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Summer flowers

I think I've discovered my hidden talent...

Learning Russian

I must be crazy!

But I'm going to Novosibirsk!

Алиса Лукас

Даааа!! :) 

London 2012

I was one of the 70,000 London 2012 Games Makers and it was amazing!

Me, Becca, Alan, Josie and Aron in the beautiful uniform

I worked at the Water Polo arena as a 'Flash Quote Reporter'.

Outside the Water Polo arena

This involved:

Watching the game from the press stands:

Preparing questions based on the game, selecting athletes to interview, and interviewing them. Sometimes surrounded by lots of journalists fighting for the same player:

Spanish women being interviewed

Scribbling Writing the quotes down on my notepad as quickly as possible, and running back to the OPNS office to type them up to send to the world's press:

Stupid hat not optional

And then running back to the pool to watch the next game and do it all again.

Sometimes we found our quotes in the press which was very exciting.

My best one was after a very exciting quarter final where Australia were beating Serbia (the favourites to win) for the first three quarters, then lost out in the last quarter. I had to interview a very upset Australian team where I learnt to put on my best dissappointed face and ask, "You were doing so well, what went wrong?!"

"It's my whole career, you don't train to come to the Olympics and not get a medal, it's heartbreaking," driver Rhys Howden said.

"We knew we could have beaten them. We're pretty disappointed, pretty heartbroken."

Check it out: Sharks let Serbia slip away

It was a tiring two weeks:

But so happy and exciting to be in the Olympic Park and be part of what was going on.

woohoooo

And then it was all over:

We all got a Games Maker baton as a thank you..

 ..'cos we made the Games happen!

Thoughts on management training

Have we been taught too many clichés this week?!

Olympics Uniform

Went to London to collect my Olympics uniform ready for the summer. Was very exciting, all these people volunteering their time to help out at the Games.  First I had to queue for my accreditation which I will have to wear to get in. And then we had to queue for a piece of paper to say which items we need. Then we queued to go through to the trying on bit. Then I tried on the trainers to decide my size. Then we waited to go in the changing room and decide which size t-shirts and trousers we wanted. Then we queued to collect it all in the warehouse. Then we queued to have it all scanned out. And then I collected my volunteer Oyster card. Phewww. Actually took two hours.

This is what I will look like:

Well cool. Along with my London 2012 trainers, socks, trousers, cap, brolly, watch, water bottle and bag. Ha!

Chicken Rugby

Meet our chickens; Margery, Henita and Betty who we got a few weeks ago. 

After leaving them in their run for a week, we now let them out to be free range hens. Henita is still the only one laying an egg. Sometimes they look bored so we created some games.

Check out 'Chicken Rugby' - throwing a cherry tomato at them.

And 'Chicken Seesaw' - making them walk the raaaamp!

The end of the season..

The survivors:

..and our last week with lots to do.

Task one:  Clean whole chalet with a toothbrush. And that does include steam cleaning the floor, cleaning under the benches in the sauna and cleaning the groove in the lift to get Christmas tree pine needles out.

Task two: Drink the bar created from left over guest alcohol. Oh yeh, and clean our room...

 Task three: Visit the Hospiz Alm restaurant to slide down to the toilet. Weeeeeeeee

Task four: Make three matching skirts from ugly duvet cover so no one has to see it ever again. And wear them to staff party.

Task five: Hoard enough food to survive bad staff meals and lack of breakfasts. And to make a enough sandwiches for the journey home. One loaf of bread. 1kg of tuna. 1,5kg mayonäse. Lecker.

And off we went home to try and cope with not cleaning, not making a cake everyday, not having an organised fridge, not having a bio bin and not getting up at 7am everyday.

My first ski season finished - and it was amazing !!!!

Another week!

The sun has come out! This is the end of day off..sitting outside Krazy Kangaruh. Love how colourful everyone dresses for skiing. 

Found my guests inside dancing on the tables.  Tried to go over to see if they'd buy us some jägerbombs but didnt work :(

 A beautiful sunset :)

Love day off!

Sunbathing

Was soooo hot today we boarded half way down red 21 where the boys had built a big hole with seats right in the sun and sunbathed in our bikinis all afternoon. Still couldn't believe it was hot enough, especially when my toe touched the freezing cold snow and reminded me where I actually was!! Loving the mountains now it's sunny most days..although sad the snow is melting.

