So I was making my internship in Spain school named Onspain at 16.3-10.5.2015. My school in Finland have contact in Spain so they help me to get this place. So after we had choose that I`am going there we made all those paper works.
So in Spain I lived in host family in area named El Palo, its part of Malaga. My home was really near to this school where I worked. So in school they have many classrooms and also big back yard. There is many worker in this school, teachers , guides etc. but actually every worker is very talented because they all have at least 2 skills, like many of them are same time tourist guides and Spanish languages teachers or secretary and same time Flamenco dance teacher. So I were there just because the school offers also tourist tours for students so I was always working in those tours.
So I started my works there and they gave me my 8 weeks timetable and get me know to school. So I had many tours during this 8 weeks but I had also office works. Sometimes days took 3-4 hours and sometimes 11-12 hours but it normal in this job. In those tours I was listening and learning and if the head guide was needing some help I helped him/her. In office I made marketing works so they put me write a diary what they can add on own web sites. At 2 last week they also gave me to job to make new tour for the company. So during my internship i saw many awesome places and get known many great human. Spanish people are very kind and they make you feel very welcome.
I also got 10 hour Spanish lessons at begin . Teacher was very talented and she really knows how to teach. I learned Spanish languages ´´key´´ words and its helps me really much because many Spanish people didnt spoke English. So lessons was English to Spanish so i think that was much more better than Finland to Spanish because when I was learning by another language than my mother language I really needed to think what iam doing and learning.
So I think this trip gave me many things for future. Also my English skills become better and i learn lots of Spanish language. And I guess iam going to star learn Spanish language in my next school! This was very nice experience and I get known that I really want to work on abroad at future doing my guide works. I dont belong in Finland especially at winter time.
Hello there. Time is like flying here in Menorca. This week has been so busy because there is all the time more and more people coming to eat. Now we have like 600 people coming to eat for day. Next 2 weeks we will have like 1000 people eating for day. So even busier weeks coming!
This week has been normal except one special day we had 1 extra buffet for 100 people.
I made my last and fourth internship from school in a beautiful old hotel Reina Cristina in the city of Algeciras, located in south Spain. I was working in the reception from February 11th until the middle of May.
In hotel Reina Cristina they have about 180 rooms, in three floors with different views. There is also inside and outside pools, lobby -and pool bar and also two conference rooms. The whole hotel area is one big garden and its a great area to organize for example weddings. We had many weddings and other celebrations.
When I got this place for my internship, I thought long time that I was going to leave to city called Cadiz, cause Algeciras is a part of province of Cadiz and in the address of hotel I saw just Cadiz. Just some weeks before I left to Spain I was looking the map more specifically and noticed that I am leaving to city called Algeciras. Started to find information from internet about the city but I didnt find much.
When I got there, the city didnt seem too much living but with more time I started to like it. Is very different city that I have never been with harbor and not a lot of tourism. The tourism in Algeciras is based on people who stay there for maybe one night before they take a ferry to Morocco.
From Algeciras you cant move easily to other places, Gibraltar is very close its opposite of a port of Algeciras and you can see the rock all the time. Also in Algeciras there is good bus and train connections for example Cadiz, Sevilla, Ronda, Tarifa, Marbella, Malaga..
Algeciras is very near to Africa and its very easy to get there, you just go the port of Tarifa and take a ferry from there and it arrives to Morocco in one hour.
I liked the nature of Algeciras and the big moutains that surrounded the area.
RondaRondaGibraltarBeautiful long beach of TarifaBeach close to the hotel, called GetaresPoint from Tarifa where you can see to Morocco
When I arrived to Malaga in February, Julie from the hotel was there and picked me up and we left driving to Algeciras, by car it took about 1,5 hour.
Arrived to the hotel, and next day we left to get NIE number for me so I can start working. We went to couple offices and bank to register my informations and I got the number. Same day I started working. My working clothes was a skirt, shirt, jacket and a tie with the logo of the company Hoteles Globales.
I was working always in the morning or in the afternoon, I didnt have night shifts. Morning shift was from 8-16 and afternoon from 14-22.
The first month I lived in very small room at the hotel, but after one month I just didnt fit in anymore with all of my property so I changed to one bigger room at the hotel.
Picture from my terrace
At work everything went well, I didnt have any big issues. Couple of times in the start was hard situations with the local clients if I didnt understand their Spanish good and they didnt speak English. But later I started understood what they wanted and was able to serve with them too. Some of the local clients was reacted friendly and sympathetically when I told I speak little bit Spanish, but some of them was surprised and wondered how is possible that I work in the reception and not speaking perfectly Spanish, which I totally understood.
Most of the clients at the hotel were from UK or from Spain. After them there were clients from Germany, Portugal, Italy, USA and Scandinavians. Clients from Finland I met maybe 5-6 times.
