Good Thursday

I should have posted this entry lastnight but i fall asleep way too early than my usual hours (I am a nightowl). There's nothing unusual to write just some few rants about this and that...will not go through all the details really. I just feel like my blog right now is all about posting pictures since I am not that gifted with writing. I will officially say that pictures can speak more words than I can. As i said in my previous entries (old blogs), I have trouble keeping up my site. I need a push, a kick or a good spanking (the last one is the last resort). So, what is the point of todays post? Nothing really; just making sure I can still type it out.

Layout and design: Haydee (using PSE5 program)

Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday Edition

This is my daughter Ina. She is 13 and a very thoughtful and adoring girl. I took this picture last sunday while we went up hiking in Verbier. I manipulated the image to just show the prominent color which best represents how beautiful that day was. Check out more Wordless Wednesday.

Noxzema Skin Cream

A Noxzema jar from the 1940's.

Noxzema skin cream was invented in 1914 by a Baltimore pharmacist named Dr. Bunting. Originally called "Dr. Bunting's Sunburn Remedy", the earliest concoction was a combination of medication and vanishing cream sold as a treatment for sunburn. For the first 3 years, Bunting did all the mixing, heating, and pouring of the product himself.

Legend has it that the name Noxzema came from a satisfied customer who exclaimed, "You knocked my eczema!"

An ad from the 1940's stated that Noxzema was "wonderful for chapped hands, too."

The first Noxzema factory opened in 1920, in Baltimore, with the slogan “the miracle cream of Baltimore”. Demand grew steadily as the years progressed and by the 1940's, Noxzema had achieved national popularity through radio and print ads... There was even a Noxzema blimp!

This ad from the 60's suggested using Noxzema under makeup or at night.

In the 1950s, the Noxzema product line expanded to include other personal care products such as shave cream, suntan lotion and cold cream. In 1960, the Cover Girl line of cosmetics was launched, backed by an advertising campaign that used actual magazine cover girls enthused by this "glamorous new makeup". Cover Girl cosmetics touted the inclusion of Noxzema's medicated ingredients in its formulas.

The Noxzema company changed its name to Noxell in 1966. In 1989, Noxell was acquired by Procter & Gamble. Noxell had remained in the hands of the Bunting family until this merger.

A Noxzema ad from the 1970's, featuring a young Cybill Shepherd.

Noxzema owes its distinctive fragrance to the inclusion of camphor, menthol, and eucalyptus in its formula. Together with the ubiquitous blue jar, they have been Noxzema's hallmarks since 1914.

An early 70's commercial for Noxzema shaving cream, with Farrah Fawcett.

images: all flickr.com

Weekend Snapshot #25

Montreux, Switzerland

24/02/2008

at 19:27

Photo Hunt: Wooden

I took this picture last year in between summer and autumn. The flowers were all set in this interesting wooden structure. In fact, this used to be a living tree! Unfortunately cut, but carved and decorated with flower pots to enjoy the other side of its beauty.

Also check my other take on this week's theme at this site.
Thanks

Visiting Bern

Bern the capital of Switzerland is also a Canton, BE (State). It is about an hour from our town and the language spoken is a Swiss German dialect (totally different from High German). I will not go through the details about it's political info etc., just search it online if you are interested to know more about the place. We decided to take Saturday as our leisure day to stroll the town. First stop is to find our favorite restaurant. Just look at the pictures for the food we chose to eat that day.

Rösti (is made with potatoes, like hashbrown in the US) with bacon and eggs

Spaghetti with Mussels (Mine was with Risotto)

When everyone was happy and energized, we went for a little window shopping while crossing the old town. In between stop was my fascination with the fountains. They are all over the places. Like any of my excursion, i must take photos regardless of what...Just for a bit of information, Bern is also the city known for its fountains. There are probably 100 or more of them in the city and what few i found in the old center town have a very powerful images. Here are some of the fountains.

The Ryfflibrunnen

Brunnen is the German word for fountain. As much as I would like to share the perspective by taking the entire image of the fountain but, obviously failed, I can however give you a measurement of its actual size for the fountain, including statue, column, and basins. Each fountain probably reaches about 15 feet (roughly 4.5 meters) in height, with the statue being nearly life-size.

The Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen (Justice)

Too bad we didn't get a closer shot of him

Here is myself taking a pose with my children with the armor standing guard over the city fountain, and another smaller bear between his legs eating some grapes.

