My alarm goes off a little after nine in the morning. I look out the window of my cabin – the sun is shining, so I grab my towel and run down to the river for a quick dip before breakfast. Yesterday I was working until midnight, so I am still a little tired. The cold water is more than effective at waking me up though, and I enter the dining room with a big smile on my face. Most of the guests have left, so we (the staff) have the breakfast buffet more or less for our selves. What to take? Cereals? Rolls with brown cheese and cherry jam? Water melons? Wild berry yoghurt? I think I’ll go for a little of everything!
At ten I am standing behind the reception, wearing a light blue Hindsæter- t-shirt and black trousers, ready for work. There are floors to wash and some daily rooms to tidy. There are also a few departure rooms that have to be cleaned and prepared for their new inhabitants who will arrive later today. Just as usual.
Me and my colleagues who also started at ten decide on who does what, then we all set out, in a way “re-setting” the place to how it looked like approximately 18 hours ago. I get to clean the dining-rooms, also helping the breakfast shift with the heaps of dishes that were generated during breakfast. After washing the hall and filling up the drinks fridge I continue with departure rooms. The guests leave their rooms in very different conditions, but the procedure is always the similar: first getting out all the used stuff, then equipping the room with new towels, glasses, bedclothes and so on, then washing and shining up everything…
Parallel, our “Restaurant Rein” opens and I am serving a high-quality reindeer lunch to the guests who show up at irregular intervals. When I leave at two, the rooms are almost ready, but someone else has to do the last finish today since I get some time off before resuming work in the evening.
The weather is still nice, so I decide on going for a run up Stuttgongkampen, the “house mountain”. Later I might go and play or just meet and talk with some of the others who will be off by then.
Then there is staff dinner. Today the cooks made homemade pizza with a nice salad for us – delicious!
At quarter to seven I am back at work, dressed in a traditional red garment (Busserull). I am lighting the candles in the dining-rooms and preparing the myself for the evening meal. 15 minutes later we open the doors and the guest pour in. After showing them to their tables I present the menu to them – in Norwegian, German or English. Today: Mountain trout as a starter, Hindsæter’s reindeer trilogy for main course and a rhubarb-tart with strawberries for desert.
Two busy hours later, most of the guests have left and have made themselves comfortable beside the fireplace or in the “salong”, with a cup of coffee. Sounds like they have enjoyed the meal. Work in the kitchen does not finish with the guests leaving though: There are still lots of dishes to wash, the whole kitchen needs to be cleaned up and things have to be prepared for breakfast. Simultaneously there is some bar activity which means that I have to interrupt my work to serve drinks once in a while. The other workers finish one by one, and by the time the kitchen is done, I am alone. The hall is empty – all the guests have gone to their rooms, so I go through the whole hotel one last time, making sure everything is the way it is supposed to be. Then I turn off the lights, lock the reception and the front door and go home, that is to my cabin, just a few meters away…
It has been a long and fun day, and I know that tomorrow will be similar, but different.
Link to the hotel’s website: http://www.hindseter.no/
