Week #2, first week at work

First week of the work placement, or on-the-job learning as it's called back home. It was both exciting and scary, in the morning of the first day.

I woke up with a sore throat on Monday, feeling a bit like crap, but not crap enough to stay home. We had been told to take the bus to the hotel, and the college arranged an account with a taxi firm thah would take us home after the shift. We took a bus to town, then caught another one that should had taken us a bit closer to the destination. Soon it turned out that it really wasn't the best way to get there, because after the nearest stop there's still almost a kilometer to walk and at least half of that doesn't have a sidewalk. So I arranged it so that we could take a taxi to work and back home, instead of just a taxi ride home.

We got there 15 minutes late on Monday. It was ok, co-workers and supervisor told us. I was relieved.

Before getting to start working, we had to see the hotel's health and safety supervisor, a lovely older lady. She asked us questions and made sure we knew what to do in certain, dangerous situations and what to do to prevent them. Then we had to watch an H&S-video.

A change of clothes and into the kitchen. I got to start in the mains side of the kitchen with second chef, who explained what he did while he prepared main dishes during service.

The first half of my shifts is prepping for the dinner service. The first week I got to bread croquettes, make salmon roulade and potato rostis, for example.

Mains side and starters and sweets side.

Part of the dining area, where we are allowed to have supper.

After having supper we start dinner service. The first two days I observed second chef and asked him questions whenever I got a chance. I tried to learn what goes into each dish as there are no recipes as such.

The next two days I was on the starters and sweets side with third chef.

I quickly learned how to prepare mussels. I also got to create dessert plates, which is always so much fun!

Co-workers also got to taste Finnish food; cabbage casserole!

Friday was a very hectic day; a caterred event for 160 people.

Paté, cheese plate, prawn cocktail and cheese cake. Starters and desserts had to be plated quickly. I was quite spent after I got back home!

The first week was interesting. Learned some new dishes, met some great people and gained new experiences. One more week to go!