why this question---

Now I can count I've been to 3 job interviews...
In all of them they ask a probably very famous question: Where do you picture yourself in the next 6 years?

What is it with this question, why is it so important where do you want to see yourself, do you see yourself in 6 years? I don't even know where I want to be in the next weekend. I don't even know if I want to have kids in the next 6 years. Of course It is important for a woman to decide this because as old you get more difficult it is, less hormones, less oocyte production or even less healthy oocytes. It is bad I took a PhD in this area, now I know all these problems......

So job interview it is! Biology area is different from IT, economics, management and so on...the salary is bad, work and things to study we have a lot, and you have to always keep a good mood even though your experiment doesn't work for months.
So I know where I want to be in the next years: maybe doing an experiment that will always work....or not!
Have a nice weekend with this question as food for thought: where you want to be in 6 years?

no flights...

The Iceland volcano ashes in the air. This is a hot topic.

But I bet it isn't a hot topic the fact that around my house the environment is much cleaner and quiet. Since we live besides (10 min by car) form the airport, I wake up everyday at 6h with the first flight landing or taking off from Geneva (never opened the window to check).

Since Saturday I can sleep well and so can our neighbors! They are really happy. ON the other hand, I bet people who are 'arrested' at the other cities where they don't belong are unhappy. Who pay for their extra days of hotel, does the travel insurance covers this.

Also, the big companies have been accusing the European governments of taking the no-air traffic decree as an overdose, but do you think you would get on a flight knowing that there is some chance your airplane can have problems because of volcano 'dust'? I don't think so.

Poor airline companies, or not...

imagine what happens when...

A Swiss moves to another country? Poor one will be worried about when is he/she/or other will receive the checks to be payed.

Last week, we received a brand new invoice! At least the government remembers we exist! I am happy for that! It is a new type of tax, one I had never seen before and we have to pay it because we live in Geneva. It is a common tax for me and my beloved husband. At least it is not like the one for utilizing TV/radio and so on, it has a meaning! (which is... if somebody knows, please, tell me???) We have to pay it because we leave here...I wonder if other cantons have the same.

At least this is not an expensive one, it is just 25 CHF, meaning 12,5 for me and 12,5 for him. And who is not married, pay how much?

ahhhhhhhhhh

Sometimes I realize I forgot how is it to be part of the glamorous group of people: the ones who work.


Since I moved to Suisse, I didn't experience any of the activities this select group perform on a everyday basis like wake up early; travel/or just walk to the office; have the stress of your boss in your back asking about this or that experiment or result he asked 2 days ago and you are late with it; making presentations for a sleepy bunch of people right after lunch; looking for what to lunch unless you brought that one-day-old tasty chicken. Besides having to go for a fixed time to the office; take a full bus or train, or a traffic jam in your way. Almost picking a fight with that colleague you know that should never have been hired, how the hell did he get in? Seating on your train/bus/car you think of buying that amazingly cool TV/computer/house appliance you saw on the advertisements. Or, if you are a little bit more geek you think whether you should or not spend the extra money in those iGadgets you see at the iCornershop with such a nice colours (white is also good, after all style is what counts). HAving to run at the end of the day to shop because you had to leave late from the job and almost couldn't get the market opened and thinking what the hell am I going to dinner?

OMG, all these advantages that you guys have....But making up for all of these obstacles you have to battle comes the so sacred end of the month. That fantastic period when your bank account is filled again to mamixum (or close to it) and you forget about the +!%/'" colleague/boss, traffic jams and lack of freshly-prepared lunch and full-till-door-trains and buses and a new one month period comes again.

How much I miss this! Wait a minute, do I? This week I was in 2 job interviews in 2 different labs, with people who work from 9h till 19h, smell bad smells the entire day, travel 1 hour to go (in Hungary I traveled 4h a day), and receive a few money...

The question is, do I want all this stress back?

Have them or not have them? that is the question.

Yeah, maybe salaries are not that bad in Switzerland. Maybe better than in a lot of countries in Europe or in the world.

Funny thing is you also spend a lot. Besides the overpriced rents and food nowadays we heard about another thing: a tax you pay because you use TV or radio. Weird isn't it? Where that money goes to? To support the poor TV/radio people. How much is it? Well, I didn't check it out, but I think it is something like 100 CHF per year for both of them, I don't know.

