The end of a chapter.

As you may have noticed, my blog posts have been sporadic but hopefully i have entertained and informed you enough on my 6 months in the alps.

The 6 months eventually had to come to an end...

The last week of guests

A monumental moment! you realize you don't have to cook that beef tagine every Sunday again for the rest of your life, unless you for some crazy reason decide it could be fun to reminisce. No transfer day, no preparation for another set of guests to arrive, no more cleaning! I have to say after 6 months of chalet hosting, we were all in the same boat - ready to stop!

My last week of guests was a bit unusual - The owner of the company(!) was planning to stay in the top floor penthouse chalets with his friends and family. We were slightly apprehensive but the week actually turned out to be a perfect last week!

Me and hannah were in charge of the childrens food - they were adorable might i add! - this meant no more 3 course meals, but gourmet lasagne, chicken pie, all comfort food! we were then in charge of the children until they went to bed which meant me and hannah were able to watch all the films that had been in our chalets throughout the season but we had never had the chance to sit down and watch them properly! Imy was then in charge of the adults food, with the help of our executive chefs preparing the food.

The guests were lovely - and it was great seeing the owner of the company relax with his friends and family and seeing how down to earth he was - nothing to worry about at al1! We even got an invitation to folie and rose blanche and had a few too many shots (hannah passed out!)....... safe to say a morning hangover was imminent.

Even though it was such a great week - we were still ready to finish having guests! And we celebrated the last farewell with champagne and a cooked breakfast!

4th floor celebrations!

Penthouse girls.

Deep Clean

The dreaded word - we did it at the beginning of the season, it was hell, the middle of the season, it was hell and now the end. Closing down our chalets until winter when the poor unfortunate soul who has volunteered to work in my chalet arrives. It involves intense full day cleaning including things like toothbrushing grouting, toothpicking dirt out of telephone buttons and things never being quite clean enough! Threats of no days off, no going to the folie closing party were used to make sure we cleaned like crazy people - and it worked! We managed to close down our chalets in record time and even managed to feature in the official folie closing party video - an accomplishment!

You would think we were done, but the next step was packing up our bags and deep cleaning our accommodation which wasn't cared for in the same ways our chalets had been throughout the season and an insane amount of dirt was cleaned up!

Our goodbyes

Suddenly we were all siting on the coach on our way back home. It was surreal. It felt like it was only yesterday that we were heading out to start out 6 months. Making new friends, excited about what was to come. Leaving val d'isere and all the friends i had made there was emotional. I cried at dover, held it in for clacket lane stop and cried again at our final destination of London Victoria.

I can only conclude that a season may not be 'living the dream' as I first set out thinking it would be. It's one emotional roller coaster where you make unforgettable memories, life long friends and embrace a new set of cooking, cleaning and customer service skills.

Gorgeous Room 22 <3

So would I do it again?

This is a hard question. And I've thought about it multiple times. On one hand, yes i would! Despite the work, its an amazing experience with the availability of a mountain to ski on every day! On the other hand, I've had my experience of a season and I wouldn't want to compare it to anything. So i think i've come to the conclusion that I will cherish what I've done, as it was unforgettable.

Now - back to the real world!

Work to play.

So the reason people do a ski season is to be able to have the freedom of 6 months playing in the alps. You are working to play. I've spent a lot of time discussing the actual job, but what did i actually get up to in between...

APRES.

Without a fail, we would be there - apres tended to be bigger than our day off night out. Pre drinks at spar and piste above folie, cafe face then somewhere for food. 

HELI SKIING/OFF PISTE.


I took the opportunity to get ski lessons to improve my technique and also use the guidance of an instructor to take me on to more adventurous off piste. We did the tour de cunai which was amazing - we found a little restaurant that had no electricity and water - the owner skidooed all the food up everyday and also saw the old town of val d'isere as well as debris from an avalanche that had happened 2 hours earlier. On top of this, we did heli skiing which was my best experience yet! We skied down some of my hardest runs yet, which ended in a hilarious collision between me and my friend harriet as well as the helicopter landing before we had the safety talk therefore attempting to guide it in to land didnt end up so well! This also meant that when we got off the helicopter, we decided it would be great to take a picture in front of it rather than clear to safety - we were in trouble!!

Tour De Cunai

Avalanche debris!

Eye of the needle

FIRST LIFTS.... on a hangover. Never again. But it was beautiful!

DAYS OUT.

We always made sure we had plenty to do in our time off - whether it be celebrating Vic getting into med school and Sam's sister having little baby Lila meaning we needed a day trip to Tigne Le Breviere and insane amounts of drinking or a hungover trip to Loop bar to soak up the sun. We made sure we were never bored!

 

VIP BONDING.

One thing we were great at was all hanging out together - we had events such as Valley Rally which was amazingly messy, BBQ off piste which also involved a lot of drinking and our end of season party themed 'toy box' which was incredibly messy....

Casual BBQ.

