It's Friday, Friday, Friday, Black Friday....

Wow this week has gone so fast!! I can't believe it's Friday already. So I met Nick on Sunday night and we went and we ate at this ghetto Pizza Hut by Crossroads... the food was okay but the place itself was like the equivalent to a McDonalds - not like the Pizza Huts in the UK!! Still, it was pretty cheap and seen as I bought his food the other day, he paid so... free food for me :D Then we went back to his apartment and I watched the Food Channel and BBC America on his massive new TV whilst he did his Uni work. It was great to just chill out.

On Monday, I had work which was supposed to be my final day of Chippie training and it was supposed to be a closing register shift. But somehow everything got confused and so me and Dan ended up on Chippie Filler instead which is something we'd already been trained on. It was a bit annoying to have to pretend to be trained and they could have used the resources of having a trainer present better as well... but nevertheless, it was quite a fun day and the park was getting busier because of Thanksgiving this week so it was quite constant for the whole day. We had to close Chippie as well which thankfully didn't take as long this time as before so we got out at about 9.45pm which was only 15 minutes late rather than over an hour late even tho it was the same co-ordinator as before. I went home and got some sleep because it was much needed and I had to open Chippie the next day on my own...

I was really worried about it because I didn't want to forget to do something and then get shouted at later. So I clocked in at 10.45am which was the earliest that I could and took the radio and clipboard down to chippie. I put together both the soda machines and the beer draft taps and then the coffee machine had warmed up so I had to start that up too... it heats up and then you have to basically just run the taps through for 30 seconds each to make sure that its flushed through and there's no bacteria or cleaning products left on the taps. Soooo I kinda underestimated how quickly the boiling water would come pouring out of the taps and despite having two cups ready to have the water poured into, it wasn't enough... so hense I managed to pour boiling water all over my hands. I've never really scalded myself before but it bloody hurt!!! So I reverted into first aid mode and ran my hands under the cold tap for a few minutes before putting some ice into a cloth and holding that on them for about 20 minutes whilst trying to also do the rest of chippie opening... painful!! I had to do all the counts (counting the amount of beer cups we have amongst other things) and all the other little things. It was a relief any time I had to put my hands in the fridge because it was cold!

All too quickly it was 11.30am which is when we open.... and I was literally crazy busy until I went on my break at 2.30pm. There's a screen which shows the orders when the register person has taken them... this screen can show up to 8 orders at a time and I swear, there was no less than 6 orders at any one time in those three hours. And I was just doing one side of Chippie! There's two fillers as there are two registers... so basically at some points we had 16 orders on the screens. The problem is that because we fry the fish freshly, we tend to run out a lot and have to wait the four minutes for it to cook and be ready... and this causes a queue! Having said that, it's a good opportunity to chat to the guests and keeping so busy meant that the time went quickly. The stocker person doesn't come in until about 1pm so for the first 90 minutes we had to keep grabbing 24 packs of Dasani water and fill the fridges ourselves which takes us precious minutes when we have orders to fill, and then you'd also get guests 'informing' you that there were no napkins/forks/ketchup/etc left on the condiment carts which the fillers are also responsible for (as if there isn't enough to do!!)... so yes, it was crazy times until my break. The afternoon was a lot slower and Samantha & Sophie were register training so they kept me company as well as they had to take turns in training :)

So after that long day was done, I got changed and walked around the world showcase a little bit - took a wonder to Norway and had a 'school cake' from the bakery - it was NOM. Basically, it's a doughnut with custard in the middle and coconut topping. And it only cost like $2! Amazing! Then I got a couple of Christmas presents from Mousegear and made a move to get home before IllumiNations as this is when the bus starts to get really busy (most people finish work at 9pm). I invited everyone over to my apartment once they'd finished work and we had wine and pizza (standard). I also met my new roomates finally! They're both French, one is from Paris (she's called Adelie) and one is from a place called Annecy (where I've actually been on holiday! She's called Victoria...) and they're both in service in one of the restaurants in the French pavilion.

