6/18/2016 2:00 pm

So I go into work on Wednesday, and it’s supposed to be a relatively slow night so I’m expecting to get out around 10. Nick, the guy who normally works with me in pantry, was off that day, so I was working with Tyler. (Tyler goes to Alabama, ew. But don’t worry every time he says “Roll Tide” I make sure to respond with War Eagle) Tyler was only scheduled until 8 so I knew I would have to close pantry by myself, no big deal. However, about an hour into my shift, the head chef, Jack, comes by and says “Oh by the way we have another inspection tomorrow morning, so just take everything out and clean it all just like you did last time.” Of course I respond with “Okay, no problem!” But last time, I had Nick there to help me. Cleaning for inspection is incredibly time consuming. Dinner went well, and Tyler was kind enough to stay until 8:40, but the majority still needed to be done. Little did I know, cleaning all of pantry was going to be the least of my worries. I finished pantry around 10:40, and I assumed I would just help Kayla, Keneec, and Randall finish the back and be out around 11:30. Oh boy was I wrong. Apparently, everything was labeled incorrectly. Everything. When I went to the back, the tables were covered with trays of food, because they had to empty out every single cooler and walk-in to re-label everything. Honestly, it’s a really good thing that I like who I work with because even though we were there labeling and re-labeling things until 2 am, I was having fun. After we finally clocked out and everything was done Randall brought down some beer and Keneec made us sandwiches, and oh my goodness this sandwich was incredible. It had a lot of stuff I normally don’t eat on it but it was so good I didn’t even care. He took a mixture of peppers, onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes and put it in a pan with egg and cheese and then put it on toasted bread. It was SO good. I’m not sure if it was because we had just worked so much or because it was 2 am, or even a combination of both, but it was the best sandwich I’ve ever had. I was off the next day, thankfully, and I slept until noon then watched movies with my friend.

When I went into work yesterday, I knew I was going to be by myself in pantry because Nick and Tyler were both off. I was a little surprised they were both off on a Friday. I got in and asked the morning pantry guy if there was much prep to do for dinner, he said there wasn’t really much to do, but when I went back there I realized he was incorrect. I had to prep basically everything for dinner by myself, thankfully one of my friends, Raheem, wasn’t busy so he helped. But I was still a little nervous about working pantry alone on a Friday night, when apparently the occupancy of the Inn was about 80% full. The first 20-ish minutes were nice and slow. But after that I was constantly doing something. At one point I had about 10 tickets on my line and they weren’t just single items on each ticket. I was feeling a tad overwhelmed. I got everything out without any complaints though. And at the end of dinner service, the sous chef, Simon (he normally messes with me and says I mess things up even though I don’t), told me “hey, way to rock it tonight. seriously, good job.” So I’m pretty proud of myself for last night.

Tonight, Nick is back so things should go smoothly. I have Tuesday and Thursday off this week, and we hope to do a long hike on Tuesday, so I’ll keep y’all posted.

Oh, and it started snowing again today. So that's cool.

6/12/2016 1:54 pm

Aunt Lori, I remember when you said that I wasn’t allowed to move up here for a boy, to which I agreed. However, I’ve fallen in love. Not with a boy, but with a city. Portland was such a cool city to visit. I’m not saying that I’m going to peace out of Pensacola ASAP but the likeliness of me moving to the Northwest is much higher now, it's fantastic up here. I went to Portland on Monday with my friends Kellie and Sam. It’s only about a 2.5 hour drive from Mount Rainier. We walked around and found this famous donut shop called “Voodoo Donuts.” The donut I had was heavenly. It had chocolate icing, oreo crumbles, and peanut butter drizzle. From there we walked to Powell’s Bookstore, which is basically a book superstore. It was HUGE. Thankfully, Sam and Kellie love books as much as I do, so spending a significant amount of time there was no problem. They have used and new books, so finding good deals is not difficult. Surprisingly enough, I only walked away with 2 new books. From there we walked around a little more, then made our way down to the waterfront where we just sat and chatted. That was a very very good day.

I’m still working 3-11pm shifts, but I’m perfectly fine with that. Like I had said previously, I love the people I work with so that makes the job enjoyable. I work with this Jamaican guy, Nick, in pantry a lot. He is one of the funniest people I’ve met up here. Every now and then my friends Randall and Kayla will look over in pantry and both Nick and I will be dying laughing. I find myself not complaining about having to go into work because I enjoy my time there so much. I know I’ve talked about how much I love the people here, but I really really love the people here. I can’t walk anywhere without someone smiling and saying “Hey Kristen!” Someone I’ve never spoken to addressed me by name and asked how my day was going today while I was in the EDR.

