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.)