taste of summer

What else to give you that real summer taste than a bowl full of blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and milk? Miam

Swisscom saga

I would strongly recommend against choosing Swisscom for your internet or other services if you live in Switzerland. I have been a customer with them for the last 10 years or so and have been staying with them since their service used to be the best even if their prices were not always as advantageous as the competition. However, these last few months have made me change my mind. You might remember that I wrote how I managed to get an offer for 3 months of internet for free sometime back in January. Spent 20 minutes on the phone to get that offer, but thought that would be the end of the story. But no. In short these are the steps of the internet from hell story:
1) Wait a week for the contract. Call. Oooops they had forgotten to send it. (lost approx. 2 weeks)
2) Contract arrives, but no mention of the 3 months free. Call them up and re-explain the whole situation, ask if I can add a note onto the contract but am instead promised a letter stating these 3 months for free.
3) No letter arrives for a couple of weeks. Call back again and am told that no such letter exists and that it is impossible for them to provide individual letters (although the idea for such a letter came from a Swisscom employee originally). However, the lady promised that she could see the promised 3 months on my profile. So decided to trust Swisscom and signed the contract.
4) Ahhh finally the personal information and the DSL box arrives - we have internet!!!! Not. Something is wrong with the connection. Many stops by the Swisscom shop and calls to Swisscom later, and many trial at home for what can be wrong, finally Swisscom agrees to send an expert. Who check everything and finds the problem to be that Swisscom has sent our line to the wrong receiver in the building, something outside of our apartment and completely outside of our control. He has it fixed. And finally we do indeed have internet. 3 months after the original request!!
5) But no, the saga doesn't end there. The first bill arrive, and not only are we charged for the whole month of April when we mostly didn't have internet, we are actually charged - the 3 months having been completely forgotten. This is why I wanted a letter or something written. Just talked to a lady at the accounting department of Swisscom who now promised me that the 3 months will start from May. We'll see if that will happen. I'm so tired of Swisscom. It is not normal that getting internet should take 3 months. It is not normal to have to call the provider 8-10 times before it works. It is not normal that an agreement is broken as it was here. And it is not normal that they do not offer any compensation after all this loss of time, energy, and money.

I do not have the energy to change providers at the moment. Not after that everything is finally working. But I warn you against getting Swisscom if you can avoid it. Really.

Fête de sport and Caves Ouvertes - Summer in Geneva

How do you know that winter is out and summer has taken over in Geneva. Well, most obvious of course is to stroll around in the street and check out the number of people on terrasses, walking around, running by the lake, rollerblading, biking. The fact that the city comes to live.

Another way are through all the nice and often free activities that take place. Two weeks ago it was time for a weekend of dance with the Fête de la dance which meant all the dance classes you could take, and manage to get a spot in, for a total of 10 chf for the weekend. Great fun! We went to a Flamenco dance class, an African contemporary dance class, and a Hip Hop class.

This weekend the turn has come for two completely free events. The first is the famous, here in the region, Caves Ouvertes. This means a great day of fun and good wine as lots of wineyards open their caves for free tasting of last year's harvest. We went last year and managed to go to 4 different caves and try many many different glasses of wine. Oops. The atmoshpere is great as lots of people join this outing in the villages about 45 min by bike outside of the centre (there are also free bus connections, and you can go there by car, but probably not back). And the wine is mostly good. Only problem coming by bike was to transport home all the bottles we wanted to buy so this year the backpacks will be bigger ;) So a weekend of great fun ahead where we go and borrow some free bikes (hopefully, as they can run out but last year we were fine), bike off in a group of friends, spend the day tasting wine, nibbling on small also free food, going for lunch, more wine and then back to return the bikes a bit late having to pay 2 chf in a fee ;)

Then the second event this weekend is the Fête de sport, taking place both Saturday and Sunday for free trials of everything from climbing to boxing, from winsurfing to flying, from beach volley to rafting... Should be fun! The plan is to go on Sunday, and hopefully the wine headache from the wine tasting will be gone by then.