 So we managed to make the most of our seasons, and some of my best memories were made on the mountains with my VIP buddies - without getting too emotional!

BOOM.

So this post is to honour the guests I had last week, partially due to the fact they found my blog (how?!) as well as so far being the best guests I've had this season. Each week you never know what your guests are going to be like - you only get their names written on a piece of paper and find out nothing more until you greet them off the coach. On your manifest you get things such as 'Mike is feisty and 80, please look after him well' (this weeks guest) or 'guest recovery - bad food and bad service' or '3 are lactose free, ones gluten free and theres a veggie'. Not much help at all.

So I greeted my family for the week and it went from there really. I was first introduced to the game 'boom' - hence the blog post title. You write your name, and object and a place and put it in a hat. Everyone then picks out the hat and whats written on each paper is your boom challenge for the week. Mine was to give Laura a first aid box on a ski chair lift. IMPOSSIBLE! (I have to admit i did not accomplish this boom). So that definitely broke the ice.

I could tell these guests would be a lot of fun and they completely included me as part of the family - they made an effort to invite me to dinner, include me in the dinners i cooked for them and all the after dinner games too.

The fateful night out.

So my guests decided to go for a quiet drink out and I protested that I had no clothes to wear - yet i was lent some in an instant - so i couldn't refuse! We ventured out to pacific bar which was completely dead except for us. A suggestion of beer pong came on the cards and this is where it all went down hill. The 'young ones' won the first game against the 'Oldies', and to mix it up tequila and wine were bought into the mix for the second game. We were steadily getting drunker (or at least I hoped everyone was!). We moved onto moris bar where we got more drinks and came up with the game that when you threw a ping pong ball into a drink the owner had to down it - we included the whole of moris bar in this game. I was also 'boomed' at this point with a green mint drink by the pool table - absolutely gutting.

The rest of the night is a bit of a blur, but the next morning i woke up at 9 in my chalet and also in one of my guests beds (a girl might i add!). Chalet girl shenanigans indeed! - despite being embarrassed, the guests loved it and it bought our bond even closer - on my side at least anyway!

The week ended with me skiing one of the group - who is a beginner - to meet the others for lunch in Tigne le breviere and then the guests letting me off dinner for the night too - honestly one of my best days!

These guests are ones I'll never forget and hope to see again soon. You never know who's going to step off the coach and it could be your best week or worst week, but i'm safe to say this week was my best!

Now back to sunbathing and a beer.

excuse my pointy chin.

Over the hill.

I'm back, after not having written a post in too long. Its been a whirlwind few weeks for sure.

This week my family are out which is so nice! It's unreal how much you do end up missing home, even though you are 'living the dream'.

So now im officially in the swing of things - its only taken 4 months!

As you know we have a set menu,we've now got to grips with it. We are cutting corners and making our lives easier. Me and the next door chalet do the 'great british share off' as my dad calls it. As you know every day we have to cook a cake for afternoon tea. Now we do a cake a day for each other - so nice not to have to bake everyday.

We are also going out and drinking more - Frost gun competition was on yesterday and we went to the afterparty. Me and vic managed to sneak in to VIP and dance with the competitors. Way too cool.

Our guests last night made me and Rosie who's working with me this week play a drinking game. it consisted of them asking a question about themselves and we had to answer it  - if we got it wrong, we did a shot, if we got it right, we got to nominate someone else to drink a shot. Rosie got 'name all our names' wrong. Not a good start!

So mid season blues are starting to kick in, the season is going by so quickly, but the weather is warmer and we've had some amazing ski days. Today though, is a hungover nap day. Time to sleep!

A blurred few weeks..

So I'm firstly going to start of with a big apology. Time is a rare thing, especially time to yourself. So this blog has been neglected!

How is it going?

A roller coaster of emotions is the only way to describe working as a chalet girl in the alps. Its ranged from skiing with powder snow and bluebird skies, to cleaning crusty piss off your new guest's toilet. But the perks are starting to show more than the hard work we do so that can only be a good thing.

The past couple of weeks have included Christmas and New Years. BIG weeks in the chalet world, and big money spent. This meant we had to work pretty hard and keep up the professionalism.

So we will start with Christmas. My guests were lovely, and I had children in my chalet  which made Christmas much more magical. Being away from home was hard though - Christmas is always such a family get together time and this year i was spending it with complete strangers and cooking the meal for them. Not my ideal vision!

BUT - the whole meal went fine! I cooked 2 turkeys perfectly and managed to juggle the other things to be cooked in a tiny oven. A definite accomplishment. The only disaster was that my gravy was more of a jus - and as I had northerners as guests, they were not too pleased with it! The guests let me sit and eat with them and also took me out to dinner another night - so a successful week! A big step up from the reality that hit previously. I rang my mum afterwards and she wished me 'Happy Easter' - oh dear, maybe too much wine!

New years was also a great week with a great irish family - I've started getting out earlier and skiing more, which is why I'm here of course!

