Day 4

Yesterday was a busy day! I overslept and was 10 minutes late! no bueno para Luis (manager). Head chef Mauricio just sat back and laughed at me as I rushed into the kitchen. Luis said no more internet late night :( He's right, but I still don't like all the rules. Breakfast is all pretty much the same and standard I just need to learn not burn the toast. It's way different here! I know I went to culinary school, but their toast is on a thick piece of bread, they use a lot of margarine on both sides than it is tossed on a cast iron skillet. Once again the starndard Desayunas (breakfast) warm french rolls with salami or prosciutto, toast, and Chocolate croissants. Everything is made in house, but they have all the chocolate croissants already made and we just need to reheat them. I had chicken (pollo) sausage for lunch with roasted vegetables. It is always served with Bread (Pain) and a nice salad. As we ate lunch I quietly sat there while everyone conversed and every so often someone will ask me a question and I will answer to the best of my ability. Found out some good news today, there is a girl that works at the hotel that understands some english. It took me a while to realize this b/c she never told me until she grew impatient with my terrible Spanish and just yelled "With me it's ok to speak English!" Her name is Esther and I could not be happier to know at least someone can translate a little bit. It also helps that she is around my age I'm guessing. She works the front desk I believe, and I hope she can help me out during the long meals that we have. It is great to actually eat real food and not go out and get any fast food for a change. I went back up to room to change and was ready to walk around the town again, but then I passed out and fell asleep until dinner service. I guess I'm still jet lag, but whatever, that's what siesta is for. Dinner service started at 6 and it seemed we were preparing food around 18 people. This may not seem like a lot, but the only people in the kitchen is me and Mauricio. Although the guest do not eat until 8 or 9, there is a lot of prep work involved. I had to cut up all the vegetables, and Mise en place, Mise en place, Mise en place! Mauricio yells! He is starting to grow a little impatient with me and expects me to have everything down  already, but it's only my second night in the kitchen, and the language barrier is a huge disadvantage during the fast paced dinner rush. There is a lot of yelling, shouting and repeating of the same spanish words that I still don't understand. It is then followed by and "OOOOOHHHH Mi Dios!" (OH MY God) which I was able to figure out! So at least I'm learning some Spanish. There are times where I want to freak out alongside him, but that would not really end to well for either of us. What I have learned to do is  find a job that needs to be done that helps out and relax, b/c what else can I do for the time being. Chef Mauricio will eventually gain his composure laugh it off and make jokes about hitting me over the head with sheet pan. I understand when he says that b/c he will grab a sheet pan smile and make swinging motions with them. I laugh, he laughs and it's all in good fun, hopefully! Once dinner service has ended, he yells "el Finito!" But then it is time for dessert, he has showed me all the desserts once before, but now he wants to make all of them and gets really mad when I don't remember how to make it! Esther walks in smiling "He's going to kill you" she says. Then I continue to nod and laugh hoping everything is alright. I then hear him say "Por Que Paul!!!!!!" Paul was the intern before me, and I assume he had way better Spanish speaking skills than me. But Oh well! What can I do, I hope to pick up the language day by day and hope for the best. Chef Mauricio is a young guy, and he is very talented at what he does. All his meals that go out for service look amazing and it is a great feeling to know that I had a part in all those dishes. I'm starting to gain more speed in the kitchen, in class it was more so cooking and baking things the right way! Now we are under a time constraint to please the guests. It's really hard to tell the time in the kitchen, but I base how fast I need to move to get the next dish out when the servers come back bringing empty dishes back into the kitchen. That is usually a good indication that it's time to hurry and get the next dish out. And once again, it is only me and Mauricio cooking for the most part. The servers help as much as they can, but it would add more chaos for them to step behind the kitchen. As I was leaving Mauricio left me with some words of wisdom. "Manana! Mucho Rapido Y Mucho Intelligente!" He expects me to have the entire kitchen memorized by now so that when he ask for something or something needs to be put away, I can do it quickly! I walk outside, respond to my games in "Words with Friends" (scrabble on my Iphone) Then I pass out immediately! I worked around 10 hours today from 8-2 then 6-10. So it was a pretty long day. I have no internet access in my room b/c it is accross the street from the hotel. I can sometimes steal the WI - FI ( or WEE FEE is how Eric Calls it) but then it goes dead right away. I basically passed out once I got to my room. I'm pretty sure that I live with a another worker of the of hotel (named Victor); seems to be a handy man, and his family. It's his wife and two little girls. I live on the 3rd floor and I've never seen anyone else on the 3rd floor but me. I passed out as soon as I got into my room.

