftermath

Oma and Opa Mohr made it here yesterday and will be staying with us for the next week.  I have a full week of vacation and hopefully a little time to catch up on some blog posts.  I have so much that I want to write about, but so little time to type it.  Hopefully that changes this week.  Have a great week.   

Where has Dana been?

I have been so absent from posting to this blog, we should probably change the name to "The Bryan Foltice Blog" instead of "The Foltice Family Blog."  I just checked and my last post was published on August 8, which means it's been a full 9 months since I've contributed anything but a few photo captions to this.  Sorry, but it's really busy having two kids.

My typical day is just a whirlwind of tasks and schedules and a whole bunch of things that have to be done by a specific time that leaves me with very small increments of downtime (like 15 minutes here, or  20 minutes there), which I usually spend zoning out to Dear Prudence columns, scrolling through Facebook, or if Dylan's being particularly pesty that day, binge eating chocolate and cookies in the corner of the kitchen.

So since Bryan has kept you up to date about what he's up to, here is a brief update about me and the boys.

Dana - My blood clot leg issue is getting better.  I'm no longer taking medication and in a few weeks I go back to the University Hospital for more tests to make sure everything is officially all better.

Dylan - Dylan loves his Kindergarten and is basically kind of bummed on the weekends when Kindergarten is closed.  He speaks pretty fluent German at school and can switch the languages on and off.  He tells me things like "We say entschuldigung at school but we say excuse me at home." I'm embarrassed to say that he sometimes corrects me when I say something wrong in German and one time he actually asked me to use English because he couldn't understand what I was saying to him in German.  He'll be 4 in June, by the way.  That's one smart cookie.

Brady - Brady is a huge, fat baby.  He's sweet and snuggly and always happy, but he's a beast.  He weighs 21 pounds (9.5 kilos) at 7 months old.  I have super ripped back muscles from carrying him around all the time.  We live on the 5th floor of our apartment building and there is no elevator, so I hike up and down an average of 20 flights of stairs every day usually either carrying a squirmy Brady or his weight-equivalent in groceries each trip.

I have no idea what he's looking at, but this picture always makes me laugh.

Dylan after hunting eggs on Easter morning.

Brady loves his Daddy.

Dylan goofing around, as usual.

Brady hates bibs.

Yup.  Oscar is still hanging around.  He'll be 10 years old this fall. 

At least one of our kids will wear a hat.

Waiting Rooms

“What’s the deal with waiting rooms at Doctor’s offices?  Why is this the only place where Germans are friendly?”  These two questions are best read using your Jerry Seinfeld voice, but have been a question that I have posed to many Germans.  I haven’t heard a sufficient answer yet. 

Whenever you go to the Doctor, you must address the group of people in the waiting room with a friendly Guten Tag or Guten Morgen each time.  At first I thought this was really strange, but waited to say anything until I had more experience in Doctors waiting rooms.  After many appointments with various Doctors in various cities, every time, people young and old address the others in the waiting room without fail.  Even more annoying is that when you are in the waiting room, you are obligated to echo hello back with the other ten people in the waiting room.  Dirty looks will be given to those who do not participate.

It is most consistently weird thing I have ever seen.  What’s more is that these are the same people who won’t even look at you passing by on the sidewalk.  In fact, you are much more likely to get an F-you stare down (they don’t actually say it, but you can read it in their eyes and on their face) than a friendly hello.  The Doctor’s office is the last place I want to be friendly and be obligated to greet each person, but somehow this is the place. 

The only explanation I get from other Germans about this phenomenon is that there is a sense of ‘we’re in this together’ in a waiting room so you should be friendly with each other.  While that may be true, the theory should hold for other venues where the situation is more dire, like riding the bus or train together on the public transportation system (those who ride each day with the Deutsche Bahn know what I mean.) Unfortunately, my experience with public transportation couldn’t be further from the truth.  For example, I took the same hour long bus trip from Borken to Münster with the same people for 18 months and never once talked to anyone.  Barely even eye contact.  The only way I knew them was by the nicknames I had developed in my head, such as the ‘Salty Russian’ and my least favorite bus driver, who I called ‘Clutch’ (named that way because he would always stall the bus when under pressure in heavy traffic).  

So, dear German readers, can someone explain this to me?  Maybe there is an old tradition or something that I would be really interested in hearing.  Any insight would be very helpful.

Totally Normal Things That Make You Look Out of Place in Münster

There are three things I do/wear on my daily train commute that consistently gets strange looks that are completely normal for me.  I noticed that part of the reason for the dirty looks (it is the default German look, even if it is not intended) is that I am in the vast minority compared to others around me.

I will rank these in order starting with what I feel is the most ridiculous:

Wear sunglasses.  When the sun comes out (it comes out for 4 days per year) I am virtually the only person wearing sunglasses.  This morning, I tested the validity of this on my 15-minute walk from the train station to work.  Out of the couple hundred people I saw (I would estimate 300-400), only one other person was wearing sunglasses.  So, it was me and a lady selling a bouquet of flowers on the street wearing sunglasses on a cloudless morning.  When we are in other parts of Germany (Munich and Berlin), I saw many other Germans wearing sunglasses.  Maybe it’s a regional NRW or Münster thing.  Somehow, by simply wearing sunglasses, I get long stares from people like I am some Hollywood actor or the town drunkard trying to disguise my bloodshot eyes.  Either way, I get strange looks all the way to work.

