the art of personal presentation

so, where are we up to?...ah yes, wednesday. i bemoaned getting a questionnaire with the time for my personal presentation class slap bang in the middle of an afternoon i normally have very free, but the class was really good fun! ah yes. the morning began with "tricky foods", in fact the whole morning was taken up with tricky foods, the first part theory and the second part practice. this involved a lot of cheese and fruit right before lunch! i was hostess and nivrithi was host. we filled in the form beforehand with guests names and their jobs, ages, hobbies etc. and conversation topics too. and then everyone was stuffed before lunch so that went quite quickly - as a hostess i was happy with my staff and the food. all good. surprisingly good in fact. then i took a taxi to montreux for my personal presentation class. i was early so i sat by the lake and watched. i was in such a bad mood before the class because i had to pay for the taxi and i wasn't too keen on the idea of being told what to wear etc etc. but the class was great, i thoroughly enjoyed my colour, style and skin consultation. i discovered my season is: summer, my style is: something, my mood is: the other something (its all in the file which i have closed until i go home) and my skin is: sensitive. but i knew that already and the woman was so nice and we laughed a lot and she did my make-up. see pic:



and i can't remember what i did in the evening.

thursday, yesterday, our first class was "guatemala" - irene is from guatemala so she taught us etiquette and manners and stuff from guatemala, similar to that of the switzerland class of tuesday. the second class was with madame neri, the principal. i was particularly not looking forward to this class because i didn't know whether or not she had read my semi-rude note about having to pay for the taxi to my class, which i had paid extra for. and also, every time she looks at anyone, i just feel she is scrutinising their every move! eek. after lunch, for which i was downstairs (thankfully) with the journalist amongst others. the journalist has been driving everyone mad - chewing gum (we get fined for doing that), interrupting the whole time and picking her nose, not forgetting her oversized mouth. she wants to write a book on etiquette, and is doing research..she needs to put into practice what we learn in class!! after lunch i washed clothes and then had a class on ironing. which i now officially HATE. i dont hate much, but that i definitely hate. i think i probably took silly shirts with me to iron, but never mind. the class went surprisingly fast, then i had dinner and went to bed! i was tired/moody so didn;t really feel like socialising!

today (finally, will be up to date)...

mixing cocktails, great start to the week!

not that i'm complaining or anything! so back to school on monday and first class of the day is mixing cocktails, like i said..great start to the week. please see photos:



following cocktail mixing was menu planning for entertaining - what to avoid when inviting people, what foods dont go together etc etc. then it was lunch. the food is still good, but i find it weird eating a 3 course meal at lunchtime! and i was a guest upstairs in the formal dining room, the first of THREE times out of four this week!

monday afternoons = cooking, and this week it was sushi! see pics:


tuesday was the start of our p.r. class in the evening, but before that in the morning, we had a class on switzerland - infos and etiquette, food, etc etc, then after that was dress definitions - the fact that we have to be aware of things such as: religious taboos, season, occasion etc etc, we saw some pics from ladies day at ascot and we compared pictures of people who look elegant in one pic then awful in another..what makes a person look elegant?clothes for different formal/nonformal occasions.

in the afternoon we decorated tables for a biscuit themed party, see pics:



because my table decoration class finished at 7, and my pr class started at 8, there wasn't time to go anywhere for dinner, so i asked them to give me a boiled egg at breakfast that i would keep...this is very etiquette school ;-)



the pr class was very interesting, we presented one another and learnt lots. the teacher was really interesting, works for nestlé and i very much liked his style of teaching, it was really laid back and the classes are always interesting, its nice to have a different mix of people - some of the people in the class i don't have any classes with at all.

glacier 3000!

so first of all...photos! having received an email from my dear father requesting photos, here are some - a pick and mix of the day up in the alps in the clouds, details and explanations to follow!



