easyjet easyjet

From the same snow topic.

Of course let it snow, let it snow, let snow. For almost 36h the airport was closed. Hundreds of people had to sleep on hotel rooms that didnt exist anymore, so they had to create a 'protection civile', like a shelter for poor-people-without-airplane. Geez, I should have offered my extra room for a nice price...

After the snow storm comes, not the calm, but the ice. City of Geneva still not cleaning well the streets and not even the sidewalks, where the elder slips all the time and the walking speed is reduced to extremely slow...sometimes cars and buses also slip....NOT SWITZERLAND!

Friday afternoon, before my crazy working morning and meanwhile getting dressed my boss was still giving me 'orders' when the snow started again. I thought with myself: nooooooo. Everybody told me, don't worry, there won't be annnnnny problem.

I had to wait 3h30 for my flight to Budapest....this is tooooooo much love. I arrived at 13h and we left at 18h probably because the plane was coming from a far snowy place, the reason, they didn't really say.

Well, still better than what happened to my boyfriend one day before. Everybody was already sitting in the plane when the commandant says there is a technical problem with the craft and he comes out of the cabine with a bag on the hand and goes to repair the problem...go figure this so nice wood-bank company...

Geneva x Switzerland...

Just heard from a Swiss that Geneva does not behave like part of Switzerland...
At this point I have to admit I missed the Hungarian snow cleaning.
Saturday we had a kind of snow fall, just 10-15cm. What the city of Budapest starts to clean even before the snow starts to fall.
Well again, in Geneva at 13h in the afternoon we had not seen any track of any snow remover truck, not even in the city center. During most of the day people simply couldn't catch a bus or a tram because there was such an amount of snow everywhere that they just couldn't drive. The same happened for foreigner who don't know driving, they stuck in the middle of the streets and the highway!

When we come to a country whose half of it is about alps and snow, we expect to be able to walk on a sidewalk without slipping, well, this was not possible in Geneva. The government excuse was that the fall was too heavy, I think russians and who are used to this were laughing. Even the tram system stopped for half day.

Hope next time will be better and we won't have to do what most genevois do, they just stay home eating swiss Chocolate and fondue, that I can't do every time it snows...

I don't really like this doll, but I gotta admit I just loved this version...This is called imagination...

Les Champs-Elysées...

As I mentioned before, one of the things we like the most about living here is the proximity to other great cities.

Two weekends ago we decided (of course after a nice friend living there allowed): let's go to Paris!

Big questions of life: airplane or train? what you mean train? Well, Geneva is one of the final stations of the famous French TGV (train a grande vitesse), the very fast train! It is not so fast if you compare that with an Easyjet flight you are there in 1h30min, and by train we make in 3:30 with no connection, but why not trying it?

Of course prices also matter. In a not business time (and playing with weekend/no weekend flights with Easyjet), one needs around 70 euros (back and forth ticket!!!). By train we couldn't find for less than 300 Swiss francs, although with good sales, you can find for 200 francs or less. Also, one should consider that arrivals by airplane are, at least, 10 km far from the city center, whenever train arrivals are practically IN the center and from there is just choose one of the many metro, bus, or bike lines. I was always 'afraid' of the many metro lines, I counted 14 of them, I could get lost and never find my way out of it, ever again; there is even one without driver!

And then, of course, it is just get lost (in the good meaning) in the many small and large streets, sightseeing, important places and shops and restaurants (they are everywhere).

Monmartre, great view from the city

We were very lucky on Friday with good weather. We started our walk from Monmartre, down to the Opera, with our first visit to the Galerie Lafayette (astonishing too many useless expensive craps, but an outstanding architecture), following to the Madeleine and down to the Concorde, with the view of the Tuillerie/Louvre to the back and going towards the Champs-Elysées (with a pit stop for a crepe and panini) we arrived to the Arc du Triomphe. How I love this street, it is so funny to see these boutiques with very 'cheap' prices, people from all over the world walking around, and suddenly facing a big picture of George with a cup of Nespresso (I doubt he drinks those with the Italian cafés giving where he lives), waiting 20min at a Starbucks to get that watered café (no way), and see a line of 100 Chineses waiting to see the insides of the Maison Louis Vitton (maybe to copy for selling at the black market?) and finishing in a lovely walk to the Eiffel Tower, I just love to sit and look up at that amaaaaaazing structure.

Bonjour la Dame de Fer!

Xmas deco at the Lafayette

Saturday was just rain, but a delicious breakfast at one of the restos at the Louvre, how I love those croissants, gateaux au chocolat and so many of them. Inside the Louvre of course we had to stop to check what, according to Krisz is one of the best works of art there, which you can find in the pic bellow:

(could you find it?)