The Simsonbrunnen

This fountain shows the biblical story of Samson and the Lion. Apparently this fountain was paid for by the butcher's guild. It is easy to see why they would chose this image to represent their trade.

The ChindlifresserbrunnenMy favorite although it is a bit graphic and all, the Chindlifresserbrunnen (Child-Eating-Ogre-Fountain). The Chindlifresser is kind of like the Swiss boogey-man. I was a bit afraid and worried that Calvin might have a nightmare from looking at this fountain. I didn't dig on the history about this fountain (yet) but it is really strange that the people of Bern do not seem to be too fazed by this image of cannibalistic infanticide.

After what seems to be a walk of eternity, we ended crossing the bridge to our final destination. To see the famous bears. Which is literally the mascott of the town.

Just a bonus picture on our way to see the bear. I am still not sure if this is a real person posing a yoga. We had a debate with the children about it. Still continues to talk about it on our way home. It was a great day. I hope your Saturday was a fun one as well.

For more photos on this trip, you may visit here.

The USSR Pavilion

Located on Île Notre Dame, the USSR pavilion was one of the largest at Expo 67. And with an attendance of 15 million, it was the most visited.

The striking structure of glass and aluminium featured a dramatic sweeping roof, meant to symbolize the country's powerful take off. The bold USSR/URSS lettering on the pavilions facade drew crowds curious to discover the mystique of the Soviet Union.

This sculpture paid hommage to the 50th anniversary of the Russian revolution.

The pavilion's exhibit was based on the elements Earth, Sea and Sky, and how the Soviet population had benefited from these elements "all in the name of man, for the good of man".

Earth was located on the main floor, Sea was one floor below, while Sky, with it's hugely popular space exhibit, was strategically located on a mezzanine at the highest point of the pavilion.

Earth

A huge portrait of Lenin hung high above the Earth section, where the raw material wealth of the country was displayed. Films, photographs, illuminated maps, sketches and texts, as well as models, machines and samples of raw materials all sought to demonstrate Soviet achievements and future plans in such diverse fields as consumer goods industries, oil and coal industries, housing and town planning, agriculture, chemistry, mechanical engineering, quantum electronics, etc. etc...

Sea

Sturgeon (the fish that produce caviar) swam peacefully up and down a large fish pool located in the Sea section. Ship models were on display in this section, including the atomic icebreaker Lenin. A model of a desalinization plant showed how fresh water was produced.

Sky

High under the roof, a gallery was devoted to the conquest of space. On either side of the section were huge impressionistic panels of blues, greens and purples, painted by Alexi Leonov, the first man to walk in space. Cosmos Hall was a spherical 60-seat theatre which took visitors on a simulated ride to outer space. A replica of Yuri Gagarin's space capsule was on display, as were mock-ups of the surfaces of the moon and Venus.

Due to the Cold War, the USSR's position adjacent to the US pavilion raised eyebrows.

The USSR pavilion was also equipped with a 600-seat theatre, used for movies, documentaries and fashion shows. A wide variety of Russian delicacies could be sampled at the pavilion's café, snack bar and 1100-seat Moskva restaurant.

An official postcard featuring the impressive USSR pavilion facade at dusk.

A stunning view of the USSR pavilion at night.



images: (1-2-3-4-6-7) library and archives Canada
(5) expo67.ncf.ca
(8) alamedainfo.com
(9) courtesy DC Hillier

Thursday Challenge

"WINTER"

Here is my submission for the challenge. This picture was taken in January 20, 2008. I was just goofing around happy to reach the top of this 1 hour walk. My dear husband took the picture and it looks awesome. If you like to participate in this Photo Theme for Thursday, just visit the link. You will have fun with the challenge.

You know if you are Swiss when...

