If you like it hot...

... so this is the time for you to come to Switzerland. Even if you prefer cold, you can still come here and head to the Apls.

But fun apart, it is beautiful to walk around here with extreme green forests and blooming flowers with fantastic intoxicating smells.

Since we are living in the countryside (B in the map)we learned to value small things like this and it is worth a lot! In one of the last weekends we traveled with out 'hyperactive' friend Miki (he is one of those persons who is always happy and always has got sg to do, it is very healthy to be besides him!(hallottad?)! We all went to Montreux in the Swiss riviera (C) then heading to Gruyere (D). And as you can see in the map it is in the other corner of our lake.

In lilac I pointed our little Sunday trip. A-Geneva, B-where we live, C-Montreux and D-Gruyere Castle.

It is like a summer city, it has amazing waters, clubs, comfortable and expensive hotels that actracted the American and European burguesy already in the last century. Due to its mini-climate in its riviera several different types of palm trees are found, as well as different exotic plants, also a huge shiny Casino which made Montreux even more famous.

The riviera in Montreux.

The Chillon Castle is a must see feature. Beautifully conerved and possibility to make nice pictures if you have sunshine, not our case.

Chillon Chateau in the water.

In December 1971, the British rock band Deep Purple came to Montreux to record an album in the Rolling Stones' mobile studio which happened to be at the entertainment complex that was part of the Montreux Casino (the gambling house in the lyrics).

The historic Casino!

Exactly on that night a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention concert was taking place also inside the complex when one of their fans in an unthought act set the Casino on fire with a flare gun. The members of Deep Purple who were on their hotel accross the lake watched all the 'show' seeing Claude Nobs directing people to leave safely from the building. SO based in these events and the smoke of the burning casino that spreaded over the Lake Geneva wrote one of their most famous song 'Smoke on the water'. The casino burned to ashes but was reopened in 75. If you are a fan and remember the lyrics think about it, if not, here is a little refreshment:

"We all came out to montreux/On the lake geneva shoreline/To make records with a mobile/We didnt have much time/ Frank zappa and the mothers/ Were at the best place around/ But some stupid with a flare gun/ Burned the place to the ground/ Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

They burned down the gambling house/It died with an awful sound/ Funky claude was running in and out /Pulling kids out the ground/ When it all was over/ We had to find another place
But swiss time was running out / It seemed that we would lose the race/ Smoke on the water, fire in the sky"

And this is how it happened.


This city is also famous for famous residents who had or have nice houses around there like Bill Gates, Claude Nobs (the Montreux Jazz Festival organizer), Stravinsky, Tchaikvsky and others. Among these one deserves to be noted. Freddie Mercury, the frontman of the rock band Queen. An statue was erected in his tribute in the Place du marché facing the lake and fans from around the world gather here annually to pay tribute to the singer as part of the "Freddie Mercury Montreux Memorial Day" on the first weekend of September.

The 3 meters high statue and some tributes

Montreux made itself famous with not only one of the biggest Jazz Festivals in Switzerland but also one of the most prestigious in Europe, it is held annually in early July. The Montreux Jazz Festival was founded in 1967 by Claude Nobs (the funky claude form the lyrics above), lasted for 3 days and most of the following ones took place in the Casino, but after it was burned down they changed the venue which could come back after 1975. It became so famous that the today's festivals are held in different places in the city, last for approximately 2 weeks and receives around 200 000 fans.


This year's festival starts on July 3rd and lasts until 18th. SEveral artists will show their talents and even boats in the river are used as stages.

See you around in the streets of the festival in Montreux!

Sources: wikipedia, Montreux Jazz Festival

News from Budapest...

Since I have not so many things to do and Krisz 'needed' to buy his new little toy (which has american keyboard and to death I change the Y bz the Z), we came end up in Hungary. It is amazing how cheap airplane tickets you can buy in Switzerland, or in the entire Europe. For 119 sfr, you can buy an almost last minute-airplane ticket Geneva-Budapest. If you program yourselves well, return tickets from Easyjet, Baboo and others are available for 40 sfr. For a Brazilian it was never so easy to fly.

