Joining the A-Team and getting a Romanian twin

My climb up the restaurant ladder continues and I am now finally settled in as a regular barman with Smugglers. It seems once they had me in position at the bar they enjoyed my presence there and decided to cut all of my kitchen and floor shifts altogether. Good news! I'm mixing shandy's and dry wine spritzers for the locals and visitors who happen to stumble into our pub, alongside the young soon to be assitant manager Paul Todd. We've been doing really well at the bar, our boss has even dubbed Paul, Nicole and I "the A-Team" and we tend the bar almost every night of the week. My first few nights on bar I had a perfect score, meaning I had 5 drinks bought for me by customers out of 5 nights, it was pretty cool. Mmmm, properlly poured Guinness. After work we usually sit down for a little while after closing the bar, while we wait for the money to be counted before we go home. Here's a couple of photos of us post-work, tired and sweaty. The one on the right is of Paul and I with Dan, a crazy man who can quote futurama and simpsons almost on par with us. He's most well known at the pub for having accidentally locked a visiting senior member of the organization in the cellar during a routine visit. Crazy man

Just to finish off, we had a day off last week (me, the aussie girls and Dinu who is a head chef as well as the winner of the Romanian version of American Idol - no seriously, he is). We decided to have a bbq in our backyard and relax together. Dinu being head chef, put on his shorts and polo and did most of the bbq-ing. I decided to dress like him and help him out so lo-and behold, the Romanian twins were born. Granted, he did do most of the food work and made some fantastic peppers with vinegar on the grill, I still think I did a great job of supervising.

Here's a final photo of our feast which we had outside, just as it was getting dark. Nicole, Courtney, Dinu and Dzido at 26 Wesley St. More BBQ's to come soon!

I Guess I Might Look Scandinavian

Time has been passing quickly here in Weymouth. After all the trouble of the early days at the pub I've managed to accept a rickety balance with my boss. By shortening my hours so that I have time to explore the town and look for jobs I no longer feel like I'm working constantly. Also, after talking with Sonia I had her put me on the floor as a waiter with some shifts as a chef when they need an extra person. That's right, chef. I believe I deserve a proper job title. Here's a nice view of our place of work during the day. The ocean is just to the right and the photo to the right is the top of the hill at the pub parking lot where I walk up to check my messages during lunch. Not bad view, eh?

So now i see this job here as a base of sorts, for my job hunt in london which is definetly no easy task. Either way, I've had some fun moments in the kitchen, in the pub and in the city. I've gone windsurfing, jogging, walking on the beach and will hopefully keep exploring around here. There's some really cool jobs that I've been applying for, though if the adage that you get one reply for 100 cv's sent is true, then I have a long way to go yet. With my hours now, that's good because I can wake up in the morning and spend two hours looking for jobs on the net and reading.

I've recieved some compliments in the kitchen recently too, because I've picked up a lot quickly. My main plan for the kitchen though, is to learn a few recipies for home. Some of the sauces that they make are pretty easy and I'm sure I could export them to Americaland. As for the waitering side, there's some weird customers here. I had a man stop me while i was walking to get some food and this conversation ensued:

Man with pint of beer: "Hey! Why is your beer so expensive here?!"
Dzido with questioning look: "uh...I'm sorry sir, I don't set the prices"
Man: "I can get a pint like this in the city for 2 pounds less!"
Dzido: "Sorry sir, you must be paying for location, or my fantastic service. har har"
Man: "This is ridiculous, i shouldn't be paying so much!"
Dzido: "So why did you buy the pint then, you jerk"

Ok, so I didn't say that last line, but I was wondering why he was going off about it while he was drinking. Heh. Other than that, there's a lot of nice people here and they all assume that I'm american. I usually have them guess where I'm from and they pick the weirdest countries, like Scandinavian stuff and places in Africa before they get Canada. Its fun though and a lot of them enjoy the accent.

Finally, an action shot from my apartment when Paul, Nicole and I wanted to yell. And Paul wanted to, as he said, "own us".

Tired, Wet and Excited

I just got back from windsurfing and I smell like sweat and salt, but it was fantastic! I had so much fun. Rather than go home to shower and have some much needed rest, I decided to stop at my favourite library and let you guys have a peek of Dzido in a skintight wetsuit.

It was a three hour introduction lesson at the Portland Sailing Academy, which is right across the water from our town Weymouth, so I had a great view of my (temp) hometown while I was surfing. There were three other people in the lesson, two brothers (Alex and Michael) and a girl namedDawn from the town. The brothers had their parents watching so I was lucky enough to persuade them to be my photographers as well!

We started the intro lesson with a quick 45 minutes on the land after I had fitted my smelly wetsuit and PFD. So we practiced getting on and turning and balancing on a simulator. Definetly easier on land than in the water. In all honesty I thought that it would be much quicker to pickup, like snowboarding or something. But sail positioning and wind direction etc were definetly something very new to me, despite sailing before.

Once we got in the water I started the process of getting up and tumbling into the water. Early on I definetly wanted to go fast, but not knowing much about steering I had trouble controlling my turns and took some spills. It was great though. Every time I fell I had a good laugh with the other three students and got right back on. Pretty soon Tom, our instructor, was teaching me proper turns, sailing upwind instead of across and easier techniques for climbing out of the water. A couple of times the other three took breaks on shore to catch their breath but I was way too excited to stop for even a second. I spent the three hours zigzagging and falling and wrestling with the sail. My arms were so tired by the end but I was loving every minute of it.

Near the end of the lesson Tom told me I had a few minutes left for one more run, so I took off as far as I possibly could, to maximize my time haha. As it happens in life, sometimes right when you're having the best possible time you have to stop due to circumstance. Luckily, you know that leaving something like that at a good time will make you come back to it even more excited than originally. So on my last turn back, I fully felt the control in my arms and the wind kick up. And as Tom skimmed beside me on the motorboat I really felt like I was chasing him and rushing across the surface of the water.

Over the phone they originally told me that you need a full three day course to get certified for windsurfing (so that you're allowed to rent boards here on your own). I spoke to Tom at the end of the day and he seemed pretty impressed with my improvements. He told me to come in next time and tell the desk staff that he said I should go straight into a level one lesson. This way I only need a day or halfday to be able to rent a board on my own here, instead of three!

I had a great time and can't wait to go again, especially once I'm able to just take a board for a day and relax out on the water on my own.

Here's my glory shot at the end of the day. Oh yes ladies, its a onesie.

Grey Sky's Are Gonna Clear Up

And they did! We had some cloudy days all week but this morning the sky's have cleared up it's beautiful outside. I have my 3 hour windsurfing lesson in a little while and I can't wait

Talk to you soon!