So a great weekend ahead as long as the weather keeps stable. And around the corner for the summer are waiting the Fête de la musique with free concerts all over town, the La ville est à vous-fêtes de rues where the whole city comes alive with activities in one neighbourhood per weekend, and free concerts in the park twice a week for 2 months of the summer. I love Geneva in the summer!

the attack of the shopaholics

A new special collection at H&M, this time a summer collection by Matthew Williamson, and it's shopaholics heaven.

If you have managed to miss it, H&M have been cooperating with different super designers for the last few years for a special autumn collection, starting with Karl Lagerfeld, and passing through Stella and Victor & Rolf (both the Stella and V&R collections were beautiful and this shopaholic have used my treasures from these collections many many times). Last year it was time for Comme les garçons, quite a strict, dark collection. What better then to follow up with a colourful summer designer collection - a first at H&M (and no, the Madonna collection, which also occurred in the spring a couple of years ago, was not actually designed by her, but only clothes chosen by her and her team from the normal collection).

Matthew Williamson actually designed 2 collections for H&M, a first special very limited collection released a month ago, which I missed but have heard wasn't that nice. And a second 'normal' collection for the summer which was available in shops from today. The limited collection was only released in 200 shops around the world while this summer collection was released in some 1600 shops. Hence nothing spectacular. One would have thought. And I guess there must have been a lot less frenzy for this second collection as there were still lots of things left at 12.15 when I arrived (while normally everything is gone 30 min after they open in the morning), but by 13.00 almost everything was gone except for some ugly tops and a frankly overpriced dress.

All the things at the girls' department that is. At the men's department, there are still lots of stuff. I guess that 1) men are just in general less hysterical for these kind of things and a bit less of shopaholics, and 2) the quite strong colours and patterns of MW's design is more appreciated by women than most men. Some quite nice things though, so if you are a man and you want some fun colourful summer clothes - go and check it out.

I will not tell you what I bought - as of course I bought some things, why else do you think I spent more than an hour there, whereby 40 min approx. in the dressing room (yes, it takes time to try on 3 bathing suits, 3 bikinis, 5-6 dresses, pants, skirt, tops...) - let's just say that I will be beautiful and colourful on the beach this summer, that it wouldn't be bad if someone invites me to a wedding... And yes, that after this shopping stunt and the one in Lugano last weekend I will probably have to eat pasta a few weeks next month...

So the shopaholic hits again. Why do they have to make special collections? Beautiful special collections?

bird pooh and luck

At lunch today, I got pooped on by a bird. A small one luckily. But there ends my luck. On a new sweater of course... could this be nature’s way of punishing a shopaholic?

Hopefully though this will not be like 5 years ago, when the same thing happened to me trice in less than a year. All good things are three, right? And bird pooh on you is supposed to bring luck? Let me tell you no such thing. When it comes to bird pooh the best is zero times! And for luck? Nope, didn't work back then either. Although I was tempted to go in to my boss and ask for a promotion in the afternoon, just try the old saying, but to my (un)luck he is away until next week.

My boyfriend is from Portugal. Great, lovely, beautiful, warm, sunny place that we wish to go to every quite often. Half of the population in this city is also from Portugal. Flight companies now work on a the more the merrier for the company policy, if you're not among the first 2 or so buying a ticket on a specific date you'll pay a fortune. We did not win on the Euromillion.

Make the calculation - do you think we go to Portugal often?

I suggested we kill or at least injure enough some portuguese people so they can't make their flight, steal their tickets and pretend to be them (would for sure work as my Portuguse is just excellent...). N suggested that we maim some Swiss tourists instead. At this I laughed! There are no tourists going to Portugal over the weekend. How would they afford it? This is why the Portuguese economy isn't what it could be as only Portuguese people are crazy enough to pay the overrated prices to fly home, and then cannot afford to spend any money in the country but live off their mummy's great food. Swiss tourists go elsewhere to places where they can still afford an ice cream after having paid the flight. Hence the only one to profit, as always, is EasyJet.

O Canto do Coxo: Ceifeira

Always thoughtful, always slightly provoking forcing the brain to wake up, always interesting: O Canto do Coxo: Ceifeira