Wow. I have had the most amazingly intense week ever. It all started on Monday the 14th of January at 10am. All the new staff had our first day of work, and I also was ment to be moving in. Unfortunately though, work hadn't been progressing on the site as had been hoped and I wasn't able to move in. More of that later. So the day started with us early birds going for a coffee whilst we waited for everyone to arrive. Then into the restaurant for a welcome speech and a video and powerpoint presentation on the hostel, its background, who they are and so on and so forth. Half of us are 'english' and the other half french. This is pretty much denoted by our first language as in the english group we've got, 2 aussies, 2 brits, 1 canadian and 1 finish girl.
Monday through to friday was spent building Ikea furniture (little note here, i now offically HATE ikea) cleaning rooms, moping floors, scrubbing walls and stairs to try and remove plaster and then going over the same room at least four times, only for it to still look like it hadn't been cleaned. We all pulled ridiculously long days starting at 9 or 10am and working till 5:30-7pm without much more than an hour for lunch. Thursday night I was given the all clear to move in and on Friday Helene the British girl moved in. We're going to be sharing a room for our duration but so far so good, she's really interesting to talk to, used to be a fashion buyer and seller for Miss Selfridge in London and has come over here to improve her French. Before staying at St. Chris's I was at another parisian hostel and can i just say, honestly if anyone is going to travel to Paris and stay in a youth hostel, there really is only one option and that's St. Chris's. All the other hostels are so old and dirty, tiny rooms crammed with beds, no bar, tiny or non existent kitchens and generally unhelpful staff. So that's something we've got going for us!
Friday was the official opening ceremony, and can I just say we really pushed it to have 4 of the 6 floors ready for everyones arrival. But to the surprise and amazment of many of the people taht turned up early and saw us on our hands and knees (literally) scrubbing floors we made it! The weekend was a huge success, we had open bars both nights as we can't offically take money and so on as we havent been given the go ahead by fire and water safety people...long story there, should be done by wednesday this week though! Friday night we all worked until 3am.. this is from starting at 10am the day before, so just a little knackered. I had an absolute BLAST working behind the bar so as we still had ppl wanting to drink and party Clarence one of the head bar ppl said she's man the down stairs bar and I went and helped her and had some drinks with the guests.
Saturday was the big promotions evening run by fosters, so the downstairs club bar is Fosters themed and the upstiars bar is 1664 blanc themed. We had beer tastings and give aways all evening run by their promotions team, a live jazz quartet and then a live band in the club. I got decked out in a fosters straw hat, cap, bottle openers adn the like, so lots of fun, and made dancing behind the bar even better! I lvoe the fact that we are encouraged to dance behind the bar, and as it's been aaaggggeeesss since i've gone out I did a lot of dancing!
The bar log in access is really cool, I know that sounds lame but we had key buttons which we just swipe and we're in! We have approx 18 cocktails on our list, 8 tap beers, tonnes of bottled beers, and a bazillion spirits, not to mention 5 types of each wine (white,red,rose etc) which wine wise im confussed about as this is a hostel.... so really do we need that many types? but hey, not my place to say anything.
After working horrendous hours throughout the week though we had really 'bonded' as a team so working behind the bar everyone was really able to help each other out and work efficiently. I must say though that for most of us we'd only worked in restaurant bars, like me or not at all so it was abit of a challenge. Everyone rose to the occasion though as we were sooooo glad to not be cleaning floors!
Sunday morning, I clocked off around 4-5am as the bar was cranking downstairs and I wasn't bothered working longer. At this stage the rest of our staff were also in the downstairs bar with the guests, i might just add in right now our guests were other st. chris's bar managers, adn staff and key shareholders etc so it was more abit of fun. When everyone eventually left us crazy staff that we are continued having our own little party until 7:30am, when after the morning staff walked in and told us breakfast was being set up we decided to go to bed.
Sunday day therefore entailed sleeping and recovery with a little eatting of food and checking of emails before going straight back to bed and sleeping till Monday.
We also have mondya off so it's Tuesday that we're all back at work. The hostel isnt completely opening until the 1st of Feb so now we'll actually get some training on reception, menu stuff and comptutures in the restaurant and anything else we need to know. This entails walking tours of paris, night tours of Montemarte and a pub crawl on wednesday as well as a 'discover the 10th arrondisment' so we know what's around us.
Anyways, im off to dinner with Helene so i'll update you again later,
A bientot,
Camilla
WellI am 19 years old, Australian and I am living in France. I have been here for one month and have three more left in France and another month after that of travelling around Europe.
So this is my story........ full info
