Blog Series: Abroad (Episode 10: A Month in the Life, Part 1)

So, let me tell you about the past few weeks of my life. Some stuff happened and the people who follow me on twitter already know lots of it, but this here is a recap of what was going on in my life.

First: I am still living in the American Backpackers Hostel, and I think I won’t be moving any time. It is the cheapest living thingy you can get here (cheaper then any apartments and any other hostel or hotel) and I am not in the mood for moving around… More to come in the next episode.
Second: Some people may know that already, but I have a summer job. I started on April 8 and I will work until some day in October. I am a cook in a cafe on Kitsilano beach, the cafe calls itself Kits Beach Club and has a normal cafe serving fast food and stuff (it is like McDonald’s, just a bit more) and is running only in the summer days (April til October) and has upstairs a long year running restaurant (I don’t work up there, but it looks busy). So I am cooking fries, making fish, making burgers, mixing salads, prepping food, doing cleaning stuff… all the shit a cook has to do when the day is slow, few orders are coming in and I am standing there with nothing to do. The first weeks on the job were real slow; if it rains, nobody comes to the beach and therefore to the cafe, so it gets boring real fast. But when it is a sunny day and a weekend (or holiday), then it gets real busy. I had some times, where I was alone in the kitchen (usual in the first weeks we have two, some times three guys in the kitchen; on slow days just one) and it got busy during the late hours. One order after another came in and I wasn’t really up to speed with them. Another thing was that the food was running out and the first complaints about overcooked fish and fries came in. And I was still alone in the kitchen and another six, seven, eight orders were waiting and another two, three, four orders were coming. And it is not that you can cook the food real fast. When everybody wants fries, then it is okay, you just put one bag of fries after another in the frier. But if two people want fish (and they take some time to prep), another two burgers, another one some chicken strips and onion rings, another one just a salad, a few people a hot dog and two people want something completely different and you are the only one in the kitchen and complaints are coming in… this gets frustrating. I had one of these days (it was a Sunday), and for everybody who was in the same position like me once: I feel with you.
But the rest of the time I managed it very well; the first few days were a bit hard – finding the food in the kitchen, in the freezer and so on, cooking it well and with speed, but keeping up the quality (well, the first thing is working good, but some times I miss myself the quality of my cooked food, lol). And if you don’t know what food you are looking for (because you can’t translate the name into German), then you have another little problem (well, I had this problem just once).
So, I have the job until October (in October the cafe closes again) – it is a good thing, because the job is safe for a few months and there is a steady source for money, but the bad thing is that I can’t get out of Vancouver right now. I have to wait until October to do some bigger trips (e.g. a flight to the US).