The Last Morning

Well here I am 7am sat on a balcony writing my final post, the past 64 days have been an amazing experience and one I hope to repeat next summer. Gaining new friends, so much more confidence and really finding out who I am inside, the trip has been an amazing one. I may not be coming home really brown with massive tan lines, but I’m more tanned than I was and what can be expected when working 9am-6pm the best sunlight is gone when I finish and it’s happy hour as soon as I do finish so, really, why go elsewhere. Saying my goodbyes to so many people last night was a sad time, hopefully some of them I will see in the future other I will definitely be keeping in touch. My flight leaves at 11.40am and so will be back in England around about 2pm, I’m really hoping it isn’t going to be raining when I get there, getting eased back into reality would be so much nicer. So I guess until next summer *fingers crossed* this will be the last post.

The Pink Bubble

Well it’s been a while its I last posted on here, life is as life has always been here at The Pink Palace a fake version of reality or as we call it “The Pink Bubble” where you can go for weeks and months not knowing any news, I only found out today about the hurricane that’s gaining in size or something over in Americas direction, and the riots in good old England a couple of days after it had started. Being back in reality will be very odd, where waking up at 4am after sleeping going for a drink at the bar in your PJ’s then going back to bed isn’t seen as strange, and where the bartenders ask each other if they did anything stupid the night before because they’ve drunk too much and then finding out that they’d been snogging guests over the night club bar when working and it being accepted as something that is fine. The bubble is a very unique place, but one of the best places to be.

We had a very interesting toga night a last week where we’d had a group of 3 boys who had been here the week before, and then decided they would come back but bring a group of 20 other Australian boys with them. So first happy hour at the reception bar was crazy! Then it was a very loud evening meal. When they all finally got into their togas and appeared in the club, the dance floor became mayhem! One of the guys must have got confused and wore a purple dress with no boxers on underneath to the toga party along with his “Hello Kitty” hand bag, proceeded to show everyone everything all the time when he was dancing.

Recently I have been doing some bar work in the afternoon when Mahi has had to go back up to the house, I made my first cocktail, a Sex On The Beach, and poured my first draft beer, which later on I found out Mahi had seen me pour as she had been watching on the security cameras to make sure I was okay. Which although is a kind thought, laughing at the fact it ended up being pretty much all head and not much beer for the first one and me pouring it down the sink to try again, wasn’t so kind.

For 2 weeks in a row the staff had “Wild Card Wednesdays” unbeknown to the guests, where any staff member who wanted to play would receive a task that they had to complete that night, tasks varied from snogging someone of the same sex, convincing someone that you had a sex change, convince someone that you were in a porno and try to get them to go up to the room to see the video. Well most staff members managed their challenges and it made for a very funny couple of Wednesdays.

Friday nights are song request nights, which although it’s great to have some different music playing you get all the cheesy music playing and it isn’t the most interesting night, to liven things up a bit Amy the night events girl made Chinese origami things with all sorts of dare on the inside like swapping clothing with the opposite sex, doing the beer bong, kiss a stranger, buy a round, which made the night much more interesting and extremely funny!

It’s now starting to reach the end of the season and things are quietening down and staff are starting to leave as their contracts are up, each time members of staff are leaving most the staff stay up and get drunk the night before, and it’s sad to think I know have less than a week left, although I am ready to go home and see everyone again.

This Wednesday we had a toga night as a big holiday group of 67 Italians will be leaving before Saturday and so they were going to be missing out on the best night of the week. Although we didn’t have many guests, pretty much all of them purchased a toga and were there at the Ouzo Circle and so it was great fun. There were 3 English men there who were on leave from the army and they decided to buy 100 shots of loads of different things, and 8 or 9 of us then proceeded to play drinking games with the shots which was so funny, and some of the coordination needed and paying attention to the whole game was not there for all of us, and if you went wrong you ended up having to have a shot.

I got my exam results on the 18^th of August, sadly I didn’t get into university, and now I’m really stumped as to what I want to do instead, but I guess in time something will come up.

Busy, Empty, Busy...

Well a while has gone by since I last posted and a lot of things have just been the same but with different people. With one week having people still sat at the top bar when you go to work at 9am who were there at 10pm the previous night and hadn’t moved from their stools. Those who are that drunk that they don’t know how much they’re spending or how much they’re tipping the barman. To the next week being dead and barely anyone here, when the dance floor is normally packed there are only a couple of people on and a couple more when the smoke machine goes on.

During the ouzo circle there is Greek dancing and a table and chair with lots of bottles of drink get lifted up by someone using their teeth, the other night Dr. George did some Greek dancing and did the table lifting, which doesn’t happen very often, and so he got a big round of applause.

Wednesday nights are now wildcard Wednesdays for the staff and you pick out a random piece of paper out of a hat and it has a task on that you must complete that night such as “convince someone you used to be of the opposite sex”, “every time some says yamas you have to flash”  etc…

One of the new events is Match Maker Monday and after dinner you go down stairs sign up and get given a number, you then walk around do whatever for about 30mins with your number somehow attached to you, after that everyone has to go on to the dance floor and they do a woman’s parade, then a men’s parade and each person is given a piece of paper and they can write down 3 different numbers of people they like. A few staff then spend 10 minutes filling in a big chart, and then checking the chart to see if any matches have been made where 2 people have put down each other’s numbers. This week was the first week we ran it and we had nearly 100 people sign up and 14 successful matches, so over all it went well.

Last night I learnt that Romanians play pool with completely different rules to what I’m used to and when you pot the ball just before the black one, then whichever pocket you pot that ball into, you can only pot the black ball into the opposite pocket.

Tonight is meant to be karaoke and song request night which should be interesting as once again it is the first time it has been run. Starting to worry a bit as its only 13days to exam results.