Today I woke up at 4:45, my alarm clock broke b/c apparently it doesn't work with Euro outlets. I woke up from actual roosters roosting or crowing or ca ca cawing. Whatever you may call it! It's funny b/c my alarm on my phone is a rooster roosting and I actually thought it was my phone at first. I couldn't really fall back asleep So I just started to reorganize everything in my room. I realized I did not pack well, I have a lot of dress clothes and no regular clothes. This doesn't help at all since I'm 40 minutes from downtown Bilbao, and I probably wont get out there that much. Hopefully I can go in to the town this weekend or early next week to buy some clothes. I have yet to spend a dime since I have arrived. I have all this funny looking monopoly money (euros) but no where to spend it. I left the house around 7:20 am and it was another beautiful day. I haven't had a cloudy or rainy day since I got here  and Eric (asst mgr) told me that is rare for April. He said "yesterday it was 29 degrees and today 30! mas coulour (very hot). " I keep forgetting everything is in Celsius including the ovens! I burnt bread yesterday but I didn't realize how high heat was, Mauricio was pretty mad about that too.

I surfed the internet for a few minutes in the gazebo outside then walked into the hotel. I saw some peoples' comments on facebook and on the blog, they have all helped greatly. Mucho gracias ( I say that a lot , b/c it's one of the few phrases I know along with "Bien"). This morning the kitchen was empty, and it only me and Luis. Mauricio wasn't there, so I guess for the time being I was the Executive Chef for the Breakfast service. This may seem simple but there was a lot I needed to do. I prepared the all the oranges and put them in the juicer, which is a great machine by the way. The Juice is awesome! I had to put all the small french baguettes in the oven and I had to slice the prosciutto in the meat cutter which is really cool. I've seen them at delis, and I never got to do it myself. Then I had to bake all the chocolate croissants and start toasting the bread in the cast iron skillet. First you brown the toast and then you have to re heat them once the guest wake up. Luis or a server will run through the doors and yell a number and I have to put together a plate for that many people. It doesn't sound to hard, but the kitchen is fairly big and I have to run to all ends of the kitchen to put the meal together so that everything is "Caliente"! "Caliente es mas importante!" Luis says!  There must have been nearly 20 guests for desayunas which doesn't sound like much, but once again, I was all by myself in the kitchen, and Luis came by from time to time! After I was done serving all the food, Erick was kind enough to bring me some Cafe. It is the best coffee ever, I don't know how to describe, besides the fact that it is just so very good. We had a coffee machine at work with 15-20 different flavors, but this for sure tops them all. I don't know if it's the machine they use or the coffee beans or the milk, but it is top notch fo sho! Mauricio finally arrives, he was in a much better mood and we through some jokes back and forth. He loves Lady Ga Ga and said he knows how to break dance but really loves to salsa! He said Domingo (Sunday), we will go to Bilbao and Salsa with the Spanish ladies of course, which I'm excited to do. I got to go eat breakfast with Erick y Esther. Both are around my age and very friendly hard working people.
Got back to work after eating some breakfast and I cut up lots of fruit peeled a whole bunch of potatoes while watching Mauricio put together a great looking meal for what I assume is for the dinner service. For lunch he just put out a bunch of small appetizer portion meals that remind me of tapas style. There was tostadas served on pain, Foie grois con fruitas served on pain, and fresh tomatoes y mozarella on a stick with what I believe is pesto, but Mauricio keep saying no, it then drizzled with Olive oil. Then there is some sort of Tuna salad mixture, but it is much better than tuna salad, it has already been made so i'm not quite sure. While I wasn't lookng Mauricio made lunch for what he calls the "family." which is basically the whole staff. It is braised lamb/beef with pork sausages and roasted vegetables y onions. Servied with Medium diced fried potatoes, salad, and of course Pain (Bread). I have been very specific in this blog the past couple days, but I guess it's just to give you a feel of my daily routine. I'm also not sure when I'll have time to write again. But now it is Siesta and I don't have to be back until 7pm tonight. Oh and note too self do not say "Conyay!" No matter how many times Mauricio ask me how to say it in English! I learned the hard way, when he asked me to ask Esther how to say in English! Adios for now. I love your comments so keep me posted with questions or anything that you have to ask about my trip. Thanks again for following! It helps to blog b/c I have no one to really talk to here :(, haha!
later!