Then walked to Les Halles (interesting mall), small streets of the Marais and on our way to the Luxembourg garden we went around the quartier latin, just love it! and back we met Orsi in the Notre-Dame under the pouring rain.

Sunday was also lucky because although it was raining we could get for free (first sunday of the month) inside the Musee d'Orsay. Beautiful building, nice pics and the impressionism really leaves you impressed, though I prefer statues...

And then, back home. This time the TGC was more modern, I forgot to mention that the one we took to go to Paris was the latest fashion of the 70s, but still it reached the promised 296 km/h (which I wouldn't try at home).

Besides you are never alone, have to travel in the packed metro, and strikes, Paris is indeed a city like no other...

not easy...

hi there,

Not easy to keep posting after I have to run up and down and manage some programs for others...

Well, I have been doing a lot of things, not only related to job after all! And job it is, since I spent more time there (minimum 11 hours a day) than at home. After having lunch with the natives from here and there I realized that Brazilians are not really strong in one area: wishing things to others, or at least my family!

In the morning they already start with bonjour!ok, no problem there because some brazilians really say that do each other, but as I remember most of them do say it. But Francophones do go a little bit more ahead saying "bonne journée), like have a nice day in the morning.
Then lunch time comes and with it something that I really didn't enjoy in Gödöllő and they kind of obligated foreigners to say: the famous "bon appetit"! and not only they have to answer thanks, the same for you too (merci, parreillement) but we have to say it for every 10 people who get into the room. It really slows down my eating (how boring I am).

After lunch is finished and dishes washed they wish each other "bon ap" but this time not the short for bon apetit, but the short for "bon apres-midi", meaning have a nice afternoon! and then again: merci, parreillement.

And by leaving the job, they say (not all of them) "bonne soirrée!, wishing a good night. Even to the bus driver, poor one, he arrives very thirsty at the end of the driving.
C'mon that is too much! Don't you think? I don't think Germans or Spanishes have this all the time. Or maybe I am just putting into practice what Swiss romande people say that French people do a lot: "raler", to complain a lot.

alors, c'est ça, bonne journée a tous!

It is so hard to write when you pass the entire day jumping from one lab to the other and so on...
2-3 weeks ago we succeeded to take a time off and go somewhere in Switzerland, because after all, the French region around here we already know...

We went to one of the most famous ski cities in the country (at least we think so), we went to Zermatt!!!
I 've never been to place where you go on vacation just to ski or just to walk walk walk, or as my colleague who was also there says, hike!

It is a super über nice place. The city is car free (sg that an American or a Brazilian can imagine). It means, you leave your car in one of the cities before Zermatt and go up by train (15 CHF round trip without the demi-tarif). We got a good hotel, but you can also run for lodges, albergues, apartments or expensive hotels (up in the klein Matterhorn). Our hotel had a view to the Matterhorn, but not our room, which had a view to the city.

Well, so what you do on a place like this? climb to the mountains by walk (not my style) or take the cable car (a bit overpriced), but when you have your ski stuff, you have to use it. The funny is to see people around in 25 degrees with the ski coats and trousers.

We opted to go for the walking. As totally out of ideas about what to do, we took a huge breakfast (delicious) and out for the mountains! But where? we got a map and decided: Gornergrat it is. after all it is just 3km and that I do all the time...but...

Yeah, but...I didn't count the inclination of the mountain...when you are not prepared that can be a pain in the leg, literally speaking...so we went up one km and found the GornergratBahn, I was never so happy to find a train and up we went. Walked around, saw amazing views, interesting people, a glacier (or a mer de glace), something like a sea of ice...I wanted to walk in that one, but maybe it wouldnt be what I expect it to be. Than we walked down a bit more, and took the train to the hotel. As I said this is not exactly the kind of vacation I am used to which is go to a paradise beach, drink coconut water and drinks meanwhile staring at the beach, walk in the sand and that's all for some days. THis is what most Brazilians do I think. From now on I decided to change this vacation style and go more to these other type of paradise places.
Zermatt is said to be expensive, after all, hotels and trains are, but food is exactly like in Geneva.



A good place to spend some quality time. Ah, this is funny to say: I got a little sunburned! I really thought that wouldn't be possible for me, as I am used to Brazilian sun. Guess what, up in the Gornergrat observatory there was a station for measuring cosmic radiation...well, you can imagine how our faces were after walking around the entire day 3100m high...

THis will be out target next time, up to the Toblerone chocolate symbol mountain...

costumer treatment...

One thing that never stops amazing me here in general, in Europe (and I thought it was a particularity of Hungary but I was wrong) is how a seller or a person who works in a shop whichever it is 'serves' the client.

