12/16/13

I woke up an hour before my alarm clock went off. The sunlight shined over the mountains and into the edge of the clouds creating another beautiful morning. Just by looking out the window I could feel the cold dry air. I quickly rolled back over and went back to sleep for 45 minutes before hauling myself out of bed. Before I walked in the cold, I gave my roommate a holler to wake up and continued on my way.

                Breakfast was filled with fruit and an egg sandwich with sausage. The time ticked to half past eight to where I clocked in and made my way to the terrace grill for a beating of overheard policies. It was 10:30am before they let us take a break from the lecture that most of us have heard before. After another hour of policies we headed to the dining room to clean and get ready for opening day. We moved tables and chairs and wiped them down. To my knowledge, I believe there are 58 tables which means there are over 200 chairs. There were about 15 servers and server assistants total which made everything a lot easier when we would incorporate team work.

                Walls, windows, doors, bus stands, dishes and everything else in the dining room needed a some TLC. The bread and butter plates and condiments were stocked in the four bus stands and then the fun really started; rolling silverware. After we came back from lunch we had two options: help setup the kitchen or roll silverware. I decided to go with the silverware for a number of reasons. One, it’s easy work. Two, I don’t need to think at all and can socialize while doing so. Lastly, I didn't want to be in the hot kitchen. While rolling silverware I talked to Logan about taking night photos and decent beers that he has tried over his break. Logan is my go to guy for camera and beer questions and he never fails.

                By this time it was 3pm

and we had one more break before we had our beverage training. The first hour of training was filled with pricing, etiquette, and serving beer, liquor and wine. Most of the information was old to me, but since I never had the training, I managed to learn something in the process but nothing of great importance. The time had come to where we would learn how to open and serve a bottle of wine and what better way to learn than to pour multiple glass and have a taste test. We were served two whites and two reds. Unfortunately I was only a fan of one; Sauvignon Blanc Bonterra Organic, Lake/Mendocino County. I was hoping to taste a Merlot since that is the type of wine that I prefer; beggars can’t be choosers. To accompany the wine were some appetizers along with cheese and chocolate strawberries. Of course, some don’t like wine so there were some extra glasses that were free to take and  what better way to end a day of lectures then  having a couple (a bunch) of glasses of wine with some delicious food that was made by a chef?

Sunrise behind Mount Everts. Taken from the parking lot in front of the HR building for YNP.