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Reizigersweblog van Jaron
The Bournemouth Supremacy
Here I am again, apologizing for the fact that it has been way too long since I last wrote an entry on this blog. The excuse I have is exactly the same as well, I’ve just been really busy!
Anyway, a lot has happened since my last entry so I don’t really know where to start!
21 Bennett Road, BH8 8QG:
I mentioned being on the lookout for a better place to stay, hopefully a little closer to the centre. We managed to do that just days after my last entry. Our landlord Mr Roberts apparently has a lot of properties around Bournemouth and one after calling him he took us to one of his other houses. It’s a lot bigger, huge kitchen (compared to hell’s kitchen in Deans Road), nice lounge area and two bedrooms where as many as six guys can stay. Another good thing was that it was clean!! (first impression only though, I’ll get to that). Cornell and I were thrilled of course. Now we were only a 15 min walk from the centre and my hotel, we’d pay 55 pounds a week instead of 60 and the best thing of all: no more Anton! So we moved.
Cornell and I both like our kitchen clean that is to say, only our own mess is allowed, so we set out to give the kitchen a good clean. The thing with these houses is that everyone only lives for a short period of time. Therefore all the cupboards are loaded with stuff that is no one’s and that is mostly past the ‘use by date’ with at least 2 years. Also, the oven looked like someone had been barbequing in it! I’m not joking, there was actual charcoal on the bottom of the thing! So it took us a good 5 hours to clean the entire kitchen. A Spanish guy called Miguel who had just arrived was very helpful too, he set out to clean the bathroom and believe me, he needed the very pink, rubber, hygiene gloves more than we did. Something was actually growing next to the shower. Miguel turned out to be even worse on cleaning then I am. Most of you know how bad I am already so can you imagine someone being worse? Hmm, okay but he’s even worse then my mother, really! Everyday he cleans either the kitchen, bathroom, lounge or toilet and he does the dishes! It’s not that we’re lazy, we don’t get the chance to do anything. And if you lost something, there’s a good chance Miguel put it away somewhere. I’m not complaining though!
While we were cleaning, the landlord came in and he was really pleased with our hard work. “I’ll bring you some beers he said, or would you rather have cannabis?!” Anyway the next week he brought in 40 bottles of beer which makes him the best landlord I’ve ever had! The beer was quite funny though, It was called Biere des Flandres, French Lager. It had an astonishing 2.3 % alcohol in it but it only tasted like crap when you had proper beer before you drank it so that was alright. Everytime we asked, could someone get me a French beer from Belgium?
At the moment there’s 5 of us sharing the house: Cornell, (whom you know), Miguel (told you about him). Then there’s Ernst. A Dutch guy from Rotterdam (Ajax supporter) who works in the Roundhouse which is the sister hotel from mine. We tend to work the same hours and we can gossip about management and other staff which is fun of course. Next up is Simone (a guy) from Italy. His English is pretty bad and his not very quick sometimes but he’s alright.
Couch Potatoes:
At one point, 3 out of five were unemployed!! Only Ernst and I seem to be capable of working in a hotel. Maybe it’s the Dutch mentality? Cornell worked two shifts at Britannia and decided he hated it. He quit after just 1 day! Simone had to do laundry all morning at his hotel but still managed to hang in there for a week after he handed in his notice! And Miguel just quit one day, don’t really know why.
Cornell now works at Lidl for a decent wage, Miguel will be making sandwiches at Subway and Simone is planning on a thrilling career with Lidl as well. So I guess Ernst and I are just really lucky to get a job we like with decent hours as well. Either that or the other guys are just weak sissies!
The Moment You’ve All Been Waiting For:
The 21st of September the moment was finally there! I got to see Esther again!! After 5 very long weeks I picked her up from Bournemouth international Airshed at 6pm! It was great to see her again, and hold her close! I won’t bore you with the romantic details too much but it was like in a film only except for the slow motion approach, the music swelling up, the audience applauding, and the credits appearing. Apart from that is was just like a film!