You all know that I mention how are things in Brazil and Hungary all the time, because these are the two countries where I have lived the most and I don't want to always present this Brazilian vainglory, but there the job of a seller/waiter depends on how he deals with the client. Brazilian like to be well treated and are used to a friendly service. I always call the waiter by their names and talk and ask opinions and they always give feedback, specially in the sea shore kiosks.

In Hungary, waiters are so impersonal, make an unfriendly face if you don't choose your meal fast and are, sometimes, impolite. Or who never received a not-nice-face from sellers in Salamander or this type of shop?

In Switzerland, they are protected. Yes, they can do anything they want. I already saw sellers in shops make an extreme ugly face because they came to ask if they can help and we said 'no, we are just checking around'. Or when the waiter came and we still didn't choose the plate...
Yesterday it was the top of the top. We arrived at Manor restaurant to eat a pizza 30min before the restaurant closes (at 19:30), and, we were choosing our pizza when the seller looked at our face and made the gesture of closing plus said 'closed', pluuuus the manager came and started installing the separation line that we should not advance. Com'n we were already there inside...I can understand that he might be tired of working the entire day in front of the oven, but I think that was not nice at all.

So we decided to go to the market and the same money we would use to eat the pizza, we bought special pieces of cheese, ham, and bread and had fun with it.

To hell with this behavior, they should know it better in this country, a place where as I have seen money speaks more than all the languages together...

no time...

I started working 2 months ago.
Still didn't receive my first salary (in science is like this), but I happen to be having lots of fun in the new labs!
People are nice (I was afraid of not finding nice colleagues I have to admit) and the place is new and modern.
Some friends ask me, why didn't you start working after the summer is over, like this you can enjoy the sun and the warm for the last time before you get immersed in all that +"!%/+! and never be able to come out of it again.
Yeah, I realized that I have no time for nothing now, even for the flat which became a mess. But it is worth, I really like the place and the warm outside the lab is so unbearable (35 degrees one of these days) that I just can thank for the wise decision of some department of having a 4 degrees room close to our labs!



have a nice summer...

again world cup?

Yeah, did you realize that nowadays every second topic in a conversation is about football? The funny is that in certain countries, after the Cup is over, they won't talk about it for the next 4 years...

I realized something interesting these last weeks here in Switzerland, probably in other places it also happened. All electro-eletronics newspapers have been advertising which equipment the most? TVs! It is amazing! And compared to a newspaper from 3 months ago the prices aren't cheaper, they are the same, just a few really worth, but now the 'new' TVs have a men playing football in it, and not necessarily a Swiss one.

Why? marketing department thinks people have the rush to buy a new TV? or that the ones that never haven't got a TV at home (like we after a year) will need to buy a TV now in order to watch it? pretty dull, ahn?

But the best thing on the week, to go deep into the subject, was the game Switzerland X Spain. All my Swiss colleagues (rare to find) were saying: we will be very sad after the game because Spain is gonna eat us alive. At the end of the game, going home, the city looked like after a big wedding (here in Europe). All cars in the street (I believe the Swiss ones) were horning to each other, even the buses! In the bus my friend was the bus driver informed in the loud speaker 'Switzerland won!!!', and he got no reaction, then he said it is not a joke, and then people start to make noise, so unexpected victory it was.

This is happiness! I hope they will be good on the next one too! congrats!

world cup is here!

As a Brazilian, I have to admit that this is the most waited sports competition for us. Awaited for four years, we always have the hope of winning, specially over France! And as I see ad listen, Swisses and we share the same thought as seen in a T-shirt in the streets in the French Switzerland:

'je supporte deux équipes: la Suisse et n'importe quelle autre qui battra la France!'

Meaning that: " I am a fan of two teams: Switzerland and the other who is gonna win over France!. Not that I think they have any chance, but at least they do their best.

Also on the streets around Geneva, you can see the Brazilians and other teams supporters moving around already with the team T-shirts! The city is gonna deploy big screens for the 'people' to watch the games. And this years world cup has an advantage for who is in Europe: as South Africa is in the same meridian this means the time of the games won't be like when it was in Japan or Australia.



So, this is it. Good luck to all teams, but mostly to Brazil, I think they will need it since I have heard around here that our team is not the best as our coach has done some bad choices. SO we might say may the best team win! (or the one who has a good financing company, not to mention the happening in the cup of 1998, when Ronaldinho (or Ronaldo as Hungarians say) 'pretended' to be sick and had to give up the match and let France win... well...nobody ever could explain that...

FYI, this is the google's Easter egg for the 'world cup' research...

So, as we say in Portuguese: I hope my poor Brazilian fan heart won't suffer that much...

new species discovered in Geneva...

