Annette's

So I've now been working at Disneyland for a whole month (and 5 days to be exact) and I've suddenly realised that I have written very little about the work itself. Soz about that.

I work in "restauration" in an oldschool 1950's American Diner - with jukeboxes, neon lights, boothed tables and Elvis Presley music. It is totally awesome. I mean, the work is hard.. and it's a definite definite change to Grills and Greens back home, but of all of the places that there are to work at Disneyland, I've struck lucky.

The costumes are pretty cool too (I think). Cropped pink trousers with a white blouse and pinny plus little pink hats. I think we look pretty on trend right now. The guys also look pretty cool in their Pink shirts. Also, some of the more experienced and less disaster-prone waiters zoom around on roller-skates.

Another AWESOME thing is that at about 8pm, everybody has to s

top what they're doing and do a sort of rock-and-roll show time! The managers say that it's obligatoire and encourage us to stand on the bar or on the tables. The other day after dancing to Greace Lightning this French guy gave me 5 euros.. which was cool.. But also a little weird. I felt a little bit like a stripper. But hey-ho. 'Show TIme' is probably the highlight of my night, even though I still don't properly know the choreography and end up freestyling to my heart's content to Aretha Franklin's Think. SO much fun.

The work itself is a little less fun. The thing I really liked about Grills and Greens back home was that we were literally in charge of ourselves.. We took the orders.. got the drinks.. brought the food.. cleared the tables.. made sure everything was done well. It was really satisfying and also, I felt like I was a little bit good at it. At Annette's there's a different person for each job.. Each section of the restaurant has a different waiter (not us newbies - People who have been working there for aggeess), and then other people (us) bringing the food, the drinks or the desserts, others sorting cutlery and others who seat/welcome guests. It's tiring work, and pretty thankless to be honest. My favourite is to be on the Accueil as the Hostess, because then you get to chat to people.. and practice languages and they do thank you a little. With carrying drinks the stress is far too much and doing cutlery has given me nightmares. Not fun. Plus, its different here because it is OH so much bigger.. 150 tables on two floors rather than 30. It makes me laugh now to think how much the prospect of a table of say, 8 freaked me out at Grills and Greens when it's very very normal here.

Everyone is very friendly, and young & they all chat and help you out if you need them. I will do another post shortly about some of them, because there are some pretty funny characters here.

Today, I had just cleared a table and was balancing the biggest tray you will ever have seen (bigger than.. two pillows) and I thought I was doing SO well, but then one of the glass bottles of coke FELL to the ground and shattered in an explosion of glass. I was utterly shocked and sort of stood there in the middle of the restaurant dumbfounded about how to react. In that moment, Natascha rolled past on her skates, but a shard of glass got caught in one of her wheels so she stumbled and dropped one of her plates - WHICH luckily, I caught, but it caused an even bigger fuss as she screamed out loud and I sort of half laughed half wailed. That was over, and I swept up all of the mess and scuttled back to the waiter's station to exclaim to David and Riikka and my supervisor about what a clumsy idiot I am, but one of my more vigorous handmovements caught a glass that was on the side sending it also crashing to the floor… OH MY GODDDDD. Luckily.. no one was cross.. In fact it amused most of the customers - which is a plus - and this french couple actually gave ME tips (which is pretty unheard of) and said that I was doing a good job and to keep courage" - which was amazing. Now I'm going to sleep.

I feel better now that I feel like you have a vague idea of what I'm actually doing here..

(P.s. - Extra note written a day later - I DROPPED ANOTHER GLASS TODAY AND EVERYONE JUST CLAPPED ME. I feel like Calamity Jane.. except not a Cowboy.)

Updates on plates

Hello internet. It's Sarah. Sorry for not really writing anything interesting of late. I didn't want to.. So I didn't.