Oh! I finally have a roommate! I was a little skeptical at first because I’ve grown accustomed to having my own room, but she’s really cool. Her name is Lindsay and she is from Connecticut. She works in the cafe with 3 of my other friends, so we all get along very well. We kind of have opposite schedules right now because she opens, but I think she’s trying to switch to mid shifts so she'll be able to hang out at nights with everyone.

It’s currently 65 degrees outside and sunny. I’m off today and I’m waiting for my friend Sam to get off at 3 so we can go hiking. Tonight, we are having our weekaversary party we have every Sunday (because we all got here on a Sunday). It should be fun, as usual, except this time we have a piñata! So that's exciting. Sorry this post is kind of short, I don’t really know what else to write. Just know that I am so so very happy.

6/2/2016 1:11 pm

So sorry for the lack of posting lately. I spend very little time in my room to sit and write posts. In a way, not posting is a good thing! The wifi is consistently unreliable. While it is annoying, I am somewhat thankful for that because I’m not on my phone and social media. It’s refreshing. I am officially in pantry now! I’m so much happier there. My shift is always 3-11 pm because I work dinner and then help close the kitchen. The shift itself could be better, but the people I work with make it enjoyable. One of my good friends, Kayla, works the dinner shift too. We started a thing in the kitchen that when it gets slow, we do yoga. Just tree pose though (standing on one leg—I’m doing tree pose in the most recent picture I posted on Facebook). Kayla and I will look at each other and say “tree pose!” and do it, at first the cooks were like ‘what is going on’, but now they join in. The sous chef, Simon, made his own pose. He calls it “teapot”. You don’t have to use too much imagination to figure out what his pose is. We all have a good time in the kitchen. There are some servers that are getting to be annoying already, but annoyance is expected with every job. A plus side of pantry is that I have the opportunity to get some tips from servers! Just a couple nights ago, a server had a very difficult table and I had to keep making and remaking salads for her, so she tipped me at the end of the night. She gave me a few dollars in cash and said she put more on my paycheck. So that’s a nice perk.

All the nights I’ve worked 3-11, I’ve never actually gotten off at 11. Most of the time it’s earlier than 11, like 10:30. But one night it was 11:50. Getting off late is unfortunate because some of my friends work mornings, so they are all in bed by the time I get off. But most of the time there are a few people hanging out in the common room in the basement that I join. It’s pretty cool when it’s a lot of my friends, because I’ll round the corner to the basement and everyone looks to see who it is, and I’m met with a chorus of “Kristen!!!!! You’re off!!!!!” As you can imagine, with my hours, I have a lot of late nights, so I sleep in a lot too. Some days I’ll eat lunch and then take my book to the second floor of the Inn and read for a while before I have to go to work. The second floor is a very pleasant place to sit and read.

Staying up late and sleeping in doesn’t mean that I’m not hiking though! I had off on Monday, so some of us hiked the Carter Falls trail. It was gorgeous (refer to most recent picture I posted). The temperature was in the high 60s or low 70s so it was a perfect day. After Carter Falls, we drove further down the mountain to Twin Firs trail, where there are giant trees up to 850 years old. That trail was very short, but incredibly pretty. (I took pictures, but they won’t load so if you’re curious about anything feel free to google them). After that hike we came back, ate dinner, then went to the basement to watch a movie with everyone. A few nights ago, a lot of my friends and I walked down the closed road behind the Inn, and stargazed. It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. We could see the Milky Way, and the International Space Station fly by every 15 minutes. There were so many stars. We stayed out there for a while until the wind picked up and we all got too cold, I can’t wait until summer when we can stay out there as long as possible. Just yesterday, I did another hike with 3 friends. Myrtle Falls is a relatively short hike, but it is up the mountain a bit and in the snow, so it’s not necessarily the easiest thing. Hiking uphill in snow kicked my butt a little bit. It was SO worth it though. Hiking up towards the mountain was unbelievably gorgeous. The waterfall itself was mostly covered in snow still, but there was a little bridge that crosses the waterfall, so we sat there and just soaked in the view for a bit before heading back down for lunch.

The job is fine, but the people are awesome. Some of my friends and I were saying that if we had met under different circumstances, we probably wouldn’t have become friends. Everyone is so different and everyone has their unique story as to why they came here, I love it. I expected it to be an interesting group of people, and I was worried about making friends. But it’s been so easy to talk to everyone here. I think it’s because we all have one thing in common, which is some sort of desire to escape and live and work in a beautiful place for a summer. So far, this has been an amazing experience and I am so happy.