This week at 8 AM as I leave the little train (RER) and walking around the city center (not that Geneva has a large one) I saw something I have never seen until now: Geneva is really a business center. THe amount of people I saw wearing suits was amazing. I felt like I was among several penguins...I was feeling very bad wearing my jeans, my Merrel shoes, and my sweatshirt, plus carrying my laptop backpack. Here people in suit carry their laptops (if they carry anything besides their Louis Vitton, Armani or Donatella bags (including man), in highly fashioned laptop bags. They are cool and expensive (around 3000 francs a cheap one), but I bet not as comfortable as mine.

Meanwhile waiting for my bus, I realized I found out where this species so abundant in Geneva (the Homo insuits) forages in the earlier part of the day (to forage is best translated from the scientific vocabulary to everyday words as eat/feed), I found myself in front of a very fancy and modern 'juice shop' with bio products. They leave up to 25 francs for a breakfast. How healthy this species is! After this dangerous search for food they go to another spot to finish foraging, a so called coffee shop, where they have a espresso or a liter cup of coffee and smoke their cigarette.

I finish the appointments of my species discovery (I will write more about the behavior of this species during different parts of the day later) wondering if one day I will ever introduce myself among this species to better understand their behavior like the famous Jane Goodall did...

Is it worth?

Well, a tourada (or the bull fight) is not one of the reasons why I would go to Spain. It makes the animal suffer, doesn't prove anything and does not add anything to our lives. What the person who deals with the animal think she will win with that? is it really necessary? Maybe if they would eat the meat after all, but this end does not justify the means...

This 41-year-old toreador in Sevilha learned his lesson, maybe. He is alive and stable, though he had to pass through a tracheostomy and he is in the ICU in case you want to visit him.

Why is it difficult to follow rules?

How guests have to behave?
When you visit somebody else, how do you behave at their house? Do you do everything they ask, like don't do this don't do that, don't do it like this, do like that? I certainly do.

Why some people are so difficult to understand what you want them to do, or not?

Older people are even more difficult to accept the rules, maybe because they already lost part of the brain or because they might think they don't have to obey anybody.

Our flat is almost or a little bit more than a 100 years old, when you walk on the floor we kindly ask people to step on certain parts of the flat because it makes a loud creak. So you just have to walk in the side of the corridor, close to the wall and not step on the door treshold.

I don't understand how difficult this is because I can walk without a noise, maybe it has something to do with the anorexic 40 kilos I weight. We kindly ask for people not to throw hairs on the shower box, because it is bad for the pipes and our foot, since the dirty water can't follow her way down. We kindly ask people to throw the toothpaste dejects in the sink, and not on the side or on the wall or on the mirror.

Please don't get me wrong, I really like to have guests, we always used to have some. But why is it difficult to follow the rules?

Am I too picky or am I just rude?

French or Swiss expressions?

Yes, in the last year I became something I was afraid of: a housewife. I was at home full time, didn't have to wake up early, run to the job, run the entire day against the clock, find/invent something to eat, then come back home in a full bus God only knows at what time of the night. I even learned how to cook beans, rice, steak and others (just Brazilians and their connections know how this is important for a Brazilian!). I read a lot, even the weekly newspapers from the supermarkets. Where, in these, I met a funny expression that Swisses use to refer to their kids: 'les blonds' or 'les têtes blondes'! Which literally means 'the blonds' or 'the blond heads'.

I wonder if this expression exists in the other cantons of the country. And yes it is 'funny' because mostly in the German region there can be 90% of blond kids, but Geneva, no, not at all...maybe the blond kids are approximately 10% of the phenotype we can see in the kinder garden?

How come? Simply, since the population of the canton genevois is composed of 40% of foreigners and lots of them come from not really nordic countries, so you understand how 'funny' or not real this expression can be.

And this is one of the reasons why I like it here. The melange or the so called mixture between the couples of different cultures. Something we do not see in many other countries.

So next time the columnists of the newspapers write about the kids I wish they took a look around, because the least hair color they will see around is blond, but a lot of brown, black, and lots of red! Even though, OMG, all of them are so cute, aren't they???



OMG now for me, one says that when a woman starts to think other kids are cute is because their time to produce one is coming...is that true? noooooooo

why is it...?

Switzerland, a country where you can do almost everything you want. You can see several different tribes (really tribes) in the same street, or the meeting of an Ayatollah with a Rambam, without them bombing each other.

So, why is it that in Switzerland, at least in this French part of the country people have to work on May 1st?

Nobody really knows, I even asked one of the 5 Swisses I know, they said it was always like that, as they can remember. Although, if you want to make a manifestation, you just have to make your requirement...

Let's make one against working on May first? See you at the Nations next year?

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---