We took a taxi to the hotel where I had arranged a room for us (with staff discount af course!). I’d spent the entire day preparing the room with some nice flowers, candles and even an ice bucket with an excellent cheap champagne in it. (2007 is a good year, honestly!) We had some steak and chips in the hotel and set out to the fire gardens! For three nights, one of Bournemouth’s many parks was turned into Dante’s Inferno. There’s fire everywhere, it’s really nice. I tried to take pictures of it so hopefully you get an idea of what it was like.
The hotel was fully booked on Sunday because of the Labour party congress so we had to stay at my place. The landlord came in while we were there and he immediately made sure that we had my room to ourselves that night! He told Simone to sleep in the other room and Cornell to sleep on the couch! He said we had to make room for l´amour! Is that a great landlord or what!? Unfortunately the weekend was far too short and on Monday we headed for Bournemouth International Airshed once more. It was terrible saying goodbye again after such a great weekend. The worst thing about all this is that I now have memories of Esther in this very house. I can remember her sitting right next to me on the very couch I am sitting now. This used to be a completely different world in which Esther was something that I took with me from the world I temporarily left. Now that she has been a part of this world as well, I miss her even more.
Ignoring Management is Fun!
Last time, I wrote that I was getting slightly fed up with work and especially the management. I think I’m past that now, I’m finally able to just ignore the stupid things they say and just do the best I can do with the situation that is given to me. I know I’m good at what I do and that I like doing it so that helps me a lot. Just nod, pretend I’m listening to them and then turn around and do things my way!! I love it!
Geplaatst op: 29-10-2007 | 19:24 Lokale tijd
The Bournemouth Identity
Sorry it took so long to update this blog again but I’m a working man now so I haven’t got the time to start up my agonizingly slow laptop! Anyway, I’ve got some time now so here we are!
I’ve been working at the hotel for two weeks now and I must say I like it. It can be very boring sometimes because it’s not so busy but I can always find some things to do like polishing glasses (again), straightening chairs (again), flooding the cellar (no that was the first time actually!). I’ll explain later!
There are two shifts you can work in, the day shift (11.00 to 20.00) and the evening shift (18.00 to 23.00 or 2.00 in the weekend).
They've also given me a name tag which is great of course if it wasn't for one little thing:
Cellar Tsunami:
Last week I was asked to clean the pipes that take the beer from the cellar to the bar. To do this you simply pull through loads of water and bleach until you can actually see through the glass check-up valve which is usually impossible!
So I turned on the tap with water to fill the barrel that puts the water through the pipes and then the hose came off the tap. Flushing water all over me! I rushed to turn the tap off and put the hose back on. I turned the tap on again and went to look for a tumble dryer to put myself into. In the confusion of a wild water slide I forgot that I had turned the tap on again….
Fortunately I came back later with my manager to discover there were about 4 inches of water in the cellar! I though it was pretty funny and luckily so did the manager. The floor needed cleaning anyway! There is no drain in the cellar so I spent the next 2 hours mopping up the water which was fun because I had nothing else to do anyway!
Some Like it Hot?
During the week we only seem to have elderly people in hotel. They come in busses you know! Everyday we have like two or three busloads of grannies which is a lot of fun. After dinner they get free coffee or tea of course so they all roll their walking frames to the bar and try to move up one place in the cue if someone is not paying enough attention!!
And then there is tea… which never seems to be quite hot enough for them. I’ve figured it out though: if you pour some on your arm and doesn’t cause 3rd degree burns, it’s not hot enough!! Which is funny since they have to Parkinson pour the tea themselves!
The Old, the Disabled and the Drunk:
The old people are very nice and polite though which cannot be said from the drunk English youth we have in the hotel every weekend. In the weekend the hotel seems to have a special arrangement for stag and hen nights. This is fun in the beginning of the evening, before they go out, but during the weekend the hotel bar stays open until 3 in the morning. So when they come back from the nightclubs all drunk, they can have more beer in the hotel! Yesterday, I had a group of Scottish lads in for a party. They came back at around half past 12 and they were very drunk indeed. I know I should probably deny them alcohol but that is quite difficult when there are 9, very drunk, probably rugby playing, highlanders in front of you asking for 3 JD’s and coke and 9 pints of lager top. You try saying no!!
