Weather was most of the time like this, sunshine and a little wind, just perfect!I was waiting for it a looong time. We were supposed to go already in autumn 2014 but it was too late to start all that paper work so we decided with Johanna that we want to go on spring there. It was good decision because there wasn’t so hot as I think at the autumn would’ve been. It was warm yes. It was just right tempature. There was raining about two times in 2 months! I’m jealous!

So when we did get there they welcomed us warmly! We were both ill, snig fly and my voice was so down it sounded like males voice 😀 that was pretty awkward!! After finally we get to our apartment, after visiting Spar(-market) we went to sleep and slept over 17 hours straight ;D Our work was supposed to start 12.6 so we had almost week like a vacation.

I started my first workday alone at 9… It was scary but somehow I was part of group already when Johanna came to work at 13.. They were so nice and kind for us and they were excellent teachers! So patient..

What I did there:

• Customer service,when client came to reseption I asked can I help, if i could help, I did what I could and if not I asked to wait a moment and asked for somebody else to help the client.
• Room keycards didnt always worked so I needed to proces them again. I did that many times at the day. I explained to client whats wrong with it.
• I made the carton papers which included; name, arrival and departure dates, wifi-code, paper where was everything about the restaurant timetables and cleaning services, snack bars times and everything about the hotel.
• Sometimes the lady from the Spa called to reception that they need someone to look after the Spa reception when she goes to eat. So me or Jossu went to there to sit like half an hour or one hour. There wasnt customers much, only couple times someone came out of the gym and I needed to take 2 euros and one time a lady wanted to do a massage order.

Our day off’s were only bad thing in there. We both had not much day offs at the same times .. But I  understand that because of course they need one of us there when other is off. When I had day off, I liked to go to the beach and shopping and sometimes I relaxed in a bar and talking with my friends in whatsapp if there was a wifi.  I liked to eat out. There was such a good foods and so cheap!! I was shocked when I was back in finland and went so s market and couple things was something like 11€ I was like I could buy so many else things there in this price… But i got to used to this even its hard 😀

Next to the Mogan Valle was hotel named Mogan Playa. There was a nice girl as a trainee, about my age. Her name is Elena and she is from Germany. We got to know each others because she lived at the apartment near by us and she was always in the same bus-stop. She speak very good spanish and she wanted to help us with the police station because polices doesnt speak english in there. At least that much that we could got our NIE numbers. (By the way, we got our NIEs last week there ;D But we also got money last day because they had some problems with that. I dont know but it doesnt matter anymore.

Weather was most of the time like this, sunshine and a little wind, just perfect! At night the weather was colder but the view was fantastic!

What I think I learned in Gran Canaria:

• Definitely more english. I learned that it doesnt matter if I cant say/spell it perfectly like people who speak it as mother language. People do understand me.
• I learned how to talk to strangers, you dont need to know the people who you talking to. (I went to talk to strangers in finland and I was surprised that they didnt act like I expected…wow)
• Everything is not so serious, you can relax and just be, no need to do something all the time. I can go to sleep later and still be good mood in the morning (ok i dont know if its working in here….)
• No need to rush everywhere. If the bus is coming in five minutes, its ok to stay and wait the next one. (except if your going to work)
• I learned that whatever I am gonna work, I will not be a receptionist. Theres nothing bad to say about that job, but I just feel inside that it is not my job. Theres something what doesnt work for me.
• I learned a littlepit spanish. Example: Hola! Que tal? Muy bien, tú? Gracias! De nada! Lo siento, no habla español. Puedo ir a comer? Sí, No… I think I did good job there. Of course I have to do always better and better but when we know that this was my first time job where my collegas does not speak same language, and I am far away from home etc., I really did what I could. I just need to do and do and do more and more that  I give 100% of myself f work.

It was heartbreaking to leave that place but I have a plan to go back to Spain, I just dont know exactly where! 😉

– Elina

We started our little trip on 2nd of March. We spent a week in Helsinki at our friends place. At 6^th was our flight. Our flight was from Helsinki to London, and from London to Las Palmas. When we arrived in Las Palmas, we took a bus, first to the Playa de Cura and from there to Puerto de Mogan. Actually i was kinda suprised about the cheap prices of buses. I think it was about 6 or 7 euros or something. After we arrived to Puerto de Mogan we went straight to the our hotel. There we met our colleague Fernando who told us how we get to our place. It was kinda complicated, because they didn’t have the correct adress. But finally they called us a taxi and we finally got there. So, that was our first night in Gran Canaria.

On our second day, we slept very late. Then we went to look around our new hometown. Actually our biggest problem on first week was to find a bus stop. On our last week we were wondering that how was it so hard to find in a small village like Mogan. But in few days everything realy went okay. We had a one week holiday before we started to work. That week went really fast! Mostly at the beach and just wondering around.

My first day at work was from 1pm to 9pm and it went really fast. I don’t remember much about it, but they really didn’t let us do anything on our first day so it was mostly just watching what they were doing. On our first week we learned to make keycards, check ins and check outs. And we also learned some spanish words too. Sometimes working there was really stressy. Atleast when there was only spanish guests, but i think it was a good way to learn to handle stress. Mostly there was guests from German, Norway and England.

I really liked our colleagues. There was Irene from Norway, Simona, Heike, Marina, Linda, Fernando, Silva and Octavio. They were really nice and friendly. And also patient. Of course they helped us in everything we needed, but they also wanted to make us feel comfortable and that we are welcome there.  I also made one check-in al by myself and i think it was really scary because there is so much what we need to know and remember but it went quite ok.

This is the picture of our flight to London.

There was some “not so nice things” in our hotel too. For example there was two hotel manager, Marina and Heike. And there was some problems with the communication. One day i asked Marina that can i leave litte earlier because there was nothing to do. And i also told her that i can come some other day when there is more arrivals. She told me that i have to come on saturday. On saturday when i went to the hotel, Heike said that i don’t have to work and that i should go to the beach or something. Next day Marina asked me why i didn’t come to work on saturday so i told her that Heike said i don’t have to. And i think she got little upset about it.

But other than that everything went quite okay and we started to open up and even relax a little bit. On our last week at work, Silva told me that we shoud try to talk only spanish. It was really scary but fun.

Our job at the hotel was basically help others. We did the keycards, check ins, check-outs and helped them with the drinks and stuff like that. There was never a boring day and everyday was different and we learned something new.

SELF –ASSESSMENT

 I think i did pretty good, but there is still lot more to learn. Are colleagues told me that im very good with customers because im social and very open person. And i also think that the customers liked me too because of that.

I also wanted to make customers feel themselfes comfortable so i tried to talk with them as much as possible. For example i asked them that “how’s your day been?”. But im also really impatient sometimes. When something doesn’t happen right now, i get frustrated and lost my nerve. But what comes to professional ethics, everything went okay. I followed the rules fine and they never had to tell me that i have done something wrong.

But there is pretty much everything that i can tell you. I hope that this report is okay to you. I don’t know if there’s enough text.

Johanna Lahtinen