1. It was my Birthday last Sunday! (Hoorayyyy.) and I am now 19 years old (wooooo). It was a little weird to have a birthday not at home. Instead of running downstairs and open presents with mum, dad, james and poppy I was running to catch a bus to go to work. But it was great. Presents and cards came sporadically in the post, which was cool because it means I get to feel loved over lots of days rather than just on one.. It was also weird not to be with my friends from home for my birthday. For instance, I think this was the first birthday in about 15 years that I have spent without seeing Jess Gall. Oddd. But I did have a really lovely time anyway. We went to Billy Bob's on the Saturday night and consumed lots of alcohol (I didn't have to buy ANY drinks which was super fun) and danced and laughed and wore lots of lipstick. Then we went back to our apartment and drank and danced and laughed some more. Also someone broke our loo seat.. Awkward. I then had work really early the next day, exhausted and hungover, which was the source of much amusement for my co-workers. So that was great. Then, that evening, Jade, Rosie and Chiara came over to re-watch Tangled with me and eat cake and drink wine, which was also lovely. AND then on Monday Riikka and I went for Sushi and got given a complimentary glass of wine and some nibbles and things. So yes. I had a really nice time.

2. My Dad came to visit last week! It was great! We spent the first evening exploring Disney Village, because I was keen to show him where I work. We had starters and cocktails at the Rainforest Cafe, a pint in the Sports Bar, hotdogs and icecreams at Annett'es (where I work) and then more drinks later at Billy Bob's - although Dad was a bit perturbed by the Line Dancing Lesson that was going on there that evening. The next day, we had an early start and headed into Paris, which I absolutely loved. I had been to Paris once before, but I was young, it was pouring with rain and I don't remember much. This time however, I was absolutely struck by how FRICKIN AMAZING this city is. Oh my god. Seriously internet people, it's beautiful. The roads.. The squares. The buildings - their roofs. I have never been so enchanted by a city before. I felt like I was walking along the Seine in a daze. I doubt there is very much I can describe about Paris that hasn't been described before, but, I'll just say that all the time that I was there, I couldn't stop picturing myself living there - in some arty studio, on the 5th floor, with no lift, with flowers and washing lines outside the window and Paris on my doorstep. And I'll admit, when Dad and I got a coffee in the window of a cafe by the Tour St Jacques, I definitely felt the part. The whole time, as I sat looking out, I kept thinking to myself "I'm DOING IT!!!" - haha as though I was in a film or something. But it was lovely. Mostly we just pottered around, walked down the rues and alleys and popped into the Musee de Cluny (which I got into for feee) for a "quick look" - which ended up being a 2 hour browse. It was a tiring but wonderful day, and I can't wait to get back out there! It was also lovely to see Dad. I miss my family a lot. <3

3. I feel like my French is improving a lot. Well.. quite a lot. It's difficult, because I only really speak English with my friends outside of work.. But in work I'm kind of forced to give it ago. It's difficult because I'm able to mostly understand everything that people say, it's just I get nervous when it comes to replying because I am so aware that I must sound like a three year old. It's also tiring feeling like an idiot the whole time. At home I love playing around with words and abbreviating and punning to my heart's content. Here, it's definitely not possible.. Actually now I say that, I did make a joke yesterday.

quelqu'un: Sara, quel est ton âge?

moi: Ohhh… Cinquante-huit ans.

quelqu'un: Quoi?

moi: Ouii… je mange très bien.

It was hilarious.

Trust me.

Disneyland Paris 3

I'm a little bit tired and grumpy tonight.. so here are some Disneyland pictures for the time being and I'm sure I'll get back in the mood to write in a little bit. I've run out of tea bags.

Disneyland Paris 2

Adjusting to being in such a new place, for me, has actually been a pretty tricky business. Moving out and moving on is a challenge that everyone must face, and I guess, until about now, I've been finding it a lot harder than I expected. I'm not sure why it was so difficult, but it was. Don't worry, I'm not going to be all mopey and self-pitying, but I will say that I'm glad that I stuck it out.

True, it was hard to be so far from my family, especially when told stories of family meal times and bickering (that I still miss more than anything). It was hard to see so many facebook updates about crazy freshers evenings my friends were having and all the fab new friends they'd made and been in photos with, especially when I was sitting alone in my shared bedroom with dodgy internet, feeling that my pitiful linguistic skills were stopping me from having ANY of those moments. It was hard to start working at a new restaurant, especially when nobody else there really spoke any English and everything was so different to back home at little old Grills and Greens with the regulars and the 30 or so tables.

But actually, I'm now thinking how lucky I am to be in the position I am in. Thank you so much to all of the virtual shoulders I have been given to cry on (specifically you C, J & A) and the real ones from my friends here who have supported me in excepting what seemed like such a massive change. An extra special mention goes to C - whose blog post about a pretty similar thing really inspired me yesterday. It's here if you want to read it.