Lemonade Limbo:
Another strange thing I’ve noticed in these past two weeks is that the English tend to spoil any god-given drink with lemonade?! A few examples of the orders I made with pain in my heart and a smile on my face:
Lager top: Beer with a dash of lemonade?!
Lager lime: Beer with a dash of lime cordial (aanmaak limonade)!?
A Shandy: Half beer and half lemonade!
Whiskey with lemonade, wine with lemonade, vodka with lemonade! It’s incredible really!
Shakespearean Backfire:
I moved to the other room in the house last week. The (ugly) Polish girls (see picture) left and there was a new German guy on the way so I thought I’d move in to the other room and ditch the German with Anton and his mess!
My plan backfired in a Shakespearean way though since the landlord put the German guy in my ‘new’ room leaving Anton with all the privacy! The German guy turned out to be quite nice actually. His name is Cornell and started to work in the same hotel as me this week!
Apparently he also wants the kitchen and bathroom to be clean so we spent three hours cleaning the entire apartment together! I didn’t know the bath-tub was white and that we had a sink in the kitchen?!
L‘Anton Terrible (French):
Anton:
· Spreads his long hairs everywhere.
· Leaves a huge mess wherever he goes.
· Uses other peoples stuff.
· Wakes you up at 8.30 in the morning banging
on the window because he forgot (and lost)
his keys.
· Lets in drunk girls looking for Dan, who
doesn’t live here!
· Leaves the front and back door open when he
goes to work!
· Gets fired in his first week of work!
· Has never bought clothes!
· Has a big knife?! (to cut wood?)
· Reads comic books about superheroes all
day. (especially now he’s unemployed!)
· Laughs out very loud indeed!
· Even has an Evil laugh!
· And I bet he has an alter ego as a superhero
on the side! This is just his secret identity!
Enough about Anton. He had a job interview (school arranged) yesterday on the other side of town. So IF he gets the job he’ll probably move. Me and Cornell are trying to get an apartment which is closer to the centre so hopefully that’ll work out.
I must admit that this week has been quite difficult. I really miss everyone, especially Esther of course, and I'm getting quite fed up with work. It's not the work itself, just the lack of proper management and guest friendlyness that bothers me. I seem to be the only one that is willing to go the extra mile for guests and I'm even told off for doing so. It's the lack of ambition that causes the hotel to be pretty bad. The common excuse is: this is Britannia, we don't do stuff like that for guests. But the point is that YOU don't do it!! and you just blame someone else! This really upset me this week but i'll get over it. I can't change the rules or make it a 5 star hotel on my own. I guess I just have to ignore it and do the best I can!
Geplaatst op: 11-09-2007 | 18:27 Lokale tijd
Eerste Week
Na een week heb ik dan eindelijk internet!! Ik zit inmiddels in een ander huis maar ik zal nog even verslag doen van de afgelopen week! Ik doe het in het Engels als het niet al te vervelend voor jullie is! Na 1 week kost het me al zoveel moeite om Nederlands te praten!
First Things first:
I arrived at Bournemouth airport having no idea whether I was going to be picked up or if I needed to find my own way to 7 Hayes Avenue?! Apparently the latter because there was no one waiting for me at the airport! Right, got a taxi and arrived at the house 10 pounds later!
7 Hayes Avenue:
The family was very nice. Very much not what I expected them to be, old. Instead they were very young indeed. They had two children of 6 and 8, Thomas & Megan and two dogs called Maddy and Daniel. I only took pictures of the dogs I’m afraid! The father, Trevor, owns a limo company so there was usually a very nice stretch parked in front of the house!!
My room was quite big and pretty clean which cannot be said from the rest of the house. Some of you might have seen a standard British household on the tv show ‘Jou Vrouw Mijn Vrouw’ and it looked just like that. I took a picture of the garden! Unfortunately, the pictures I make with my phone are too big to put on here...
Furthermore I had school this week! Only a 45 min walk everyday (and back again of course)! Twenty lesson of the Work Preparation course which taught me all about the English Silver Service! Apparently they serve food from the left!? Strange people, their elbows are all over the guest’s face if you ask me! Anyway, with my wide experience working in restaurants and bars this course was a piece of cake.
Caution: the following piece may contain bragging and/or self-centred and even arrorant language.