Most of the clients were people that have already retired and was looking for a beautiful nice and quiet place for relax at their holidays.
In the end of April the hotel was totally full, we had a teams playing handball at the hotel. Kids were ages 8-16. At that time we get many appeals cause the kids were very noisy in the rooms and all the areas of the hotel. Those times we called the mechanic working in the hotel to go and tell them to be more quiet..
In the hotel we had also many loyalty customers that keeps coming to the hotel couple of times in a year, year after year. They love the style of Reina Cristina and like to visit Gibraltar often cause its near.
From this internship I learned of course the Spanish culture and to understand how are Spanish people. Also some Spanish language which will be helpful in the future travelling there. Of course was developing my English too and I got a lot of compliments of it which was very nice.
After all I had a great and instructive time at Spain and I am very happy for this experience! 🙂
Here is a link to one video that is telling about the city of Algeciras, and in time 3 minutes there is filmed the hotel I was. There is Sara, the event producer and Francisco, the Manager of the hotel and they are telling that the hotel is oldest in Costa Del Sol and that in Algeciras there is very old and relevant railway station.
Also in the video you can see the nature that I was talking about before. Just before 3 minutes in the video, there is a part where the girl is telling that from there you can see Morocco, Ceuta and Gibraltar!
From the video (time before 1 minute) you can also see some parts about Paco de Lucia. He was one of the most significant flamenco guitarist of all time, he is from Algeciras and people are very proud of him. He died of February 2014 and in the city you can see memorial things for him. When was gone one year of his death, there was a huge memorial event in the centre. The sister of Paco de Lucia was staying in Reina Cristina with her family at that time.
They are filming also the port of Algeciras, which is getting bigger and bigger.
And much more!
Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZlozLhyL20
I have to say i’m sorry for not writing blog for long time. It’s been really busy because i had to get the NIE number and i got a little problems with that. After NIE number i needed to get my security number so that I can work here in Spain. After all I finally got internet (today) for my laptop.
So about this and earlier week. Couple days ago i got new roommate His name is Lucas and hes from Czech. Hes 18 and he came to work in the same kitchen as I. Hes working in same place as me, so i had to teach him what i have learned. I have been doing other work when he is doing everything what i used to do. I have done everything what my teacher chef Angel tells me to do, like special salads to the buffet. Angel showed me how many clients there will be in this month. This week we have like 500 people for day. After 2 week we will have more like 900-1000 people for day so it will be busier and more work.
I have learned how to do many beautiful decorations. I have couple photos what i have done. And some of them are made by Angel
And this is my funny and casual chef teacher Angel. Believe me, hes a really good teacher. 🙂
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! 😉
We started our little trip on 2nd of March. We spent a week in Helsinki at our friends place. At 6th 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.
So it’s time to tell u about this week here in Menorca.
This week has been kinda same as last week but few things i would like to tell you.
I have been cutting fruits and vegetables as last week but i’m now more own initiative. This week was normal but one day was special because we had one extra buffet for 450 people. We did special salads and very beautiful decorations. Now i also have pictures!
So here is some photos about the extra buffet:
That was really busy day because i had to keep the other 3 buffet up.
About my day offs: I went to Cietadella for shopping and walking. I went to Cietadella’s cathedral. It was so beautiful out- and inside.
Only internet i have in the hotel is free 30 min wifi so it’s really hard to write a blog or talk with friends sometimes. But there is one bar with free internet just 2 min walk from the hotel. The owner is so funny and kind. He has been saving my days when i needed to use internet 🙂
Hello there. The First week here in Menorca, Spain. I arrived at the hotel Almirante Farragut last Sunday and the staff took me very well received. They showed me my room and i got rest of the day free so i checked the area little bit.
Monday morning i went to the kitchen and chef named David gave me my kitchen clothes and some other advises. The first days i have been helping with the salads. I’ve done many kind of salads, but mostly vegetable and fruit cutting for the buffet.
After work i have been mostly walked and circlet the area, beaches and shops.
Wednesday morning I went to police station to get my NIE number, but I need to complete an application that I can get it.
I was working at one weekend and I was in Sevilla tour. Sevilla was very awesome place to see and learn new things. In the tour we visited on Maria Luisas park, Golden Tower, Barrio de Santa Cruz and in the Cathedral. Tour takes whole day but it was worth it. In the Maria Luisas park was many water falls and ponds where was lots of ducks and swans. We also saw many couples who were takes they wedding photos in the park because there was so beautiful environment. The Cathedral was most beautiful Cathedral i had ever seen. It was big and there was so much things to see and learn and we also clime up in bell torn it was maybe 25-30m hight and the view was amazing ! At least we had some free time and I walked around the city and watch which kind of city Sevilla was 🙂 and it was very nice and architecture was beautiful. And also make lil shopping tour.
