Time 22.50

Weather: Rain, 24°C

Mood: Tired & Relaxed

I have been a week now in Shanghai, I am suppose to work at the front office (reception) for InterContinental Shanghai Puxi. However, as the hotel has not opened yet, we are still at the training process, so you could say I am still in school, but this school day is much longer than what I was used to in César Ritz (specially the last term when I only had class twice a week). This is how a normal day for me is:

7.10 take a taxi to the pre opening office (I have still not seen the hotel, we are currently using an office at BM tower in the Puxi district for our training).

8.00 arrive at the BM tower go to the 5th floor to clock in then from there to the 29th floor

8.30 work starts (why don't we leave later you might ask, well if we leave 10 minutes later, it would take an hour and 20 min to drive, and not 50 min. Yes the traffic is crazy, and it is a huge city). Before lunch we are doing Opera training (a computer software used for check in/outs).

12.00 lunch - only Chinese food - only chop sticks

13.00 more Opera, and then check in procedures and room configurations

17.30 work is done

18.00 we finally manage to find a taxi

19.00-19.30 (depending on traffic) arrive at Diamond court my lovely apartment building. I live on the 13th floor and I share a room with three other girls. So far I have been living alone, but today I girl from Thailand arrived. Later there are two girls from Spain coming. 

There are also seven other kids here from Les Roches, another hotel school in Switzerland. They live on the same floor as me. They are all very nice. But I still miss my friends like crazy, all the insiders and all the good time we had.

So far I have weekends off. After the hotels opens, my schedule will look different. Last Friday we went out to a very nice club. Saturday I spent sleeping, and then walking around my neighborhood. I found out that my cousin Dora will be living only a 20 min walk from me once she gets her in August. Sunday we went shopping at the fake market, and I got ripped off. Don't want to talk about it, it will just upset me, and I am so relaxed after my massage that I just got down on the corner. Not only do I have three massage places within 200 m walk from my home (I´m going to try them all and find the best one), but there is also a swimming pool and a gym down on the 3rd floor that I can use free of charge. I started going to the gym yesterday, after a month of doing nothing I was just so exhausted last week with everything being new around me.

So, there you have it. I think this should be enough for the first blog in a long time. I don´t want you to get bored right away.