Jennalyn Abroad: Settling In

Hello all,

I don't have too much to report on this week, and I don't have any of my own pictures, which is too bad. My first week of work went quite well (I think). Everyone has been very helpful in answering the hundreds of questions I have, and I have been learning quite a lot - not just about my current job, but about hotels in general, the hospitality industry, etc. I've loved every minute of it, which is a good sign that I'm in the right degree! The shifts are a lot longer than I'm used to (and in heels, which is good fun) but there's lots to keep me occupied. I've attended four training sessions thus far, including the champagne training I had on my first day. Yesterday and today was spent in the training room watching slideshows and taking notes on the history of the hotel (a really rich and interesting history, if you want to know you can ask me!), the different departments, fire safety and manual handling safety. As well as that, we had a tour of the different departments and a couple of the rooms.

I have Thursday and Friday off this week, so I'm hoping to go to Wicklow (on the coast, south of Dublin) for a day with my friend Rochelle. It'll be nice to get out of the city, and Wicklow is supposed to be very beautiful!

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of the Drawing Rooms/Bar No. 23 (which is where I'm working) so you can see where I'll be spending 40 hours of my week for the next year. The photographs were taken from the Leading Hotels of the World website (lhw.com), which The Merrion is a proud member of.