July 13, 2006

So…. I started my internship today at Bäckeri Jakob this morning at 5 a.m. Thankfully, as I was walking through the lobby to leave, the overnight receptionist said, “you need coffee?” And he unlocked the dining room so I could get some. I proceeded down the very quiet street to the kitchen where I was greeted by Carmen and Maria. They are both very sweet and were very patient. Carmen speaks more English than Maria, which isn’t much. We did manage to communicate for the most part, however. Thank goodness there’s always a bunch of flour or powdered sugar on a table surface…it doubles as a writing surface. She would draw words—German is one thing. Swiss German is another. Everyone was lovely, and at 7:30 we were able to have more coffee for just a few minutes. It is wrong that I have done enough work by 7:30 to deserve a break. But I had! By that time I had dusted 600 cookies with powdered sugar and formed them into little mounds that would later be baked, put on top of kirsch buttercream discs frozen, then dipped in chocolate ganache. It took me a minute to get the hang of it, but somewhere in the second verse of “I don’t want to go on with you like that” by Elton John, I was on a roll. I definitely miss getting to play music off of my co-worker’s i-tunes. I made some other things that I can neither pronounce nor spell, so you will just have to trust me. One thing that is weird is that I will totally miss the social aspect of work. I didn’t really talk about anything except work stuff, and that was difficult enough. I think it will be an adjustment.

This week has been pretty busy for us. Classes started—I’m taking International Cuisine. My teacher, Pam, is a chef from Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale. She’s a really great teacher. Not all chefs are….but she actually teaches you how to do stuff instead of acting like you should already know. There will be a lot of times that we will just kind of have to make do with what we’ve got, and move on. She seems to have the ability to do that. We are using the hotel’s kitchen. This means that for half of the class, the hotel chef (a lovely man named Guisseppe—pronounce with a “pay” accent on the end) is in there trying to get lunch ready. The other day he let us help him….I think he was happy to have 10 extra pairs of hands. At the same time, however, we were in class. Anyway, Pam totally went with the flow, didn’t freak out that we weren’t “on schedule” and we went on our merry way. By the way, they are not nearly the freaks about cleanliness that we are in the States. However, no one seems to get sick. Interesting. Guisseppe is a new chef here. He is Italian and, in addition to Italian, speaks German and French. He would speak to Pam in French and she would translate.

When I’m not in class or working or eating (we have most of our meals provided for us—meaning we have to be there—who really eats three multi-course meals a day?! It’s a good thing my room is on the fifth floor—those stairs are helpful)—anyway, when I’m not working, eating, in class or sleeping, I either go to Lucerne or walk/bike around the village here. It is really beautiful….I wonder if I’ll get used to it. I imagine that I will since, as humans, we tend to become sort of numb to what’s familiar. However, I hope it always impacts me. I hope that when I’m walking and am looking ahead at the Alps, that the feeling I get when I look behind me and realize that they’re on that side too still makes my stomach drop.
Below are some random picture….
the signs for “stairs” and “pedestrian crossing”…I love the little man, though I haven’t seen anyone looking nearly that dapper. Also some Swiss cows, an actual Swiss man on a bike, and someone paragliding. Please note that I will do that before the end of the summer. OH....finally, the last picture. A story. There is a covered bridge in Lucerne. You're walking happily along and you happen to look up. "Oh! Look at the nice paintings!" you say to yourself. Upon closer inspection, however, you realize that some of the bodies have no heads..."hey, what's that floating in the water in the picture?" you ask. Heads. Anyway, there is a series of war and decapitation paintings. Fascinating.