1. you complain if your bus/train/tram is more than 5 minutes late. Make that 1 minute
2. you've ever been confused with a Swede
3. you laugh when Americans believe that Swiss Miss is a Swiss product, but then have no clue that Nestlé and Rolex ARE
4. you get frustrated if you go grocery shopping abroad and there aren't at least 10 different kinds of chocolate and 15 kinds of cheese available
5. you have learned three to four languages and think this is completely normal
6. you have ever been asked - upon stating your nationality - whether you live in the mountains and whether you can yodel
7. you can pronounce "Chuchichäschtli" and you know what it means
8. you have ever been asked who the president of Switzerland is and then failed miserably trying to explain why you've lost track
9. you know what "Röschti" are and you have crossed the "Röschtigrabe" at some point
10. you went to a state-funded ski camp every year with your classmates in high school
11. to you, skis are like the extensions of your feet, because you've skied since you could walk
12. you are amused when people ask you what language is spoken in your home country and/or you have to explain that "Swiss" is not a language, that there are four national languages and none of them is called "Swiss"!
13. you owned a Swatch growing up... or still do
14. you've ever seen "Sandmännchen" dubbed into Romansch
15. as a female, you give all your friends three kisses on the cheeks as a greeting
16. you love Migros and you swear that some of their products are better than anything you've ever seen elsewhere
17. you've ever been asked by your non-Swiss friends to intervene in a fight and used "hey, I'm Swiss" as an excuse not to
18. your country has six different public television channels in three different languages - and you don't think this is unusual
19. you get amused when you see Swiss German people being subtitled on German television
20. you firmly believe it is more important to do things accurately than to do them quickly
21. you were legally allowed to drink beer and wine at the age of sixteen
22. you walked to kindergarten without supervision, wearing a large orange triangle around your neck
23. you think it's normal that everyone has a bunker underneath their house, or is registered for one of the public bunkers under the school building, for emergency situations... by the way, here's a fun thing to do: invite over some of your foreign friends (Americans make very good candidates) and take a picture of the look on their face when they SEE the bunker. Priceless!
24. when being asked to explain how certain things work in your country, you have to use the phrase "it differs for each canton, so..."
25. you are asked to vote on a "Referendum" or "Initiative" at least 3 or 4 times a year
26. you are used to drinking from any public fountain in the street unless there is a warning sign that says "no drinking water"
27. you grew up believing all cows must wear bells
28. you think that driving somewhere for four hours is a hell of a long time
29. you get slightly irritated or at least confused if your foreign visitors ask to see a chocolate factory
30. you know what Betty Bossi books and products are and have bought one
31. you know someone that collects the tin foil lids from coffee cream tubs
32. you don't see where the problem is when every male citizen who has been to the army has an assault rifle under his bed
33. you have to pay twice the price for museum entries because you're not a citizen of the EU, although you live in Europe!
34. you are in a non-European country and can hear people talking Swiss German and just go up and strike up a conversation with a complete stranger
35. no matter how much of a "bad-ass" you think you are, you will still pick up your candy wrapper off the floor if an old lady asks you too
36. you think everything is cheap abroad compared to Swiss prices!

I had fun reading this while posting, but it is true. This is to all of my Swiss family and friends. And, for my friends who need to know who the Swiss are.

Wordless: Moody Monday

Addicted to Wordless

1976 Olympics Posters

Montreal hosted the 1976 Olympics from July 17 to August 1 of that year.

A series of posters was created for the '76 Summer Games and to promote physical fitness in general. My good friend DC Hillier came across the images in a flickr set: the posters are apparently still up somewhere at the Olympic Stadium.

DC painstakingly recreated the fab images you see here...

images: courtesy of DC Hillier

Wordless: Saturday Edition

join Wordless Wednesday

Photo Hunt: FREE

What comes to my mind with the word is my son. Just look at how happy he is when he is left alone. Free from the hands of his older siblings/family and free to do what he likes to do.

Happy Valentines Day

How was your day?

I spent my afternoon with my daughter shopping in Lausanne. I was so happy that at the last minute she decided to come with me. It was our day spending not only "money" but bonding time, the girl way. We took the train and had some drinks at Starbucks before heading to our tour. After almost 3 hours we went back to the train station and met Daddy. We all went home together. Later, i had to dress up and get ready. My dear husband reserved us a romantic Valentine dinner in "Mai Thai". It was a five course meal with accompanying wine (various on each service). Arrived at 7:30 pm, got seated, taken care of and had the rum with fruit cocktail for apperitiff. The St. Valentine menu was superb! (forgot the menu list) It was a fusion of Thai with the French touch. I just adore it. Patrick and I had a superb talk in between the course and what seems like a short time actually ends up by midnight. We went back home after having the tea. We both agreed that the night was a very special one, too bad, we also both knew that we could no longer stay in town to party much longer. (Aging? haha) Until next year.

...some photos from the evening...