Some dancing
Flamenco lesson, so I take 1 hour flamenco lesson. The teacher was one of our normal teachers who have skills to dance. So she tell us the regular flamenco things and we practiced couple easy flamenco dance steps. The lesson was really good but i think that getting know that flamenco dance takes little more than 1 hour. And also now i think that flamenco dance its not done for me because there is lots of spinning and my head dosent like that.
Then I was also in salsa dancing lesson 🙂 That was lil easier than flamenco dancing and it was very fun ! 🙂 Salsa dancing is from Cuba but Spanish people like to dance it. And the teacher was again one of our normal teachers in this school. We have very the multi-talented people working here. I didnt take any photo about it but I found one video in Youtube which is filmed in this school.
And finally i was in Malaga tour also. The tour was really nice and even i had live here already many weeks i get known new things in that tour. At tour we visited on big cathedral on Malaga city. We also saw some Semana Santa things and the guide tell us about it. Then we make a little walk on Malaga city and last we visited on Picasso art gallery.
Something about my freetime
So my parents came to visiting me ! 🙂 They live in hotel in area named Benalmádena its like 30km from Malaga centre but they had rented a car so moving is easy ! 🙂 At weekend i was in Gibraltar with them, we spend whole day there and it was very nice ! Gibraltar is very interesting place everyones should read about it and about history of Gibraltar. So we walked in that main street and get known about that city and then we went in tourist tour by minibus,
its cost 30€/person and on that tour we saw Hercules pilar, staligmate cave, place where monkeys lives and military cave which had made for first world war. So it was very nice place and good place to spend one day ! 🙂
First I like to say ”sorry” about that this is going to be long text because here is so much things what I like to tell ! 🙂
So at the second week I has lots of tours all around in Spain and that was so awesome ! I had seen so much incredible thing here and visit the most beautiful places. Its hard to believe that this is working 😀 After all those trips I had only one thing to say ! I really had done good choice when I choose my profession.
So next I will tell you something about those trips;
Los Naranjos tour. So in Los Naranjos where they grow up different citrus fruits and the farmer, Juanito Orange tell us about his working days and what he needs to do on farm. We also got to taste every fruits in farm and we heard a story how them grow up.
City tour in Nerja. There we visit in most incredible caves where was biggest stalagmite pillar its also guinnes world record pillar. After that we went in viewpoint named ”balcony of Europe” there was amazing views over the Mediterranean sea. After that we have some free time in Nerja city and the first thing we visit in small village named Frijiliana it was in the hills and there we tasted some sweet vine.
View at balcony of Europe
Next day i were in Ronda its one of oldest town in Spain. Ronda is known about bull fighting arena and the big bridge. So there was like two side, the new city and the old city. There we see the Puente Nuevo Bridge which is divide the old and new city. In the trip we had a city tour and the guide tell us about Ronda and we also visited in old spa where we see video which had telling about old spas. Then we visited in real bull fighting arena and there in the museum what was full of old matadors clothes and matadors weapons. That was amazing ! actually how many people has visited in real bull fighting arena?! After that we have some free time for shopping, eating and looking city. Last thing we made was visiting in cave which was high in mountain, the cave is very old and there were live cave men before Christ. The cave was very dark and the guide gave us lights so we can see the all drawings on the walls what I actually had seen only unrealistic in movies. That was so awesome that I never forget it !
Views from Ronda
At Friday I spend day in school which help me to get this workplaicement. School was named Ave Maria and it is in town. It was nice to meet those people! The Easter week is coming (holy week, Semana Santa) and its pretty big thing in Spain, so the Ave Maria school is also going to join in the parade so they practice theirprocession at Friday and it was awesome ! Also teachers show the school and tell about it for us.
Easter week… (or Semana santa how local people say)
Now we have past the holy week and like they already tell me, that was incredible thing here in Spain. The city was full of people and they celebrate and play the music 7 days. I visit couple times in city but then I realize that Spanish Easter mind be to much for this country girl. But even the Semana santa was too much for me but also I enjoyed very much to see other culture because it was pretty different if you compare it to the Finnish Easter.
Easter week in working place was pretty silence and peaceful and I was working in office those days. Then I have long Easter holiday, 6 day off. That was nice when I had lots of time to get know the city and make some shopping also, but it also good to be back on workplace and return to everyday routines. On this weeks I had helping other people and also do marketing.
Marketing means this time that they also want me to write some blog text for them about what I do when im working and they publish it on they own websites where people can read what its going to be if you want to come do your training here. And because im lil lazy I write this one head text and edit it little and copy, paste it thats why everything in English and im sorry if there is some mistakes ! 😀
(Those arks weight many tons and they have always like 60-80 carrier even in smaller)
