"Smells like a dead rat!"

It's been a bit of a crazy week so it's taken me a whole week to get round to updating! Whenever I don't write on my blog, it's not because I've forgotten, it's normally just because I've been so busy! I'm actually writing this post on Nick's laptop at his apartment because I just never seem to be at home using mine! (Having said that I'd never have come here without a laptop, it's just so useful)

Okay, so extra magic hours last week ended up being a closing shift because now that it's not Christmas, it means that chippy closes at 1030pm so that was the end time for my shift therefore it turned into a closing chippy shift. I think I was on greeter for the entire day actually, then after closing greeter I went to help close chippy... it wasn't a particularly exciting day, I got out at just gone 11pm so I headed home and to bed.

Saturday, I was bumming around my apartment chilling out when deployment called me and asked me in early... so I started about an hour early and I actually did end up on Chippy Registers which was quite a nice change seen as I'd only done it once since New Year! It was a very sunny day and we enjoyed standing outside for most of the shift. My till was only about 50c out so that was good. After banking out I went back down and helped close chippy before we clocked out. Seen as I ended up clocking out late pretty much every day plus coming in early on a couple of days as well plus it being a 6 day week meant that I managed to get about 10 hours overtime last week and did about 47 hours! Yay to a good paycheck this month! After work, we went to Steffies and had pizza which was pretty standard.

Sunday, I was a seater and then became closing stocker after my break because Paul was going home. I prefer to take over stocker earlier rather than later if I'm closing because it means less running around after the last stocker if they missed stuff. Being stocker is a job which you put in what you get out - if you're a lazy stocker then you end up having to do more work in the last 30 minutes of your shift to get everything to a reasonable standard before closing. If you're a good stocker for the whole shift then it's plain sailing and you won't get blamed the next day for missing stuff out!! So anyways, I took over stocker and it was pretty easy - the parks have been very quiet the last few days - until the end of the shift. Chippy were quite busy so I had to restock their cupboard and get things for them... then they were short on seaters so I ended up doing rope and not sticking to my normal stocking schedule which pushed me back further. Then just as I was doing the last checks of beer cart I realized that both kegs were almost empty so at like 9.45pm I then had to get two kegs over to beer cart, change them and take the empty ones over the road and then wait for Mr B to check me. Eventually I got everything done - all the chippy people had gone home and even some of the servers had banked out and gone home! I clocked out 45 minutes late at 10.15pm eventually but at least I did a good job. I was exhausted so I just went home and went to bed especially as we had an early start the next day....

For Service Class!! The downside was that it started at 8am at Disney University. Nobody had organized a taxi so we ended up getting the A bus from Chatham at 6.45am which meant getting up at like 6am which was a bit gross. It was in costume not in professional attire so that was easy... once we got going it was fine - one of our arrival group, Tom, hadn't been to bed because he went to House of Blues the night before so he provided our entertainment for most of the day! The service class was great - we went through all the Disney Standards for serving food and drinks in Disney restaurants, how to carry plates, how to serve drinks. Then we had lunch break and in the afternoon we had wine class! I loved it, thought it was really interesting... we talked about how wine was made, we tried grapes and discussed the different vineyards in the world as well as the varietals of grape and types of wine. Sadly we did not get to actually try any wine haha! I think that was because of the under-21 contingent. We were done at 5pm so we got changed at DU and then got the cast bus to the tunnels... it's so weird going through there now because it reminds me of my first program so much! Just the smell of it, the music and the way it looks! We came up in Main Street and put our stuff in a locker... it was just me, Dan, Sam, Sophie and Steffie. Then the MiSiCi parade started so we watched the whole thing (me and Dan did a LOT of silly dancing and clapping) which was soooo much fun! We went over to LibSq to go on Haunted Mansion but it went 101 just as we were approaching it, gutted! Instead we got some food at Pinnochios and then Steffie left us to head home. The rest of us went on It's a Small World (ugh) and then Sophie and I watched the Dream Along With Mickey show. The others joined us for The Magic, The Memories and You (TMTMAY) which I love and then Wishes which of course, is my favorite thing. Then we got the A bus home and after a very long day, I finally went to bed.

