Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Krakow places - Spot no 1.

It's been 1,5 months since I started my new job. It's still not a full-time job yet, but it's a job I want to do, in a great environment and opportunities. Today I got my contract extension till the end of this year. To celebrate I went to my usual place after work. It's just another chain bakery where I was buying bread sometimes one year ago, when I was still eating bread everyday, at least 3 times a day. Never had I expected this bakery to develop so much as to change into a nice and cozy hangout for myself.

Walking to my bus stop, the bakery I want to talk about is halfways. A perfect location to tempt Pam into going inside. Another being window seats. Yet another, free wireless internet connection, with no passwords needed. The bakery is called 'Buczek' (read: boochehk) and it's one of countles Buczeks scattered around center of Kraków. Orange-red colour of its logo and interior design makes it quite distinctive next to all the gray buildings around. The Buczek Bakery offers variety of breads, buns, cakes and desserts, as well as cheap, but tasty coffee prepared in something looking like a good quality coffee machine. I go there everytime I work in the morning, so this month it wasn't that often. But I had a chance to try a few items from their "menu".

1. Peach & Passionfruit musse.

A delicate pudding/musse with peach and passionfruit taste, finished with a coctail cherry. A very satisfying treat. Not too sweet, not to dull either. A perfect dessert for hot days and a cup of coffee.

2. Blackcurrant roll.


Blackcurrant jam/jelly filling in a thin sponge cake. I'm not a fan of black currant, so I didn't like the sweet-sour taste, neither the consistence of jellyish filling. The best thing for me personally was the thick layer of white chocolate on the top and decoration made of almond flakes. I wouldn't recommend it to people who have similar taste to mine, but if you wish, try and judge it yourself!

3. Fruit tartlet


Fruit tartlets are never a bad choice. White cream with a surprise of marmalade inside, delicate shortbread and variety of fruits on top. I spcifacally chose the one with both strawberries and kiwis, it had also one pineapple piece!

4. Coffee
I always drink cappuccino with no sugar (thanks to Ellen I started to drink it like this) and it's okay. Not a coffee which makes you sight with amazement, but a good coffee to start or end (in my case) your day at work. Everytime you buy something in the bakery, you get a post-it with discount printed on it, which makes the coffee cost 3 pln next time you come ^^)/ How awesome is that!

Buczek Bakery is cool and if you have a chance, try tasting some of their delicacies!

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. (Vincent Van Gogh)

I was reading blogs about people wroking as night auditor in the hotels, and I knew I know a lot about working at night, as I was working night shifts already earlier (in the small small hotel that I was writing about before). But now I know that I knew nothing.

Well, let's see how my night schedule combo worked out. Three night shifts in a row passed by as following:

Night No1
Right at this moment I am standing at the reception watching the darkness of the night dissapear gradually to change into a bright (or not so) day, while my older (when it comes to both age and experience) colleague is taking a nap in the back. Quite a long nap, if you would ask me. It's been 2 hours already. At times I'm doing everything especially quietly, thinking how sweet it is that he felt asleep, but then I get angry. Why the hell is he sleeping while I am completely awake?! And I want to turn on the vacuum the loudest possible or shut the door with all my might..... but well, who cares anyway.

Although the weather has been dim and rainy for a few days now, the guests seem to be enjoying night life. The group of guys who came in Hammer comes back slowly one by one (or two). Some are dancing around the lobby while fighting their drunken state, some of them are quietly slipping inside the elvator. Some are waving to me and saying hell and asking me what am I still doing here. Good question ^^;

Well, I love my job now. I get free food too! On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays our hotel organizes buffets - which means you can buy a ticket and eat all you want. Last month it was Indian food, this month - asparagus dishes. I never tried eating asparagus before. It's weird, but tasty, I think, now that I tried it. We are getting the leftovers. Yummy~! Much better than Indian food and red-coloured chicken, believe me!


Night No 2
I've just put down the phone, but I'm still feeling something close to displeasure or disgust. Oh, while I was writing this sentence the phone rang again... damn, and again.
The time I was waiting for has come, but instead of amusement and fun that I had been expecting, I feel all the things that I just wrote about. Boring.

You know, when you're working at night, especially over the weekend, the thing you should expect to happen sooner or later, is a prank call. It has to happen at least once. And I was quite anticipation it. I know of The Jerky Boys doing all kinds of phone pranks, I was always enjoying them and I wish to be the one on the phone. I wished to be a part of smart and funny prank call....

I'm picking up the phone. 'Blablabla How can I help you?' - I ask after introducing the name of the hotel and its location, just as I am taught.
'I am calling from FBI. We were getting some calls from this number. I think it must be some kind of joke.' - I hear.
'I'm very sorry, sir. But I'm not aware of anypne calling you from here'
'But we were getting a lot of calls today and it's getting out of hand already....' - the caller is continuing.
Ok. It's interesting, I'm thinking, but for now let's play along.
'It might be one of our guests, sir. It might be that our number is showing when they are calling outside numbers from their rooms' - I reply.
'Oh, actually the caller said he's name is Rodriguez'
'I will check that, sir' - I replied, and, believe me or not, I actually checked it. Just in case it was real (sic!) - 'There is no guests like this in our hotel'
'But he said so, he even told me his first name, it was....'
'Sir, if it were a prank call, the caller wouldn't tell you their real name anyway' - I said.
'Errrr...' - I guess the prank is over, I thought, but no! At this time someone started talking in Polish: 'Why are you calling me, please don't call me again!'
Sigh.
That's when it started. They started connecting the call with other people, making weird noises, saying kinda perverted things (to be honest I didn't really get what they were saying, I just heard nipples, so I didn't want to hear the rest).
I hung up.

Another call. Another bullshit.

Another call. Weird noises.

Another call. No sound at all.

Give me a break, man! Think of something more fun, dammit!


Night No 3
This time, we're three people working the night shift, and I really don't know what to do with myself. The two co-workers working with me are professionals, they complete all the tasks before I even think about them. Well, I can learn a lot. But then again one girl is a shift leader, so this time I can waste my time, like I did yesterday for example. She also seems to be quite particular and detailed. Which is a good thing again. The bad thing is that every time I'm on the same shift as her, the food in our canteen for workers is bad. Seriously.

The guy who works with me everyday over this weekend is sleeping as usual in the back, the shift leader went to find some food in the kitchen and I'm secretly writing this blog. This night was no special at all. I got a sunflower seed cake from one nice girl from housekeeping and that's all. Man, I'm tired!

Oh. And one funny thing. To log on to our hotel system we have special logins created from the first letter of our given name and two letters from the last name. Mine is POK, so obviously I gained a new nickname, which is...




... Pokemon....