edit: so sunday morning started early once more..i piled on my hoodies, jeans and trainers (at the weekend this is allowed) to keep warm - checking the weather in advance is always a bonus!and i made sandwiches there were 8 of us - 4 girls from india, 1 from japan, 1 from the us, 1 from the uae and me. we took taxis to the train station and got on the first train which passed without troubles. the next train however...its a bit like going into sheffield station, you go in one way and come back the same way (at least when i go from notts-manc, thats the way it goes), except for the fact the trainline didnt go any further, so of course we thought - hmm this is early, but got off the train anyway - silly us considering the next train wasn't for another hour minimum! luckily a bus driver called us a taxi who took us to the place we were supposed to get off the train to wait for our next form of transport...a bus. the wait was long and cold, but probably nothing compared to what we had in store for us! i mean, i wasn't that cold, coming from england gives me an advantage over the others :) the bus only took ten minutes then we took a cable car miles up in the air to get to the glacier. we couldn't see anything because we were in the clouds and i had to buy a hat because my head was cold. we then took a ski lift down through the fog/cloud and there were these snow buses at the bottom, of which a picture is posted. we took a ride on that, which was such fun! we passed the huskies then turned round and stopped in the middle of nowhere and had a huge snowball fight, it was such fun! after some fun in the snow we took a husky sledge ride which was about 5 minutes, but really good fun, the sun came out and said hello for a few minutes, which was nice. then we went up in the ski lift again and had lunch in the self service restaurant because we had missed the bus by like 5 mins and on sundays everything is weird. a bit like in germany. we then took the cable cars back down, waited for the bus, took photos whilst we were waiting and then returned, staying on the train when we should have and we returned to school at about 5pm, having had a great day!

you'd think a food museum would be my idea of heaven...

unfortunately not. (annoyingly i just wrote this and my firefox froze because of the "how to dress" pdf). the food museum was in vevey, which is about 15 minutes away. there was a fork in the lake outside the museum, and it only just dawned on me that that was because it was outside the food museum. a great concept, but not so great when you have THE most boring tour guide who spends half an hour talking about food 100 years ago. it would have been much better had we been able to run freely on the hamster wheel and read things for ourselves. everyone was SO tired, even irene was stifling yawns, and the boringness hardly helped to be honest! we had ten minutes after the tour to look round the museum and we spent a bit of time taking photos with the fork. haha. i meant to say we also had time in vevey to look at the tea shops and the market, which was really pretty, the music festival was on so there were random groups of people singing/marching bands and there was an air of fun in this strange place...haha. i think i prefer it to montreux, not that i have had the time to properly explore either place! after that we went to lausanne to have free time, i wanted to buy a camera because im sad i can't show you any photos, and i can hardly take my laptop everywhere to take photos like i did in the hotel on my very first night here...everyone was so tired that we spent a lot of time in starbucks just relaxing..after i bought my camera! i got back and we have such a great view, that once the battery was charged and the sun started setting, i took some pics...after running up and down stairs, taking photos, i decided with some of the girls to go to glacier 3000 (if you are ever in the area, its worth going to!) which involved another early start..i organised the trains and went to bed early to prepare for yet another early morning..i dont think the weekend is enough time to recover from the week!!

thursday + friday of last week.

so long has passed since last thursday - i'm not sure if i can remember everything that's happened..but i have my timetable in front of me to keep you informed! so thursday morning we had the theory of table manners...i think that class was over quite quickly because the majority of us had already had the practical side of it..and also, at breakfast and lunch, if we use bad manners, irene/mcc (who is another one of the teachers) will correct us in a polite manner (obviously!). after break we had the practicalities of table service which involved standing up for an hour and a half. five minutes later i was in the formal dining room preparing to serve everyone else's food, stare longingly at it and collapse in the heat and hurt my feet. i didn't actually collapse, but my feet DEFINITELY hurt! and i didn't finish my lunch until 14h40!! at 17h30, i had my home management class, we learnt about all the different symbols on labels of clothes, what we can and can't do with certain items etc etc, then i handwashed a shirt! that was fun, the class is really small - we are only 3! after that i had dinner outside on the terrace with emily - we had camembert on toast and a salad. it was perfect weather for eating outside so that was nice. i kept meaning to wash my clothes and write my blog, but i wanted to also study for the test (which turned out to be really easy, and didn't involve using my brain, which was a nice change!!).