Tuesday was an equally exciting day because we were off to the Cabins!! At the Fort Wilderness Resort (near the Magic Kingdom) they have a campground (with some massive RVs that guests have driven in!) and they have these log cabins with all the luxury of a Disney hotel room. It's awesome!! First thing, I met Tyler and we went to the Premium Outlets, grabbed a Subway and then went back to Commons. I put a bag of stuff together and then we got the E bus to Vista Way, the A bus to the TTC, the monorail to MK then the boat to Fort Wilderness, then another bus to the check in!! It was a fun journey and only really took us about an hour. Tyler hired a golf cart (best investment ever) and we whizzed around the resort on it for the whole time. We got into the cabin which is basically a living room with fold down double bed, sofa, table and chairs, TV with cable and DVD player, kitchen, bathroom and then a bedroom with another double bed and a bunk bed which is slightly bigger than a single bed width-wise. We met Dan, Ani, Sam and Clare who were already relaxing by the pool! We got some snacks and wine at the campground shop and then all relaxed in the cabin for a bit where we were joined by Anastasia.

When we checked in, the front desk said we had "a special present from Chip & Dale" which was some long sticks, marshmallows, hersheys chocolate and graham crackers so at 6pm we went to the Camp Fire and made s'mores!!!! Was soooo much fun. I stank of fire after that but it was worth it - and we met Dale as well! Then we had reservations at the Whispering Canyon Cafe at the sister resort of Wilderness Lodge so we got the boat over to the resort... and accidentally timed it perfectly to see Wishes across the Seven Seas Lagoon!!! It was magical!!!! Literally one of my favorite memories of this program already!

Once we got there, we had dinner (I had pasta and a Magical Star cocktail - my favorite!) and then we were all pretty tired so we got the boat back to the cabin and chilled out there. We had more wine and watched TV until we all went to bed around 1am. By this point there was me, Steffie, Tyler, Dan, Sam, Sophie, Paul, Anastasia, Alison, Ani and Clare - 11 of us! In a cabin designed for 6! But actually we all were pretty comfy, we had two on every bed, two on the sofa, one on a bench (sophie's choice!) and it was fine! The next day, we eventually got up and some people had to leave to go to work so we did some runs to the bus stop using the golf cart then we had to drop the cart off as well at 11am so ultimately it was me, Sam, Clare and Steffie left. We went to the pool for a couple of hours (hello, sunburn!) and then got the guest Hollywood Studios bus then the E bus to get home which was a lot quicker than the way we got there! I ended up going to Downtown Disney to see if I could find a couple of items I've been looking for but failed... instead I bought a watch which is lush! It was supposed to be $75 but I got 40% off so it was only $50 in the end! After I got back, I intended to do all my laundry and tidy up etc but then Nick called me and I ended up meeting up with him.

We got movies from Red Box and watched the Hangover 2 and 50/50 which was good then crashed out. Yesterday was Thursday and I was finally back at work... it was a joke day!! I had to be at EPCOT at 8.30am so Nick kindly dropped me off as I had my train the trainer class from 9-12 which was good. I got my trainer pin so I'm officially a Disney Trainer which is very exciting. Then I had an hour gap until my shift started so I got a subway then walked over. Then when my shift started, one of the coordinators got me to do the 'birthday board' for February which involved just cutting and stapling clip art basically for an hour and a half :P I also wrote up a closing stocker checklist which is something I've been meaning to do for a while. Then I went to actually get an assignment and do some work but instead Karen sent me on my 75 minute break! Yes, 75 minutes!! Because in CDS's eyes I had a work day from 9am to 8pm it meant I got a long break. So did nothing for 75 minutes, then put in for an ER which got approved for 6.30pm. So at 4pm after my break I went to greeter and stayed there for 2.5 hours and that was the extent to the work I did - brilliant!!

Nick picked me up and we went to O'Charleys which was sooooo good! The last time we went there was in Georgia so I really enjoyed it. I had a chicken tenders salad and we shared a brownie, nomnomnom!! Then we came back to his apartment and half watched Twister (a joint favorite movie) whilst he did homework and I revised the new menu for work because I'd barely looked at it. Then he decided he needed to clean his apartment so I helped by doing laundry for him as it was annoying me that every time I walked into his apartment I saw dirty clothes all over the floor (such a boy!!). Seen as he's driven me around so much and stuff I do feel I owe him so that was my contribution... 5 loads of laundry in the end! I don't think he had any clean clothes full stop! Eventually I fell asleep and then Nick left early to take someone to the airport and go to work for 7am so I've just bummed around his apartment watching TLC and the Weather Channel for the morning. Now that I've finished this blog post (it's a bit of a beast, sorry about that! Oh, and sorry for the American spellings, it automatically changes it!) I'm going to walk back to the Commons and then go to work for 2.30pm....woo!