Drink coffee to go.  Occasionally, I bring a to go cup of coffee on the train for my morning commute.  I get so many weird looks on the train that I have to scan the train for the possibly there is a new sign saying that no drinks are allowed.  Last I know, they are allowed, but I still get looks.  Germans tend to be so organized that I think they view people who bring to go coffee must be behind schedule, so I must be a very disorganized (and thus weak and feeble) person.  

Wearing athletic gear.  I’ve tried this on a rare occasion on my way to the gym in the morning (my gym is right next to the train station) and people will literally go out of their way to avoid sitting by you.  I’ve also noticed this on the weekend when I am walking the dog in the morning in my warm-up pants.   Overall, Germans dress the same all the time, with very few exceptions:  Dark colored jeans, solid dark colored jacket (we are wearing jackets 360 days per year here, but I know there is a 99.2% chance they are wearing a solid dark colored sweater underneath), and dress shoes.  The remaining five days bring out the long board shorts with my favorite, socks under scandals. Nothing screams ‘I am German’ like socks and scandals. 

The old people around town take this dress up thing to a whole different level and are immaculately dressed to do their grocery shopping/errands around town.   I am generally very comfortable in my own skin, but I try my best to blend in with the other Germans and dress appropriately, though I haven’t tried the long board shorts and socks under scandals.   When a friend of ours saw my black dress shoes with jeans, he told me “You are dressed very German.”  I had to agree with him and I told him that this combination helps me blend in. 

In addition to wearing a speedo to the Freibad (a secret/crazy ambition of mine to do here before we leave Germany), I am also trying to build up the courage to do all three of the aforementioned things at the same time, though oddly enough, I am convinced that I would get many more strange looks seeing my athletic pants and sunglasses than my white thighs.   I had no idea that I would more be self conscious about the latter than wearing a speedo in a public place.  

Hibernation

Since returning to Münster in the end of December, we don’t have too much to report that is of any interest. I completed the school semester at the end of January and have mainly been in research mode since then.  Research mode basically means that I have been locked in my office working on research projects for my dissertation, only pausing to come out to eat, sleep and occasionally bathe.  I have thought and written about the greek letter ‘theta’ more than I ever thought would be possible, thanks to a project I am working on that analyzes bias.  If you would have asked me 10 years ago what theta was, the most technical answer I would have provided would be that it was the sorority at Florida State with the highest ratio of good looking blondes.  If college Bryan could see me today, he would have given me a wedgie.

A couple of weekends ago, we took a break from hibernation and enjoyed one of my favorite times of the year: Karneval season.  I was really excited this year because: 1. Our apartment in Münster-Hiltrup is on the Karneval parade route for our city and 2. Dylan is at the age where he should be excited about the parades and subsequent candy that is passed out to the kids. 

The first part actually played out like I thought it would.  We have some pictures of us on the day of our towns Karneval parade. I dressed up as a lion. Dana was a beer mug. Dylan was, well, dressed as himself.  For some reason, he was not into the Karneval season as much as his parents were.  He even refused to dress up for his kindergartens Karneval party.  When we asked him if he would like to at least color his hair for the festivities, he looked at us like we were the dumbest/most uncool people in the world to even propose such an idea.  I didn’t think kids gave that look to their parents until they were at least 12 years old. 

Anyway, Dylan enjoyed the first half of the parade, but wanted Dana to take him upstairs before the second half started.  That left me standing there by myself picking up candy for Dylan. 

Getting the party started on our balcony!

Dylan, dressed as "himself"

Even Brady got in the spirit!

Best view of the parade: our balcony.

It's time to go inside now.

This contraption is not really comfortable for either of us.

Undeterred by Dylan’s antics, I thought he would like it better if we went to the big children’s parade in Cologne on the Sunday before Rosenmontag.  Maybe if he saw a bigger parade with more people, he would come around on the idea.  ‘Only’ 250,000 people attend the Sunday parade in Cologne, compared to the 1,500,000 that watch the parade on Monday, so as a responsible parent it seemed smart to go on this day.  Dana called me ‘Clark Griswald’ due to my blind optimism that this was a good idea. She elected to stay home with Brady. 

Again, I wore my lion costume.  Again, Dylan dressed up as himself. 

Dylan really enjoyed the train ride there, even as the train became packed with passengers to the point where we couldn’t leave our seat even if we wanted to.  Unfortunately, Dylan was instantly thrown into a bad mood once he learned that we had travelled on a train for two hours for another parade.  It was immediately evident that he didn’t want to be there.  Even Clark Griswald himself understands, “Daddy, I want to go home now.”  I made him stick around for about an hour to watch the parade while he pouted the entire time.  I had printed out a parade route map so we could walk to the new extended parade route that I assumed would have less people.  That actually worked out really well. Dylan didn’t have too much competition for a lot of candy if he really wanted to make a haul. 

After our train ride home, Dylan was so excited to tell Dana about our adventure.  The highlight of the trip as told by him?  Peeing in a corner under the bridge outside the train station because the bathroom lines were too long.  Go figure.

Dylan sleeping on the way home from the Köln Karneval parade.  It's exhausting being a poor sport.