"Of course ‘work hard, play hard’ is the cliché I could drop in here, but I think the experience you have depends heavily on what you, and only you input into the huge life style change. If you sit in your room and lock yourself away, then you probably will feel homesick and isolated. It’s amazing what just propping your door open can do."

This part sort of brought things into focus for me. Being miserable and mopey won't make me any more cheerful. Grumbling about what I was missing at home would only make me miss out on what there is on offer here. I know it sounds obvious.. But having sorted that out in my head, things are looking much brighter. I have some lovely new friends, some who I know I will keep in contact with regardless of which country we're in. The flat is looking really nice - I bought a colourful clock and Riikka moved in and brought with her wine and beer. Work is actually really cool - I love the outfit, the dancing, the rollerskates and the people. PLUS my Birthday is in 3 days, my family have sent me packages and I'm seeing them all soon. Yes. Life is good.

Today I got a cup of coffee and just sat at the gare. Just sat. And looked. And lived.

Life is good.

chillin wit ma homies

Disneyland Paris 1

Dear internet,

I promised myself before I left that I would be a good, consistent blogger.. but actually things have been so overwhelming here that I felt it would be best to wait a little before even attempting to write something readable. I should pre-warn you before I start that my English might be a little bit bizarre.. I find speaking a lot of French changes the way that sentences come out in English. But we'll see.

SO I've moved to France and I'm alive and so far thing's have been fairly good. I've moved into my Disney Residence, 'La Boiserie' - which is actually pretty okay - we're slowly making it a home. There are so many people also living here (and so many late and stupidly noisy parties in the flats next door.. GREAT news for this daytime girlie.) and I'm sharing a flat with 2 of my friends Riikka and Riina, which is cool because we're pretty similar. Except for they're both coincidentally from Finland - which I find hilarious because it's just as I predicted - but they speak almost perfect English and are the same age as me which is good.. I share my room with Riina who is really sweet and says the funniest Finish things.. e.g. The other day she asked me about my sauna back home. I explained that, actually, we don't have a sauna.. and she looked really confused and said "but... what about in the winter when you want to jump in the lake?!"

The first week or so we spent doing training, training and more training, which was exhausting as most of it was in French. A lot of it was pretty unnecessary too - but on the bright side there were lots of other new people doing the same thing, so we became a little group of friends which is really reassuring. Two of my favourites are Danielle (from Dublin) and Rachael (from Manchester - She speaks JUST like my cousin Nina does. Seriously. It's so weird.) and they both enjoy making fun of my Surrey accent a little bit too much. The other night a whole group of us went out to 'Billy Bob's Country Western Saloon' and enjoyed our 25% Cast Member discount on cocktails. It was a really nice evening. Riikka and I were singing along to our heart's content to the live country band's rendition of No Woman No Cry... Not sure what the band made of that.. but hey-ho.

I am truly impressed by this whole place though.. I like the way that they stress that every 'cast member' is essential to the 'Disney Experience'. The introductory talk actually really inspired me and I really can't wait to get a chance to make a moment of magic for someone. I walked through the Disney Castle on my day off and it was AMAZING. I actually gasped out loud. From the candles to the cobblestones everything was just so perfect. It made me so excited to be a part of it. So excited! We went on loads of rides and stuff which was lovely! My favourite was Space Mountain - which was hilariously scary - and my absolute not favourite was this horrible horrible one in a lift in a hotel that just DROPS and it was SO frightening that I wept. But yeah, that was a great day.

Another slightly humorous moment that I want to share is earlier when I was chatting to some other really friendly newbies and I discovered that the people I was drinking Cafe-au-lait with were Cinderella, Snow White and Cruella Deville....CRAZY!? Another good friend I've made is PRINCE PHILIP - from Sleeping Beauty!! Very exciting. He is beauuutiful.

I'll do a post later about work, because that's getting going and stuff, but is a bit too much to fit in this one. I'm excited because it's my Birthday on Sunday and my Dad is coming to see me on Thursday and Friday (my days off) so we might pop into Paris - and I can't wait to show him around. My friends here are planning a night out on Saturday to celebrate with me... so that's exciting toooo. I miss home a lot.. But I'm trying to stay positive, because all new things are a bit difficult to adjust to at first, and things are bound to get easier after time.

Love love love from Sarah.