THe Danube (almost flooding), the Parlament, the Citadel. All with the cherish storm in the background.

It is so strange to be back to Budapest even after only a month. So many differences everywhere. Like a big, realllllllly big rain welcomed us. It was fulllllll of lightnings and thunders, not an everyday happening in Geneva. After 4 months living there we saw a lightning only once and it rains a lot there! Other differences are in the markets and their new products which I so much wish they were sold 5 years ago.

Of course there is still much to develop until, at least, Budapest become one more of those big capitals from European Union, but only time, more money injection and a change in some people's mentality will help in this. Why the last one? Simple! After living this short time in Geneva (city reachable by car just after crossing the country) you get used to their driving style. They are really polite and don't try to overtake you just to be in front of you or to show their big-engine-expensive car is more powerful than yours. This Hungary has to learn, and a lot! Learned this even more yesterday when I went to pick up the product of one of my longest soap opera chapters: my summa cum laude PhD diploma! How proud daddy is! Not bad for a between jobs biologist.

Then I checked my old pals and friends in the lab. THey are really nice! But still strange to just visit and think I don't work there anymore...Good luck, may the force be with them!

Ah, one last thing. This is for Hungarians. How to write this should be done in Hungarian? I can't believe I bit little husband and his incredible smart father in this! Cheers for me, as we Brazilians say there are some priceless things still in this world.....

And today we are good to go shopping! What? Don't know yet. We are checking cars to change the C4 (what a pitty he is so nice) and who knows somethings else, since Hungary is still not one of those big EU capitals and things are still cheaper around here than in the others...

Fête de la musique...

Coming from France, the music party is very famous in Geneva where it has been happening for 18 years. Different music styles are played, from classical to tango, rock, pop, gypsy and folk.


This year around 200 000 people went to the city to watch and dance during the 3 days of party (from Friday 19th till Sunday 21st), even though the weather was no t the best and some drops of rain in some places. They welcomed the summer with pretty good mood and enthusiasm in the 500 concerts spread all through Geneve and its small communes.

The 3-days event also counted with a contest for the Fête to continue all year long for those who are under 20 years old. The 2 lucky winners will bring home 50 invitations for different music styles, from jazz to dance and rock to classical music. And for those who don't possess the 20 ans/20 francs card a "joining" card that provides some discounts will be given.

The 20 ans/20 francs initiative is a card proposed by the Geneva city Department of Culture with the support of the Department of Public Education of Geneva's State to incentive young's access to cultural presentations. Once purchased, the card is valid from the birth until the twenty-first anniversary, whatever the date of purchase was. It can get discounts for cultural events in Geneva like concerts, performances, festivals , theater, dance, opera, museums, exhibitions, and cinema.


My friends who work in this cultural area say that people here in Switzerland really prioritize culture and they earn better than in other cities thought to be more cultural...Nice isn't it?

So do not loose your 20 ans/20 fr card because you can't get a new one at all!
Take care!

Films, but not only American ones... why not?

Please, can somebody, all Brazilians included, tell me why we are so followers of the USA culture? I know we depend on their money and all sorts of things! I mean nothing personal! I myself really enjoy all the Americans I know and even would leave there (if I don't have to work).

I think the Brazilian culture should be a little bit more opened to other cultures. Let's talk movies.
In the capital, Brasilia, where I grew up (I still think it is one of the best cities in the world!) we can hardly find a cinema that shows nothing else but American films. I am not saying they are not good. Indeed I really enjoy them!