More Northerners!

Was soo nice to have guests that said please and thank you again! Normal people who wanted to chat.

Had a big family of Northerners this week who hadnt skied much before.  Finally convinced them to go to Mooserwirt for some Aprés. I know they'd been when no one was there when I went in to make dinner. Then I heard the door go, and the two ladies creep in and go 'ALICE...WE'RE DRUNK' haaaa. You can always tell when they've been to Aprés when they try to creep in.  I then got told the gossip about 'them upstairs' and that they love me and I had to tell them how much a good tip was. Kerching..!

Took the 'children' of the family on a night out..was fun! We tried to be nice and buy a round of drinks coz they bought us drinks and we actually liked them and they weren't rich snobs. We just scraped together €30 for 6 jägerbombs between the three of us ha!

The worst guests

After an interesting half term week with the children, having to do high tea each night, I have been running around to the demands of some lovely guests..who were an hour late for dinner everynight as they had the on of their credit cards on the tab in Krazy Kangaruh, went to bed early, but couldnt seem to crawl out of bed until 10:30am and wondered why I didn't serve them a fry up. Except for the keen girl, who was up at 8am every day..who had already planned her route for the day and couldnt understand why the others had come on a ski holiday if they didnt want to ski.

The group had divided. Mwah ha ha ha....

On the last night only half the group came to dinner, as the others didnt like my food were watching rugby. This is when I got all the gossip! 'So, do you not hang out with the others then...'

The 'nicer' group took us out on the last night, before sending in some AWFUL feedback forms on the bus saying that I could not cook, and was generally lazy. Thanks guys!

 Bring on next week!

Schwimmbad

Decided to have a day at the outdoor pool, just by the slopes today. Was amazing, spent all afternoon being dragged around the whirlpool looking at the mountain!

And taking lots of pictures with Chloé's waterproof camera, whilst making friends with this little Austrian boy who kept following us round!

Amazing!

Now a snowboarder!

So last week I decided to make the big change and get a snowboard instead of skis. The man in the shop checked I was sure as I'm not allowed to change back..although I think the man in the ski bit said I could ;)

I don't think I will be going back..snowboard boots are sooooo comfy and a snowboard is so much lighter than skis AND there's no stupid poles to hold that I don't seem to know what to do with anyway!

So I had my first lesson on Monday morning. I made my cake the night before and told my guests breakfast was at 8am on the dot. Grabbed Chloe and we rushed out to be at the lift for 9.30am to get in a group. Was only -22c. Brr!! Then after lunch the sun came out and I learnt to do some turns but not very well.

Went back out today with Chloe and after lots of falling over, and falling off the lift when it had stopped for ski school children I finally got it..and went alllll the way down the slope doing turns and didn't fall over..until right at the end when I panicked and fell right over forwards with snowboard in the air :D

Think it suits me!!

When Liz and Les came to stay...

They arrived early. She was a vegetarian. He was just fussy. Their room was ready. Old guests still in the chalet. They hoovered. They cleaned. They emptyed the bin. They emptyed the dishwasher. Was lovely!

The skiing:

Les loved it!

Liz hated it!

And I was just cool...

And Russian looking in that headband.

After spending a week hating it, a group lesson with Monika 'YOUR SKIING DAYS ARE OVER', a private lesson with Thomas 'just imagine you're shopping at Lakeside', a scary ride in the bubble, and mastering the button lift with the kind German lady, Liz came out with this surprise:

'This is the perfect holiday' Liz, 2012.

'Sorry, what?!'

Yes, it was perfect
- the allotment didnt need looking after as it is winter
- Les was not bored as he had something to do, and was therefore tired at the end of the day
- there were no northerners
- no fat people

Well, what more could you want!

Australia Day!

Had the funniest day ever! Today was apparently Australia Day..never even knew that existed but now I work·sleep·live·eat·drink all day everyday with Chloé we celebrated! 

Decided to make the whole four course dinner in the morning. I managed to finish by 11:30am..don’t know why I don’t do that more often. Canapes were in the fridge ready, every thing else in pans. Went had a nap while Chloé made lasagne then we got on our skis and went to KKs for some après, and Australia facepaint and flag. 

