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.