Last Thursday the teacher said I would be better off teaching the course itself instead of taking it! He seriously offered to talk to the director if I could teach next year! That was pub night and I spoke to the director (before karaoke) and he said I could apply for a job next year if I wanted to!! Also at the beginning of the week, there was a small English language test to see in which class (level) you were to be placed. Of the 80 question I still managed to get 2 wrong!! Hmm, I believe I was in the advanced level but luckily I didn’t have the language course.
Right, sorry about that!
People I’ve met:
My roommate is a very nice young man from Turkey named Emir. We played a lot of poker together with the other students in the house.
This is Naomi, Emir and Manuelle! Sorry for the poor quality pic!
There were six, three boys and three girls.
In my class there was a nice German girl called Sophie. I tended to hang out with her because the rest of the class (2 people) was very boring indeed.
In the summer, there's fireworks at the pier every Friday!It was very nice, there were thousands of people on the beach, cliff and promenade!!
I went out three times this week! There are plenty of clubs and pubs in Bournemouth all packed with drunk brits and very slutty dressed English "birds" Its amazing, they really go clubbing half naked!! I took a picture to show it but unfortunately I was too drunk to keep my phone still long enough!! Anyway:
This weekend I went to the beach twice with Sophie and Emir and I’m going this afternoon as well! I’m very fortunate with the weather. Yesterday it was 27 degrees! Unbelievable! Hopefully it will stay like this for some time!!
1 Deans Road:
So I moved to a different house which is even further from the city centre and the Hotel I’ll be working at. It is closer to the beach (5 min walk) however which is a good thing!
I share my room with Anton, a rather strange guy from Sweden. He's very quiet now but I'm positive that he'll come round. We have to get used to each other though, he's also staying for 3 months!
We share the apartment with two very ugly (because Esther will also read this) Polish girls. They are very kind but they work all day long. So will I this week but I’ll come to that later.
The apartment is very nice. We have a broken TV (everybody’s all blue), a laundry machine! (which takes 2 hours to finish), a computer with internet!, an ironing board + iron, a bathroom and a rather peculiar kitchen I don’t want to examine to carefully. I spend 1,5 hours yesterday killing all the bugs in the cutlery drawer!! I hope I got them all! So it should be alright now!
The Britannia Hotel Bournemouth:
So tomorrow I start work. My main job is that of a bar person (barman upsets women apparently) and because the hotel is very quiet at the moment I also get to move the furniture around whenever I’m asked to do so!
I work from 3 o’clock in the afternoon until finish which is midnight! That’s 9 hours a day, 5 days a week for GBP 5,35 per hour! Which means I’ll be making around 375,- euros a week! And the manager of the hotel has already said to me that if I would like to work more, I could also work one or two days at another branch of the hotel chain which is also in Bournemouth! So hopefully, I’ll come home a rich man.
Also, he said that in September, staff is allowed to use the Hotel’s indoor, heated swimming pool! I think I’m going to like it here!!
I think my laundry is almost ready so I’ll hang it out to dry and then I’m off to the beach!!
Geplaatst op: 27-08-2007 | 16:19 Lokale tijd
Laatste Dag Thuis
Allereerst natuurlijk allemaal hartelijk welkom op mijn Weblog! Ik ben nooit zo goed in het bijhouden van dit soort dingen en ben veschrikkelijk jaloers op de mensen die er zoiets moois van kunnen maken! Ik niet, dus helaas alleen teks en hopelijk mooie fotos!
Morgen vertrek ik voor 14 weken naar het schitterende plaatsje Bournemouth aan de Engelse Zuidkust alwaar ik 13 weken in het niet zo pittoreske Britannia Bournemouth Hotel zal gaan werken.
De koffer moet nog gepakt worden dus dat gaan we zo maar even doen!
Vanavond nog gezellig met Esther uit eten en morgen komt het zware afscheid voor gelukkig maar 5 weken want Esther komt al snel langs, gelukkig!
Hopelijk heb ik morgen internet bij mijn gastgezin thuis. Mrs Ayling (en haar 4 katten waarschijnlijk!)
You never know! Morgen meer!
Geplaatst op: 18-08-2007 | 13:49 Lokale tijd
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