Was mental inside, sooooo busy..lots of fun dancing on tables until we had to leave…got back to my chalet at 7:30pm, got those canapés out the fridge and dinner was on the table by 8:10pm. Don’t think my guests who had barely spoken to me all week were expecting that ha! Turned out for the best as they realised I was a real person, started chatting to me and left me £160!

More northerners and two couples

Had a very good week. Lovely, easy guests. First to arrive was the couple who had spent the previous week at a Ski Total chalet at the other end of resort. Eeeek they were going to be comparing my food to there as it would be the same menu again. Then arrived another couple with strange names. And finally four more lads from Lancashire.

About to serve dinner on first night..

Guest: 'erm Alice, sorry, but..erm, I dont really like red meat..is that a problem?!'

Me: 'Nope, no problem, I'll find some Tofu..' pffffffff!

Apart from that they let me eat dinner with them, the bought me drinks, we had jägertee and they all got on really well....and left me a £150 tip!!! Yayyyyy finally have some money.

The Farmers

So this week I had 9 young farmers from Lancashire staying in my chalet.

They made me eat dinner with them every night·they took me for dinner on my night off·they wandered into our bedroom at 3am coz they couldnt get into their chalet·they drank all the wine·they drank all the juice·they left about 20 half drunk cartons of juice scattered around the lounge each morning·they egged a car and the hotel next door on their last night.. and they left me a bottle of Jäger as a tip.

Transfer Day - again!

So we're back to the beginning; new guests. Mental transfer day yesterday as usual. My guests had their transfer at 15:10 so went out for lunch. At 14:45 my boss comes charging in saying I have to get my guests on the bus NOW, but they were out, tried calling no answer. I didn't think much more of it..then my new guests suddenly arrived so I had two lots at the same time! The old guests came back to the chalet about 15 minutes later and were told they'd missed the bus and the road out of St Anton...

...had been closed at 3pm for the night for avalanche protection. So my guests were stuck in St Anton overnight and they were MAD!!! No tips for me!

This week I have nine lads from Lancashire in my eight man chalet. They ate the whole cake in about 5 minutes, canapes were gone in 2, they drank about 15 bottles of wine and have taught me that it's 'tea' not dinner, and it's a 'brew' not a cuppa tea lol.

Mein Geburtstag :D

Amazing Birthday!! Normally there's no one out at home coz it's just after New Year/Christmas..but here we have no idea which day of the week it is and it wouldn't mean anything anyway as the only days we know are "transfer day" (not a good day) and "day off" (a very good day!). Luckily my Birthday was the day before "day off" woohoo.

So I woke up and opened my presents - thank you very much everyone, my bracelet is nearly full now!!!!!

Did breakfast, had a nap (I'm ill) and then decided I MUST go skiing - it's my Birthday!! And it was a lovely sunny day for me - I can't ski if it's snowing..

Then went home, made dinner and got ready to go outtttt to BarCuba.

This is Team MountainStar! Chloe Jake Lucy and meeeeee aw!!

NYE

Haven´t blogged in a while, sooo busy and only have illegal use of internet in my kitchen. Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. Ours was quite strange. We woke up early and opened our presents, then me and Lucy opened a bottle of wine at 11am whilst making mince pies, skyped everyone, shoved turkey in the oven and went to the pub! 

My guests were very nice though, they got me a box of Ferrero Rocher and I had dinner with them. They seemed to love my turkey.  

So now it’s New Year week. Didn’t really even realise it was New Year’s Eve until Liz asked me on the phone what I was doing for it the night before while I was waiting for delayed guests to arrive!! So that night we cooked dinner as fast as we could, and then spent hours getting ready; washing hair, drying hair, straightening hair, backcombing hair: 

'sexy and we know it' haaaaaaa

To then walk to a party in the street in the pouring rain (which had made the snow turn into ice) in heels. Got there - hair not so straight.

So just before midnight we found everyone we work with in the street, drinking champagne from plastic bottles, there was music playing, hundreds of people dancing..

and we were surrounded by fireworks going off from all around!!

Was amazing!!!! 

Happy New Year everyone!!!!!!