C'mon people, wake up! Go to the Cine Academia (in Brasilia)! There are so many French, British, Spanish, Japanese and films from other countries that are so thoughtful, delightful, funny and from which you can really learn something! Of course one of the reasons why Brazilians don't watch theses films id the humor difference since we like a more malicious kind of humor and for example in England they like a smart kind of humor. Take for example some British serieses:


Let's say Allo Allo. A comedy showing the everyday life in a small French village invaded by the Germans during II World War and how they try to get free of them. It is just fantastic the amazing jokes and situations David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd could invent for that cruel time of history. It is really funny, you will laugh a lot with Herr Flick of the Gestapo or the others looking for the knotwurst (a saussage) that contains the very expensive painting of the Fallen Madona with the big boobies! This is a site in youtube where you can watch some of them online. Ah, the problem is that your English should be sharp! and of course you should no mind the French accent in English. Here you can check a lot of them here or you can take a look here for a short episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f7V3NQ2q08


Another good British series is You rang milord. Shows the life of aristocratic people in London by the year 1920.

French films are really good. Take for example the Amelie Poulin. It has an amazing view of Paris, most of the film was shooted in Monmartre the neighborhood around the Sacre Couer Church. It has amazing colours and pictures.

There is also Les Visiteurs, a story about a lord and his vassal that by mistake jumps into the future 500 years ahead. Nice jokes about the differences between middle age and today's habits. Jean Reno and Christian Clavier are great actors! There are 2 continuations, and the third one is an American version also in French the trailer.



Or .... Taxi. Another French comedy, by Luc Besson, that teases a lot pretty much everything, specially policemen and good quality cars. It is a good movie to watch in the afternoon with a lot of popcorn. Also 2 sequences were made of it. If you check it, pay attention to the car manouvers but don't try to do at home. You can see a short trailer here, but just in French.

So enjoy the culture class. I believe Allo Allo is one of the best series ever! With very good actors like Liutenant Gruber and is little tank, René and his wife Edit, and the girls of the resistance!

Bravery act?

Please, forgive me if you are eating it just now, or if you had done it. But eating cherry, be it the sweet or the sour one, is an act of bravery. Why???

Nice ear-rings no? At least Hungarians enjoy putting them to their ears.(don't say it is not true!)

Well, if before you eat you check them one by one, it is not. But if you just pick it up from the tree and send inside you mouth, so you are also my hero!

Again, why? Because most of them will have inevitably some little living being making a house inside. Since I am obsessed with them, you know which type I am. But they are so delicious, I mean the cherry.

In Brazil I think we don't have them, unless they are imported making them one of the best here in Europe!
After washing! Aren't they beautiful?

So next time, because its season is almost already over, pay more attention if you are vegetarian. Anyway, it is still better to find an entire maggot after the first bite than half of it.


Have a nice weekend!

As a biologist....

... I am used to see quite different things, animals and people, but this is beyond expectations!
Isn't it nice?
For sure it hurts to hold it but...


Actually, it might even hurt to give birth to them, ehehehe.


Unfortunately, as I received by email I don't know to who give the credits... but here stays my thanks! it is not everyday we can see this.

Still talking about knives...

I cannot deny I always wanted one, they are really useful! But right now I will show you guys some really different Swiss Army knives. Some of them I don't really know if they exist and are quite absurd. By the end you can see my preferred.

I don't really think this telephone exists. Why? Imagine you are talking on the phone and you press the wrong button? You can have an instant brain surgery!


This one can come really handy! You don't even need your tool box anymore. Maybe if it had a laptop in one of the compartiments it would be more useful.


Eheheheh this is the Swiss Army knives for woman! Handy no? But hair dryer? That was a little bit too much!


Candy colors! But these little hearts killed them!

And, now, my prefered! Wait for it!







For sure delicious with a nougat praline for fill in. For sure not so useful. But who knows if you go hiking, loose your way, and have nothing to eat??? For sure you won't eat a stainless steel knife!

At www.victorinox.ch there is a nice catalog if you are thinking about buying one or some of them...

Is there something more Swiss than this?