The Spanish and Pool

My hours have now changed, again. I’m working day reception 9am through to 6pm with no break in between, and apparently these aren’t my final hours they’ll be changing again. I now do room checks first thing where I just have to go around checking all the room that people have checked out of to make sure that there is no damage etc.

Another thing I do is room shows, where once you’ve been checked in we show you to the room and do the standard “This is your key, to work the electricity put it in here……” The worst thing about doing room shows is remembering where the different rooms are in the maze of buildings of The Pink Palace.

Even though I now finish at 6pm the weather is still that good I can go down to the beach and sunbathe until about 8pm, before heading back up to the room to get ready for dinner.

The toga party of the Saturday just been was the worst one I’ve been to all because of the fact Spanish boys are here, in the middle of the Greek dancing they got up and decided to go into the area where the dancers were, the bus boys then tried to move them off and fight occurred, many more fights and mayhem happened throughout the night with people appearing at the top bar with bags of ice pressed against their faces, and blood smears.

The next night they were still fighting but not as much, and tonight there’s been no fighting so far that I know of. Just played a few games of pool with Emma, which then got taken over by Ledjo and Luci who decided that to start the games the balls had to be in a straight line not a triangle and you just had to pot the balls not be stripes or solids, and the white ball became a normal ball to try pot in the holes. Anyways in off to bed now after 2 nights of partying some sleep is in need.

Shrimps On The Barbeque

No main events have happened so far, I’m starting to understand the rules of football as at 2/3am the TV goes on and its football. New chairs arrived, and wow they’re comfy and the wheels on the work! Once again spent more time at the pool with a big group of us there the other day, and the childish happenings of who could push people in the pool unexpectedly.

For the past 2 nights/mornings the same people have been at the bar at nights and then are still there at 7am when I’m going back 2 of them are from England and one of them has the most over used phase so far most sentences started with “I’ve put a few shrimps on the barbeque in my time but……” Of which most of us were ready to slap him one.

Tonight there is a toga party and I think they are opening up the top part of the Palladium (the part with the eating hall and the night club) So far we have been eating in the nightclub each night but as numbers are starting to increase now upstairs going to be used, which is a far nicer place to eat with a beautiful sunset at about 8.30 each night.

A well done to my Mum who did her midnight charity walk successfully.

Work

Canadian Day was good fun, everyone in togas lots of people with red and white face paint on, Greek dancing and a champagne circle instead of the normal ouzo circle. I then spent the afternoon lounging by the pool again and got sunburn on my bum and back although the sunburn on my back resembles a maple leaf from where I’d half managed to reach parts of my back to put on sun cream.

When I got back up Dr George was there and told me which area I was going to be working on, and I’m now working on night reception 10pm till 4am. So last night I learnt the basics of the reception work, meaning I didn’t get to celebrate American Day with everyone but oh well.  I missed breakfast and just had a lovely chicken wrap for lunch and now I’m off to the pool again.

Hope everyone is okay and having a lovely start to their summer.

Goodbye England, Hello Corfu

A big red sunset, not a bad last view of England for 2 months, joining the push and shove of people trying to get window seats, families boarding and parents getting annoyed because they aren’t walking fast enough.

Flying with a bad cold is something I never want to do anytime in the near future, with my blocked nose making strange squeaking noises that I’ve never heard it make before during take-off and then on the way back down a feeling as though someone was forcefully poking my forehead.

I’m now safely at The Pink Palace despite a bit of a mess up, forget the Strikes in England and the politics in Greece meaning I didn’t make it as smoothly. I hadn’t realised I needed to ask for the minibus to be sent to pick me up, so after waiting 40 minutes at the airport I decided to give up and make my own way there.

After getting a Greek Airport Security man to help me make sense of the bus timetable, I made it to the central bus stop in Kerkyra, which is the main town in Corfu, where I waited for another hour for the next bus to Agios Gordis. English Health and Safety would have a hissy fit over the buses in the centre of the town, driving along with the door open the whole time, cracked wooden seats that aren’t properly fastened down. As for Greek drivers well I’m not even going to go there, driving on one side of the road, I think not.

I had a brief meeting with Dr George, after which I was still no clearer as to what my job was going to be for the next 2 months, he just told me “Relax, I will tell you later”. Today he’s still said the same thing, but I’ve been told he does it to everyone. So I’ve spent most of it relaxing by the pool.

The accommodation is basic but alright, I’m in a dorm with 3 other girls who are all lovely, and none of them snore, which is even better. I’m sleeping on a top bunk with a mattress that is very squeaky and the kind that you can feel all the springs in it. The room has a balcony with a lovely sea view which we share with the boys in the room next door.

The 2m by 1m bathroom could use a bit of TLC with mould on the walls from moisture, a toilet with the noisiest flush, a tiny sink with a 70’s looking tap. It’s interesting to have a shower as its one of those taps with a switch that changes the direction of the water from a shower tap to a bath tap, why we’d need a bath tap I don’t know when there no bath. The shower head doesn’t have a stand, so when you shower you have to do everything with one hand and concentrate on managing to not coat the place with water with the shower head in the other hand.

I reckon when mum is reading this she’ll be comparing it to the rooms we’ve stayed in at The Pink Palace twice before, with a nice size bathroom, big shower, comfy bed and air conditioning!

Its National Canadian Day here so most people are wearing red and white, and there’s a toga party later on in the palladium, which will be the first time it has been used since the start of the winter season.

Goodbye till next time.

Dates

I will be heading out to Corfu on the 30th of June and flying back on the 1st of September. I'll be working at The Pink Palace (www.thepinkpalace.com) whilst I'm out there.

I probably won't be on facebook or msn much whilst I'm out there so if you want to know what I'm up to this will be the best place.