I started the day on Wednesday with a trip to Walmart with Clare and Dan. Then I got to work and had been put as Chippie Fill AGAIN. So I asked one of the coordinators if I could swap with Dan because he'd already had his solo chippy register shift and I hadn't (I feel the confusion is a continuation from the mess up with the training schedule) so we swapped and I did my solo register shift. It was good fun and I got to talk a lot with the guests. When we're on Chippie Registers, we are responsible for our own till from the moment it's given to us in the morning to when we cash out at the end of the shift and have to count all the receipts and money. I am proud to say I was bang on when I cashed out - not a cent up or down!! YEAHHH! I spent the evening with Steffie, Ty and Alison doing a bit of menu revision but it wasn't very productive because we were all exhausted.

Thursday - Thanksgiving!! I had the day off so I said I'd help Dan and Clare with preparation of our epic Thanksgiving dinner. We started off the day by going to Animal Kingdom though because we figured we wouldn't be eating until later in the evening anyway! So we got the bus just after 10am and after getting into the park we went straight to see Festival of the Lion King which was amazing as always and then walked over to Expedition Everest and did the single rider queue which only took about 15 minutes. Clare had never done it before so it was a lot of fun seeing her reaction! Then we got food at Restaurantosaurus and then rode Dinosaur which she'd also never done! After that we figured we needed to get back to start cooking... we got back about 3pm and Dan put the turkey into his oven in his ghetto apartment (because it's right at the end of the Commons in building 23). I went home to start making the apple crumble but ended up falling asleep on my bed for 30 minutes... oops! Eventually I got all the ingredients and made the crumble. I went over to Clare's which is where we were making the rest of the food at about 6pm complete with my apple crumble and Ambrosia custard which was super expensive at almost $5 a tin at Walmart!! It was in the ethnic aisle :P

Actually the cooking was quite successful and we had it all done by 9pm!! We had a lot of food! Here's the list: turkey, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, broccoli, carrots, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, yorkshire pudding (we made it!!), sausages wrapped in bacon, grilled pineapple, ice cream, aforementioned apple crumble and custard! It was goooood! We asked for $10 from each person to cover the costs and it all worked out really well - we also chose our secret santa as well which will be fun!! After a bit of tidying up and lying around feeling very full we decided to get ready to go to the Premium Outlets!

Yes - at midnight! The day after Thanksgiving here is known as 'Black Friday' (I don't know why) and basically all the shops have super big sales! So we walked over and it was packed! There were queues outside some shops like Guess and Swarovski... I got a few things in the ghetto Disney Store that is there (actually called Disney's Character Warehouse. It's a cross between a Disney Store and Cast Connection.) including Vinylmations for $2!!! I also got a couple of things in American Eagle but it was late, we'd had quite a lot of wine and we were so tired so we went home about 1.15am and I crashed out.

Today was my second day off and this is turning into a mammoth post, apologies!! I slept in (and yet am still tired) and popped over to Steffie's for a bit before picking up the stuff I'd left at Clare's last night. Then I went back to the Outlets on my own because pretty much everyone was working today and because it's EMH until 12.30am most people won't get back from work until 1/2am! Glad I'm off! Haha! I've already done my fair share of late night Disney shifts! So... I went back to American Eagle again and spent more money - I feel this is going to turn into a favourite shop which isn't good because it's expensive!! Then I walked back after browsing in a few other shops and dumped my shopping before getting on the H bus to Walmart because I needed to buy wrapping paper and Christmas cards. I think the deadline to get things home for Christmas is in the first week of December so I want to try and get everything posted so it's not late! Since coming back from Walmart I've just been doing laundry, catching up on Casualty (I'm only a week out!) and generally chilling out which is nice because I don't get much time to chill anymore!! I've got an 11 hour shift tomorrow training on Beer Cart and Stocking... then apparently we're going to a line-dancing club called Cowboys!