Spring is underway here in Wellington, and we are so glad! While the Winter weather pales in comparison to Winter at home, at least at home we have adequate heating systems in our houses! They aren't used to it getting as cold as it did this year, so they aren't equipped to keep you as toasty. We were happy for our space heaters! Now that Spring is here we are getting a lot more sunshine days, which is allowing us to spend more time outside. It hasn't warmed up too much yet, but it's hovering in the mid to high 50's. Belle has turned into a real beach lover, and we have found some great trails around our neighborhood to hike and walk Belle. Here are a few pictures of one of the new ones we found. As you can see, once you get to the top (it's a hell of a workout getting there by the way!) there are some really great views. Check out the link below!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eandleenz/sets/72157627841034378/
Work is going well. I'm picking it up pretty quickly. Having never worked as a waitress or bartender it is interesting. My feet aren't as big a fan of the job as my love for a new challenge. Let's just say that after five years with a desk job, i'm a having to re-train my body to think like it did when I was an assistant manager at Walgreens! On your feet all day! One of my managers approached me last night to start training to be a Duty Manager. I was a little surprised that he would want to put the time into getting me certified to be a Duty Manager even though I'm only here for a year, but he does. I'm assuming it's not a long certification process or he probably wouldn't. A Duty Manager is basically like a shift leader. In other words, as long as a Duty Manager is there, the other managers don't have to be there the whole time. It gives them a little more wiggle room to take care of other stuff. You do have to get certified, but I don't quite know what that entails yet. I will have to get back to you on that one! I was told though that if I am certified to be a Duty Manager, and I go out to a bar one night and get in a fight or get arrested that I could lose that certification. It's quite a risk with my rage issues, but it's just a chance I'm going to have to take. I'll save the bar brawls for when I get back to the US. One pattern has emerged from my waitress duties so far. At least 2-3 times a night I get asked the question "Candian or American?". I'm tempted to fake a Canadian accent one night and see if the questions go away. If I say "ey" a lot or "Aboot" instead of "About" will they even ask? It's funny too, because when I answer there are often people who say "I was right", so you can tell they are discussing it and making bets on who guesses right. They also do the same when they ask what part of the States. I say Midwest and it appears people guess that too. It's funny though, and gives me something to talk about with the customers, which makes the night more fun. Our staff is really diverse, which is cool. There is myself and 2 other guys that are Americans that just graduated college (graduated from University of South Florida!! Same school as my brother Kevin). There is also a girl from Argentina, a girl from Venezuela, 2 girls from Ireland (the accents are fantastic), and a girl from South Africa. There might be more that I don't even know about. Most of the rest are kiwis I think. One part that makes me sad... I am the oldest person on the Front of House staff! Even my manager is younger than me! There are a couple of people that are 27 or 28, but I'm the elder at 29. Makes me feel old being surrounded by such young people. Okay, most of them aren't young-young, they are mid twenties, but there are a few high schoolers. The drinking age here is 18, and there are no limits to the age you have to be to pour a beer. We have a 15 year old (she acts way older though, cool chick), and while she doesn't work on the bar, she would legally be allowed to serve someone alcohol! Crazy!
Drum roll please, Elliot has a job now too! The job market here is actually quite tough, there are a lot of unemployed young people. I got lucky with my job because they were hiring a bunch of people all at once, which improves your odds! Elliot ended up getting lucky the same way! It turns out the kitchen at my work was in need of several people, and Chef John told me to send Elliot (he had met him one night) down to see him. He was very eager to get Elliot working for him. I know Elliot was glad; he was getting bored! You'd be surprised, you think you would enjoy the time off, and we did, but there comes a time when you need to be productive again. Elliot and I were both feeling that way! So Elliot is now a kitchen guy at The Gasworks! Originally we didn't want to work at the same place, but this situation is perfectly fine. As anyone whose worked in a restaurant knows, while you do work with your kitchen people closely and get to know them, the kitchen and the front of house are like two separate universes. The only bummer is that he will be working mostly nights, and I get mostly days with one or two nights here and there. We figured as long as we can coordinate getting a day or two off the same day it will be fine. Once we get in the groove we can try to make sure our schedules at least line up some days. Plus, with Elliot joining the team it puts the American count at four! WE are taking over bitches! Okay, I guess that is enough about that for now.
Oh! I almost forgot. There is an awesome service you can purchase out there these days, and of course Elliot knew all about it. Here is the problem: many of the websites, such as Hulu, will not allow you to view anything from outside the United States. Since we haven't purchased cable here we are limited to 4 TV channels, their names are TV One, TV Two, TV Three, and Four (can you see a pattern? Apparently "Four" is fancy because it's the only one without the word TV in front of it, though that is implied!). In addition to not having access to Hulu to watch some of my favorite shows (House, Bones, Modern Family, I can't miss these!), we also can't get on 700 WLW to listen to Xavier games! With the XU basketball season fast approaching we needed a solution! Elliot found a site where for $50 a year you can sign into a VPN server and it will re-route your signal so it thinks you are in the United States! It works great! Now we can watch Hulu, listen to radio stations from back home, and all that good stuff. Radio is seriously boring here, well talk radio at least. They are basically not allowed to be political or have opinions about politics or public policy or anything worth having an opinion on. There are all kinds of laws about what they can discuss. With no real opinions or debates, they get a little dry and boring. Elliot was so happy to have 700 WLW again. Anyway, this might seem very small, but it was $50 VERY well spent!
Until next time, CHEERS!