Since we are not much of French speakers and not even German (though I am on the way to it) and we don't have a TV (nor a radio at home), we don't pay it. I just heard from my neighbor, who has been living here for a nice while mentioned that you even have to pay for it if you have a radio in your CAR! Now that is absurd!



She also mentioned that back on the other city she lived before Geneva, something funny happened. She was at home in the early morning (I always listen it happens in the morning), when she listens to somebody knocking on the door. She answers and guess who was it? It was the guy from the TV/radio tax company just making a normal surveillance if people have or not these equipments (they have to be declared to the company, as she explained me) and in case they do, if they are up to date with their payments. Since she had a TV, but the cable of the antenna was far away from it and cut out (she was explaining him that this way he can she does not use the TV), after some problematic understanding, he accepted and left.

I heard the fine you have to pay if they discover you use them and don't pay is quite high, to assure you feel bad for not paying it before. There is a program you use to watch TV online in your computer. Yes, you know which one I am talking about. They also want to make a tax for it or for the computer, because not only you can also watch TV, but also listen to radio. Maybe soon it will be voted...

It can be fun to live here, isn't it? oh, all the things you pay because you just live in Switzerland---

car trips around Europe...and Brazil...

I think after we moved to Switzerland, this was our third trip to Hungary by car. Some places in the road are becoming already familiar to us and now the trip even seemed faster and less tiring than the others, although it is a 12-14 hours travel depending on the traffic situation.

One example in Suisse, as we live in the French area we see a lot, at least two lakes (Neuchatel, Leman and the Bodensee), the MontBlanc, the other Swiss alps, plus all the big Swiss cities that maybe we will never really get to know because we just pass there in out trips to Hungary. A place we got amazed by is the Nespresso factory that produces the cartridges for the famous 'new' Nespresso coffee, the small pods that are now exported for almost entire Europe and world. And what a good feeling for our noses to pass there, a fantastic coffee smell, even if car windows are up. As all terrain here are well utilized even for agriculture, right besides this factory some cows go grass eating. I bet these cows are hyperactive because of the great coffee smells!

Germany is one of the most developed countries in our way and since it is localized in the center of Europe, car and truck traffic is heavy. All highways are of superb quality, not to mention the speed freedom in several places, this is where Swisses bring their Maseratis and Ferraris and Lotus and so on to see how their engines really work. All this quality has a price, German roads are also known for their famous STAUS. We never passed there without having one or not listening to at least one in the Radio: ...2, 4, 1 km stau (traffic jam). Sometimes they are there because of no apparent reason, though most of the times they are there because of road reform or constructions.

STAU!!! no!!!!!

I can't deny the existence of staus in Austria (specially in ski season), but this country has the most beautiful views of the entire trip. Insbruck, Salzburg, Mondsee and the tirolean alps are breathtaking. By March/April when the snow at the mountaintops are melting, gorgeous waterfalls are formed all over the Alps area. Also, one of the cities close to the highway has a shop that we call the provider for the Nations square here in Geneva, if you have been there you will understand why, if not, it is because of the huge chair (maybe 4-6 meters high?) this shop has in front of it.

The Mondsee lake
The shop's chair, almost identical to the one in the Nations in Geneva

After you pass Vienna, the trip becomes funny...the highway looses its quality, although you are still in Austria, even the good bathrooms installed all through the Austrian highway loose their quality. You can feel you are arriving to Hungary not only in the amount of advertisement along the road (I realized this is not allowed here in Switzerland), but also in the driving style. Exactly like in Brazil! We were overtaken on the right (in the city too), people accelerate to not let you enter in front of them among other types of juggling.

Hungarian driving style (in my husband's view and who is Hungarian...)

Besides this, highway quality is really good (though the roads in the city are full of holes) and I can't even compare to Brazil, where sometimes we have some pieces of road inside a hole!

Not only small roads are like these in Brazil...

I want it, and not for Xmas...

I know, I know. You are there telling yourself, what a geek!

But right now this is the only kit I would like to buy (scientist joke).


I haven't read much about the iPad, and I know it looks like a giant iPhone, but i think surface matters, after all we all learned in physics that as bigger the surface, faster will happen the reaction...

SO, since April 4th it is available in the US, in Europe I still don't know. You can watch already videos in the internet with tests, even coffee/water and fall resistant...Amazing, they make you cry.