Hotel Reina Cristina, Cadiz, Spain

Learning Diaries,

Today I got to know when will be my first day off, next friday and saturday. Them I`m going to use precisely because I`m gonna see something of this interesting , historical Cadiz. Before that my working days consist of working at the lunch and the dinner buffet. During the working day I polish cutlery, set tables, serve drinks to the customers; wines, beer, water, lemonade. Then I clean tables and carry dishes to the kitchen. The work is well known for me. Some working styles are sometimes very different from which I am used to. For example I have used to the system in finnish restaurants that every waiter has his / hers tables. Of course others help you if you have more things to do. Here in this restaurant everybody take care of every table. That`s my opinion but I think we loose much time when we all are walking around the restaurant all the time. I think also that the best service is possible only when the customer knows who is your waiter. But anyway  it`s interesting to see different styles for doing the same things. I am able to speak a lot of English because of many english speaking  customers. And because they are very pleased of my service it`s a great pleasure to work here. Always in the morning before working and at the break in the afternoon I use to go little around. The world is full of things to see.

Pansies, really! The same colours than I had last summer
Clever fish processor at the market place

Hotel Reina Cristina, Cadiz, Spain

Learning Diaries,

Three working days done! If I hadn`t been working my whole career at restaurants and cafeterias this would probably be much more difficult. The staff in the restaurant don`t speak English, some little, some not a word! The biggest part of the customers are wonderful, polite, friendly tourists from England. They are all very interested to talk with me. Everybody wants to know my name, where I`m from and why I am here. And they are also pleased for my english. Great, sounds good for me!

Nice place to write these stories at my own terrace

This week my all workindg days are the same time 12.30 – 16 and 19-23.30. So if i want to do something else than work, I must do it in the morning or between the working times. I have been walking once to the right of the hotel . Today I walked to the left. There I found a Saturday-market.

 

Me and my working mates, Maria and Alicia
Little brake in a cafe on my morning walk

Day before travelling to Hungary

Training Places,

Tomorrow I leave Finland for four weeks. I’m going to Budapest for study one week at local florist school and three weeks I’ll be training at local flower shop. I don’t know nothing about the flower shop where I’m going for training, but I like adventures, excitement and surprises so I don’t mind! It’ll all be clear when I get to the Budapest 🙂 My flight arrives at Budapest airport at 10:50 AM, and two students are coming to pick me up from airport and take me to the dormitory. Another student promised to help me how to get to the florist school on Monday morning. How thoughtful and kind of them!

I’m so excited!

Hotel Reina Cristina, Cadiz, Spain

Training Places,

Only few days ago in Lahti, at The Skiing World Championship. Yesterday the flight from Helsinki-Vantaa took me to Malaga. There were only two whole days between these two internships. Maybe it was good, so I didn`t have time for retracting this. The flight was almost two hours late but I still found two Spanish gyus waiting for me at Malaga airport. They had a big white paper with my name…TIINA MARIA POUTANEN. That was the only thing we all understood. Me – no Spanish, the gyus – no English. After one hour drive we were at the hotel. The man in the reception spoke good English, yeah!! He gave me my room and told me to be at the reception the next day at twelve o`clock and ask for Juli.

Juli didn`t come but a very friendly director came. He introduced me to the staff and leave me with the waitresses. One lady spoke a little English and from that begun my practising. My first day was 12.30 – 16 and 19-23.30. During these times I was working at the lunch and the dinner. Most of the customers were at all inclusive holidays so they can come to eat all meals during the whole day. I was one of the waitresses; served drinks, wine, beer, water. Cleaning the tables and chatting with the customers. I noticed that many of them wanted to talk with me; that`s why like they said, they noticed that I`m not Spanish and wanted first to know, where I come from.

When I was at my break in the afternoon, I searched the nearest market and a bank. At my little walk I also saw the hotel and the area first time.Beautiful, old building, inside and outside very clean and comfortable.

Amazing, how the whole day went so fast and it was really interesting. Few Spanish words from my work mates…Hola! Buenas dias! Buenas tardes! If you order wine, dry is seco and sweet is dulce.

Buenas noches!

Week 3 in Ibiza

Learning Diaries,

This week we  kept going to do cabel works at supermarket and we moved some internet box at the market because the boss who owns this place wanted to put there a security system. At wednesday we had day off, because here was Balearsday and every place was closed. Weather is getting here farmer everyday but somedays are still rainy because its winter time.

Week 2 in Ibiza

Learning Diaries,

Everything is fine in here, working trainee place is good and workers try  they best to tell me about everything and i have learnt many new things in there. This week we were putting tubes for cables and then we pulled cables in to them. Also we istalled sockets places to be ready for couplings. Weather has been this week bad, its been raining couple days now.

Third week in Czech rebublic.

Learning Diaries,

We were working in material management department in Kone. It was basic storage work, we got a work order from our work leader, then we searched for the items in the paper and placed them in our chart. We spent all of the free time in a students free time club Playing table football and pool.

I will add some of the pictures in next week post because i need to ask if those pictures are okay to use.