I believe one of the "Swissest" things today is a little (not always little I know) tool that all kids want to have, both boys and girls, specially the ones that like to go camping. It is but a Swiss Army Knife.

Evolution?

Completing 125 years in 2009, Victorinox, their official producer, has reserved some nice exhibitions for this year in Switzerland. Created by Karl Elsener in 1884, he started his own cutlery himself and in 1891 he already supplied the Swiss Army with soldiers' knives.

In 1909, the founder baptized its company Victoria, after his mother who passed away that year. The company's name changed last in 1921 after the invention of stainless steel (also known as inox), by mixing Victoria and Inox together thus they named it Victoriinox, the same up to today.

In 1945, after the Second World War, when the US Army started selling the Swiss Officer's Knife in large quantity for their officers and soldiers who called the knives as "Swiss Army knives" for short.

With time, it developed and become more and more famous. Spreading to all continents. It produces not only to the knives but also house supplies, watches, and even parfums (what is their smell like?stainless steel?). Who used already a Victorinox knife knows how good quality it is. If you have any problem with your pocket knife you can send it back to be fixed to the factory in Switzerland and in its site you can find many histories of how it was useful many times to many people even saving their lives sometimes.

From the very simple...
...to the ones with flash drive and light spot or...



... for stylish people, made of gold and diamonds to ...

... the most useful ever!

In November of 2006, it was created by FieldCom a field advertisement picturing a Gigantic Swiss knife measuring 190 by 177 metres in the field of Erdinger Moos near Munich airport, one of the busiest airports in Europe. The subject of the piece was mapped out on the field using GPS technology and over 700 fixed points define the outline of the VICTORINOX logo and the giant pocket knife.

THE field adverstisement!

However, as well as being the largest field advertisement created by FieldCom, it is also the first ever field advertisement to be completed using plants and, to a large extent, entirely natural, milk-based colourings. These colourings were a completely natural product and contained no preservatives or any other artificial additives. Following its completion, the 33,650 m2 large "billboard" also required regular upkeep work on the ground. The grass needed to be carefully mown on a regular basis and the colouring touched up as and when necessary.

In February 2009, Victorinox produced a brand new soldier's pocket knife model for the Swiss Army as their requirements increased during the last century.
The old Swiss Army model in use since 1961 ...


... and the new one from 2009.

Also this year till October a Swiss Army Knife exhibition will take place in Schwyz, where you even have the chance to make your own knife! The exhibition will be on shown at the Swiss National Museum - Château de Prangins (www.chateaudeprangins.ch) from 20 November 2009 to 25 April 2010.

So, enjoy your knife if you have one, and sure, take care when you fly with it, because after 2006-2007 new traveling policies for airplane safety they are not allowed on board anymore. Since then, several knives have been seen in the trashes right besides the security check in airports.

sources: www.victorinox.ch, wikipedia

this time it is not about Switzerland but...

...about a Swiss dog when he fell in love.

Another day I was walking my landlord's dog since she was in a retired people meeting over some castle around here. The dog brought me (yes indeed he did that, I never walked a dog and I didn't know they could do that) to the house of another person I completely didn't know. Just for you to have an idea he is a Tibetan Spaniel , a breed of assertive, small, intelligent dogs, originating in the Himalayan mountains of Tibet and he shouts a lot when sg is not Ok. They are kind og guard dogs. He is nice!
I really couldn't move or remove him, he became a stone sitting there on the floor and not leaving the place. I said in all the languages I could: KAKUI, (nice name, no?) come now! And he would't move his little buttocks from there.

After some minutes the owner of the house, a very sympathetic old lady came to see what is this "fight" right in front of her gate.
I tried to tell her in my not-yet developed French that this is the first time I was walking the dog and I don't understand, he doesn't want to move on. And she said she had never seen him and went back inside her nice house.