We had staff celebrations for both - after New Years we had to cook breakfast the next day - SUCH a painful day, you just don't know it.

So despite feeling depressed about the job to start, I've found that its starting to turn around - skiing more, drinking more and still being able to work hard - such an accomplishment!

But as I said, it goes up and down - each week feels different, each week has its highs and lows and each week brings new guests.

I've been lucky and had fantastic guests (which have also tipped me well, allowing me to treat myself ;)) - ive also managed to avoid illnesses so far such as the mumps, impetigo, diarrhoea and millions of coughs and colds (fingers crossed!).

So until next time!

The reality.

So I've been in the alps for just over 2 weeks and reality has hit. Life out here is pretty hectic meaning much neglect to this blog. So let me update you:

 - On the 15th November I boarded the coach to Val D'isere, so excited to embark on my adventure. The fact that I would be living and working with all the other people that boarded the coach was slightly nerve wracking yet also great.

- We started the 6 months with training week which would give us all the skills a chalet girl would need to fulfil her role (i probably shouldn't call it chalet 'girl' as it could be presumed sexist - many men do take on this role - but for the sake of this blog which is called 'chalet girl shenanigans', please bear with me.)

- Training week was great, we were shown the recipes we'd be cooking, the cleaning products we'd grow to love and customer service skills that would become extremely natural - we also managed a few nights out which was great for getting to know my team.

The reality:

The name of this blog post says it all, nothing could prepare me for what was about to happen. And don't get me wrong, its not that I haven't enjoyed every single minute, it's more that there are little words to explain a chalet girl's life.

So last Wednesday my first guests arrived. I was apprehensive but excited. I wanted to get started. The penthouse chalet I was working in (not sure how I swung that!) looked great and all it needed was guests. I'd made a cooking timetable so I knew I could be on track for the day and felt like it could all go well. 

So what went wrong first? - pork was delivered instead of chicken which meant my timetable I was so relying on was disregarded and we had to do a completely new set of recipes. The pork dish also happened to be the same dish I'd managed to slice a part of my finger off whilst making an asian slaw to go with it: slightly bad connotations. 

My guests arrived! They were part of a 50th birthday that were taking over a few chalets. I even had someone famour as one of my guests, who I idolized when I was younger, but due to confidentiality I cannot tell you who. So I introduced myself and there it all started. Though they decided to go out for dinner instead of having my cooking which deflated me slightly. So I helped out my friend Sam and the evening went smoothly. I say smoothly: we only just managed to get the food out on time to a high standard with 2 of us, which set off alarm bells to the fact that normally it would be one!

The next morning I was impressed at my ability to cook 4 boiled eggs, 2 fried eggs, 2 scrambled eggs and 2 bowls of porridge with tomatoes, bacon and croissants. Not bad for a first breakfast!

It was quite clear at that point that these group of guests were party animals. They drank better than a group of university students, visiting all the Val D'isere bars and clubs. I was impressed. However, not so impressed when I had dinner ready for 8pm and only 2 turned up at 8:30 for it and the rest at 9:30, with them all either wanting just the starter or main or dessert. But I did it and they seemed happy with what they received.

The next day was pretty much the same however, by evening meal I was feeling exhausted, coughing and aching all over. Luckily I had someone else helping me as I don't think I'd have got through it otherwise. I got home after my shift and called my manager almost in tears. We decided that a trip to the doctors was needed. Oh life.

The doctors seemed to be situated in a grandma's living room, which was adorable. I was diagnosed with tracheitis and given antibiotics which meant I got saturday off. I was told by my manager that's all I could have off as chalet hosts can't chop and change, so as my next guests are staying for 2 weeks, I'd have to take 2 weeks off which was not an option. So i'm powering through, all drugged up.

The unfortunate side of being ill is that I couldn't say good bye to my guests which is sad as I felt I had let them down -  I wanted it to go so well.

What about skiing you ask? - so another reality. I managed to ski for 2 days going over to Tigne and skiing on the glacier which was great! But my new ski boots were super painful so I went to sure foot to ask for their advice - and i've now spent 95 euros on some miracle inner soles. My illness also overtook me which meant I've slept in my free time rather than skied.

But today is a new day, with new guests and hopefully it will go smoother. I just need my immune system to man up!

It really can only get better.

A delightful dinner..

So last week I prepared a meal for family and friends: 7 guests in total.

I was slightly freaking out, a 3 course meal for all those people would actually determine whether I have the ability to fulfil the cooking aspect of my job as chalet host!

My menu

Starter: Parsnip and apple soup with parsnip crisps

Main course: Honey and soy pork fillet with Asian slaw and sesame seed noodles

Dessert: Chocolate Chili pots.

 And here is the result!

So it was a success, judging by people's reactions, and it felt great that everything went to plan. Has it given me more confidence? I would say yes, but then I have to put in perspective that I will be doing this everyday for 6 months, a feat to say the least!

But no time to dwell on that now as I will be on my way to the Alps tomorrow!

Wish me luck!