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.

allure, poison, one, organza, 5, what these names have in common?

Today's Index article about fake-real perfumes is outstanding.

they are so nice and smell so goooood...

Yes, in Hungary you can buy last fashion perfumes for less then the half of the price of the one you buy in the shop. They mention how these "Chinese" sellers can sell them so cheap: one, or they are fake and produced by a company with cheap ingredients that smell close to the original ones, or they are the original ones sold by the wholesale shops to these small shops. Of course if you ask your Chinese seller why his product is cheaper than in the big shop they say the reason is simple as they don't have to pay expensive shopping centres rent, but I can be sure it is the original. How can it be?

Well, we're talking scents. Smelling good is big business - the perfume industry makes around 24 billion Swiss francs a year. Yet we don't know how highly profitable and even secretive industry this is.

Consider the price of the perfume. The liquid in the bottle represents only 3 per cent of the total cost of producing it.

The other 97 per cent goes to marketing, packaging and advertising. And the selling price allows for a 95 per cent profit margin. There's a lot of money to be made in making the rest of us smell better.

This is what happens with the apprehended 'fake' perfumes...

Science is partly to blame. Today, your favourite scents are not coming to you from the garden, but rather straight from a laboratory - they are created from synthetic molecules, not from flowers. Techniques like chromatography are dominating this area.

Discovered in 1876, the use of synthetic scents revolutionized the world of perfumery. Suddenly, scents lingered longer and could be produced in large quantities. The creative possibilities increased dramatically and at a fraction of the cost of the real thing.

It is like did you know it takes 750kg of jasmine flowers to create 1kg of essential oil, which is base of perfumes? As it is not enough, in France, jasmine blooms only from August to October, and must be picked by hand during the few hours of the day that the petals are open!

The rose doesn't make life any easier. It must be picked by hand, flower by flower, at sunrise. When a kilo of rose absolute can cost up to 6 000 Swiss francs. Its synthetic equivalent costs only 600 CHF, it's not hard to see why the perfume industry has embraced synthetic scents.

And you say, but what about those perfumes advertised by the famous actresses? They are much cheaper...yeah, and the fact that they also use cheaper ingredients is the reason why they are more affordable and easy to get to more people.

When I buy a perfume I usually try it on later I come back if I decided to buy, because I like to check for long it stays on me, which basic and heart scents it will free up later on and so on. It is in fact very confusing going up to a department store counter, who was never pushed to buy this or that perfume? More dangerous is to buy them online (of course if you never tried or just because they smell good in your friend. In my experience, these are the people who won't like what they are buying.

So, take care with shiny-bright-glimmering advertisements, you should buy what smells good to you, regardless of anything else. Why? because what perfume you wear is the equivalent of reflecting our personality in the scent that we choose.

The sense for smell is the most closely tied to emotion, do you remember when you were little the smell of that cake or sweet your grandma prepared just for you? Also, people often have powerful responses to specific odours. What you choose will have an effect on you and those around you. So, we should be careful in every instance.

Medicine time

So after one year, it was time for some routine exam. IN the last months I have been listening how difficult is to get a consult with a doctor, that mostly you have to wait 2-3 months to get an appointment. So I went to the doctor I found in the newspaper and asked for an appointment, the secretary said sorry but this doctor does not receive any more clients because she is full (wow). Called another person, and got an appointment for the next day. I am still thinking about the difference that might exist between them.

Well, I have been once to a clinic in Geneva center as an emergency. I was sick, we went to the pharmacy just to ask the medicine because I know what I should take in some cases and I understand a bit about medicine. But, as in the rest of Europe they don't do that. (I prefer Brazil, even if we go to the pharmacy you can ask anything, they give and cases of death because of this is very rare, and you still go to the doctor).

Anyway, back to the topic. This emergency was last year, I had a consult and an exam and still I payed 120 CHF for the doctor's visit. Back to the pharmacy I payed 67 CHF, 40 from the antibiotics, 17 for using the pharmacy out of the time (it was Saturday at 20h) and the rest for the validation of doctor's paper. Unbelievable no?



Ok, now back to the doctor visit last month. I went to the doc. Had all the exams and the appointment for some extra exam he asked. I left his office just after saying where I live and in which company I am assured. Wow, amazing system. How he knows I am not lying? But I want the results right? So of course they trust. 2-3 weeks after I received the result of this adventure:

1. The doctor's visit costed me 215 CHF!?!"!?? I was sad, but I heard this might be the price (anyway, more expensive than the emergency exam????how come?)

2. The extra exam he asked costed 295 CHF, a simple ultrasound!

3. the lab results costed 39 CHF. And I received the results together with the bill. The results came within a nice closed paper, folded and written with nice letters saying congratulations all results are negative! (imagine when it is written positive!)

4. I am happy my health insurance (HI) prime (franchise) is 500 CHF, because from now on I just pay 10% of everything, in most cases.

5. Now I am waiting whether HI company will accept my papers (you have to send them the bills) this way I can expect number 4 to happen for this year.

6. Basically I pay about 360 CHF per month for the HI. WHat a prrrrrrice! I think it is very expensive if you still have to pay these prices for doctors.

7. I hope none of you have to visit doctors and if you have, even if it is not a fashion here, you should ask how much is this going to cost.

Now I dont think it is healthy to do what some people do here. They choose a very high prime and never do any routine exams, now this is dangerous!

Living and learning.

Is it for real???

I can't say for sure, but the earthworms and I think spring is coming!

In my daily walks I already saw several of them leaving the earth, even a ladybug I saw around.

Some flowers I saw, though not these ones yet.

Also that funny bug called in Hungarian bodobácsi I saw today! It is just strange there is no gradual change, since I am in Europe one day the temperature is 0 degree and in the other it is already 12!

Bodobácsi bug!

Fortunately (or unfortunately?) in my hometown the entire year's temperature is practically 24 degrees, even in winter.

I can believe we are close to spring. Even people's mood is changing. Yesterday during horse walk some runners passed by us and some other people are also greeting in the streets. In Budapest people's behavior in the metro was remarkably changed when the temperature started to raise!

So get ready for more sun radiation, more happiness and less ski time...