After this, I swear I thought of acquiring a dog. After 10 min of fighting a nice female dog came from the garden, they started playing with the gate between them. Again the owner appeared. She said how nice my little dog he is, asked if I live around here and what's up with him... So I managed to explain her this is the first time I walk that dog, that I just moved to this nice "little" commune and that Kakui won't leave the place until they talked.

Then she explained that her poor female dog happens to be veeeery old and is almost blind. She even mentioned that she just finished having her last fertility bleed (heat?) 3 weeks ago and that she might die this week since she is really old. I was amazed, old Kakui remembered his lover (the lady said he has never been there) by the smell and came to pay his respects. Aren't animals amazing sometimes?
I tried to tell his owner that her dog is amoureux but I think she didn't really care...poor little dog...his girl won't survive to produce the seed of their love...

Film sessions...

This is the result of two films we watched this last month.

One was "The boy in the striped pajamas (or pyjamas)".
THis is about the vision a little boy has of things that happens around him in his "home" during World War II. Based on the homonymous book by John Boyne, this little boy happens to move from Berlin (shot in Budapest, one of the reasons I also watched the film) to a small house in the countryside of Poland (do they mention the country?) and close to a big concentration camp (they don't really mention its name, but you can guess it...) where he discovers a little friend. And the story takes ist course with the two kids discovering their differences and finding their equals, ending in what kids like to do: to play. It is really nice, though some historians say young kids that went to the camp didn't really stay alive there from the begining. Plus the presence of eletric fences. The ending is even more amazing.
A really good film.


THe other was "The curious case of Benjamin Button"
Also based on a short story with the same name and written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and first published in 1921, it tells the story of a baby that was born old and grew younger as he "ages" backwards. Really nice story and the film was readapted to the Hollywood style, but still surpreending those of us who think how nice would it be if instead of growing old we would grow young. How many times I listened to that... In the book he has childhood and stays with his father, in the film his father gives him to adoption right after almost succeeding getting rid of him. One of those films that also makes us think about life. And how make up can really make you younger.


So, if you have the chance to watch them, do it. They will surely surprise.

Port-Noir

On June 1st, Geneva celebrated the 195th anniversary of the arrival of the confederated troops to Port-Noir.

Monument at Port-Noir.

Coming from confederated cantons like Fribourg, Soleure and Bern, their arrival helped putting an end to the Napoleonic occupation of the canton of Geneva and started the negotiation for their entrance in the Confederation Helvetica which happened in September of that year, when 13 cantons out of 19 accepted their entrance.

Celebrated arrival! Is the mountain recognizable in the back?

So, it became the 22nd canton. It is one of the most important cities of the country in the field of economics and demographic. It gave and has been giving important historic people like: Charles Pictet-de Rochemont who got to Switzerland its neutrality in the Congress of Vienna, Henry Dunant who founded the Red Cross, or Jean Jacques Rousseau, born in Geneva, but passed most of his life in France.

See you at Port-Noir next June dressed like a confederated arriving by boat!
Enjoy the weekend everybody!

Bitten by a viper...

If we read a tittle like this we imagine. Well, probably it was in Africa, America or Asia. But in Bern? The capital of Switzerland?

A hiker and his family went for a walk on a park in bern Oberland. Close to the Engstlensee shore they stopped to prepare their lunch and this is where he was bitten. He fell close to where two 55cm-long vipers were. Since they were preparing to copulate they didn't really enjoy being disturbed and bit his index finger.


A helicopter was sent, of course, this is Switzerland! And he didn't die, though it could had been very dangerous if he were a young child. The doctor that saw him said he was saved because he kept calm and like this the poison didn't spread.

Viper bites are extremely rare here. The last death due to it happened in 1961. It still exists thousand of Swiss vipers, but at an altitude between 1500 and 2300m. Generally they "listen" to the vibration of intruders and run...but in this case...poor hiker, maybe he thought it was a sausage for his lunch.

Source: wikipedia, 20min.