test day came and we had another practical class in service, we discussed filling out a piece of paper that those being head waitress have to fill in and what they have to prepare beforehand so that the service for the formal lunch runs as smoothly as it can! that class was ok...and it was the first full day that our new roommate stayed in school - she is called sarah from australia and has been here since january (but was at another school at that particular time), so that was nice. the second class to be quite frank was as boring as hell (the contents were at least: "this is a fruit fork, this is a lobster crusher, etc etc etc), but the group is great and we spend most of the time laughing at something..it's a lot more light-hearted than i expected it to be!! we sped through lunch to give those doing the diploma time to study for their extra test and to give us time as well, but i felt like the majority of the stuff was general knowledge..i think most people found the test easy and today (monday) mcc told us we had all passed, but we don't have the results yet. but they went through all the test questions with us in the class - the test is basically the exercise in the book and they pick a few questions and you answer them = no brain power required. friday night, anna-marie, emily and i went to the lebanese to eat, the food was really good! i had a "mixed kebab" and we had some nice wine too. one thing i have noticed about switzerland is that it is very expensive eating out...earlier in the week i ate a salad for about £12, which i mean is ok, but hmmm..it was a good salad though (see earlier post i think...i should really check what i write first). went to bed at like 1.30 which was a silly idea given the long day ahead. (see next post)

i can't think of a witty title, so this will have to do!

this is going to be the longest message you ever read. fact. (well, it will be the last three days condensed into 25 mins of typing time, so prepare yourself for the long haul!)

so each morning in this first week from 8h30 until 10h00 we are split into two groups and each day we alternate things that we learn. wednesday (a whole three days ago now, so excuse me if the memories are a bit faded..) we discussed precedences i.e who sits where at the table at a dinner party and things to talk about/not to talk about at the table. at 10h15 we are split into three groups and again, things we do alternate so everyone does everything. wednesdays class was cutlery and table manners (the practicality of it) things like how to use your cutlery in different style services and not to put your elbow on the tables etc etc. some really obvious stuff! wednesday i do believe i was a guest in the formal dining room - basically students "host" lunch and then some other students are service staff and the head water. it was all really good (i don't remember what i ate), but the kiwis for desert tasted a bit bitter, probably the sauce it was in..anyway. after lunch on wednesday, two american girls - emily and shanelle (on of the girls on top floor pierrefeu (my floor/"flat" whatever) and i went to lausanne for some shopping and just to get away for the afternoon, which was really nice! the sun was shining and it was hot, we managed to find a starbucks and the sales!! i bought some shoes and a couple of summery tops, because everything i have is quite warm! we then headed back to montreux after some acceptable exercise (shops are up the hill) and all had the yummiest goats cheese salad i've had outside of france (probably the only one) and came back up here - im sure something happened before i went to bed, probably chilling out or something - one of the teachers, irene, lives downstairs, and she is lovely, i think that might have been that night that i went to relax downstairs, there was a group of us and in fact, yes it was wednesday night. it was nice! i helped the cooking teacher order some stuff and had quite an early night (ish, like 11, but as i am so terrible in the mornings and my roommates still get up early, i need the sleep!!)

i think its time for a break right now so this probably isnt the longest ever blog you read, but enjoy it...it will be easier for me to remember thursday and friday because that was yesterday and today! maybe upon my return from tonights "festivities"?!

edit: on the train back from lausanne, between montreux and glion, a woman who looked like the orange haired woman possibly previously discussed with the most HIDEOUS makeup in the world mounted the train. then i became hysterical..her eyeliner was blue and coming out beyond her temples and her lipstick clashed with her hair and her skin colour...all a bit mental really. but yeah, was really funny!!

test tomorrow!

i just thought i would post something as many of you are BEGGING me to write more (because obviously its an entertaining blog), but i do have a test tomorrow, so i'm revising for it at the moment...check back tomorrow afternoon!!