A Day in the Life of Me
For one of my school assignments I had to write a day in the life of my blog, so I thought I’d share with all of you!
I will be blogging about Rome soon, also I went to Munich the other day and a lot has happened with my roommates so more news to come! I’ll be home in 2 weeks and I can’t wait!
Love you all!
It’s 5:00 already? In my sleepy haze I stumble out of bed and get ready for another early shift at work. I go through my morning routine; make my bed, get dressed, brush teeth, fill water bottle, then say a short prayer to focus my day. I make it out to my street train by 5:40 and head to work. My shift starts at 6 am, but I am about 5 minutes late because it’s either that or a 45 minute walk thanks to the street train schedule. Luckily my boss is more than accommodating with this. On the way to work I listen to my iPod and take in my surroundings. I live in Eppelheim, but work in Heidelberg so as I ride into work I am able to see the sun rising over the mountains. Even after 5 weeks of this I am still left in awe of how beautiful this country is. We have 3 different shifts at work; S1 (service), R1(reception early shift) and R2 (reception late shift). Generally I work one of the morning shifts and this week I have been on breakfast duty all week (S1) . Although it’s an early morning I generally like waking up and getting a start on my day.
Upon arriving at I work I say hi to Meltem, the girl working reception for the day, and walk downstairs to the kitchen to help prepare breakfast. Today there were three of us scheduled in the kitchen and I got to work with Marjory, also a foreigner doing an internship. She is married to a German and has lived here for 2 years already so working with her is refreshing because she understands where I’m coming from and is reassuring when I make a mistake or mess the language up. Today I prepared the hot food. Since we are a hotel that hosts many foreign business people we have a wide variety of breakfast including scrambled eggs, soft boiled eggs, sausage, bacon, and ham, which you typically wouldn’t find at a German breakfast table. I turn the stove on and start cooking. Marjory helps me get the food ready while Angela sets up the breakfast room. We have to make sure all the tables are set, all the cold food (rolls, pastries, cereal, fruit salad, yogurt, toast, cheeses and lunch meats), the drinks are set out and the room is in order for guests to arrive. Although I enjoy breakfast it can be a bit tedious after a full week of working it. So I have started switching up which area I work in and cooking the food today may seem like a small change from preparing the breakfast room, but it was something new and made the start to my day that much better.
At 7am guests start arriving. Marjory takes the job of washing dishes and Angela decides to switch between preparing food and helping me out in the breakfast room. My job is to make sure the guests are happy and have everything they need. At 7:05 our first guest comes, he is a frequent visitor to our hotel so I know him well and anticipate his desire for a strong cup of coffee by bringing it to his table before he has to ask me. I wish him a good meal and go back to my post at the bar out of view of the guests. Then for the rest of my shift guests come non stop. This may seem stressful, but it was perfect and kept me constantly busy. When a guest comes I greet them, ask them how they slept, offer them tea or coffee, and ask them for their room number. Most guests speak German so my days are mainly in German, but on occasion I get a taste of home with an American and they are generally impressed with how well I speak English which in turn starts a conversation about why I’m in Heidelberg. At first interacting with non English speaking guests was stressful, but I am enjoying it more and more everyday. We had about 25 guests for breakfast today and I spent my shift bringing them tea or coffee, clearing dirty dishes, re-setting places, and keeping the buffet fully stocked. Breakfast ends at 10am, but today we had a few guests come at five to ten. Marjory, Angela and I had nothing left to clean so we stood by the bar (our of sight of course) and talked a bit until the guests left and we could finally eat the delicious food that we spent all morning making and serving.
We get a half hour break, but our boss never times it so some days we eat longer and some days shorter. It doesn’t really matter because we can’t leave work until all the work is done so if we wanted a 2 hour breakfast our boss wouldn’t mind (we don’t get paid by the hour). This part of the day is my favorite, I get to sit, socialize, and eat delicious FREE food! Something I learned to appreciate as a college student and cherish even more now that I am abroad is free food. My typical breakfast is scrambled eggs, with bacon, a roll, and fruit salad. After I’m done eating I go upstairs for a half hour and sit at reception while the receptionist takes her break. This can be a bit stressful, especially when the phone rings because the person calling more than likely speaks German. Today everything seemed to be running smoothly. I had to insert a reservation into our system that we received by fax, then I had to check the reservations for tomorrow to make sure what we had in the system matched the reservations. Then the phone rang, I took a deep breath grabbed a scrap paper and pen then answered “Halli Hallo Hotel Bayrischer Hof Heidelberg mein Name ist Elizabeth Convery was darf ich für Sie tun?” The man spoke Germany, but I understood everything! He wanted to make 2 reservations, so I told him the rooms we had available and the prices and put him in our system then told him I would send him a confirmation email. This was so reassuring for because I can get a bit self conscious or frustrated with my German, but after being here for 9 weeks it’s nice to know that the language is finally sinking in! Then the receptionist returned and I helped her email a few guests in English. When I went back downstairs to help clean up after breakfast they had finished everything but the garbage. In Germany they separate their food waste from the rest of their garbage and the food garbage was full of maggots so neither of the girls wanted to throw the trash away. I grabbed the bag and held my breath as I walked in the trash room (it’s literally a room full of garbage from the surrounding stores) and when I lifted the lid for the food garbage I couldn’t look inside, so I threw the bag in and left as quickly as possible. It wasn’t the best experience, but someone had to do it.
After work I generally go into town for a few hours. Today was a bit chilly so I couldn’t sit by the beautiful river and read my book, instead I went shopping. This is dangerous in Heidelberg because it’s a tourist town and has all the best shops! I reminded myself of my upcoming travel plans and the money I would need to make those happen and I only bought a few postcards to send to friends. Then I got on the street train and went back home to Eppelheim and I got home around 2.
I have a pretty similar routine at home everyday. Generally I start by checking my internet. I have terrible reception so I have to go to the kitchen often to check it, but that is nice because it gives me a chance to socialize with my house mates. Then I take a nap or read a book, today I walked around town taking pictures of my normal spots to add to this essay. Then my neighbor knocked on my door and offered to cook me dinner, score! He likes to experiment with food, so it might not have been the best food, but like I said earlier I never pass up a free meal. I had an hour before dinner so I went for my daily run around town. I’m not generally one to go for a run, in fact I hate running, but something about this country makes me take any opportunity I can to be outside! Then I showered and helped my neighbor finish the dinner. It was interesting to say the least, some sort of noodle concoction with broccoli. We had a long dinner talking and enjoying the meal and then I washed the dishes and started my paper.
After I did some more internetting I did my nightly yoga. This is a way to relax after a long day of work and exploring. Instead of going to bed around 10:30pm as I normally do, however, I joined my house mates in a grill party they were having. Someone brought out a guitar and we ate grilled chicken and enjoyed the fresh evening air. I rolled into bed around 12:30pm already dreading the sound of my alarm that was going to go off in 4.5 hours. Thus concludes another day in the life of Elizabeth Convery.
Love,
Your Favorite Spartan
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