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LRB Blogger : Leandros Pembos

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Greetings to everyone!!

My name is Leandros Pembos and I am from the beautiful country of Greece. I was born and raised in the capital city of Greece, Athens. Athens is such a wonderful place to live!! In Athens, a visitor can enjoy amazing local dishes, in restaurants called “tavernas”. On the other hand, the options and the range of entertainment facilities is huge, like access to vibrant restaurants and night clubs offering an experience worth mentioning by every tourist. The historic downtown of Athens is the most touristic destination here and the first place that everyone arranges to visit. Acropolis, Sydagma square, and all the small roads near the hill of Acropolis are fully occupied by tourists who have come to see this magnificent ancient temple. It is truly amazing for everyone to see all this ancient statues and the ancient architecture and design.

Some views of Acropolis, Sudagma Square and a city views of Athens

At the age of seventeen, I decided to join the IB diploma program (International Baccalaureat) and finish the last two classes of high school with extra knowledge and a competitive advantage for applying to foreign universities. My decision was to follow a business and management path of studies in University so I took several subjects related like Business and Management, Economics etc. This decision was important for my academic career. I improved my English language skills to the maximum point and also my business and management knowledge. Now the “story” begins, one day the educational counselor of Les Roches here in Greece came to my school, the reason was a brief session about the hospitality industry and the school. The session structure was individual interviews with every interested student. I decided to join the session and we had a very nice conversation about my future aspirations and also what Les Roches and the industry are capable of offering. I spoke with my family and they mentioned to me that a very good and close friend graduated from Les Roches and now owns a hotel on Mykonos Island. We arranged a meeting to talk about everything and the final part of the discussion was to offer me a volunteer job as a trainee host in his 5 star hotel restaurant Myconian Ambassador Hotel during the summer period. During that 2 month internship I developed higher interpersonal skills, increased my communication skills and most importantly, my team work skills. After that challenging experience I was mature enough to take a decision and develop my hospitality knowledge later in Les Roches International School of Hotel Management.

View of the restaurant and the pool of the Myconian Ambassador hotel that I was working as a host.

The senior year of International Baccalaureat was really difficult, a lot of assignments, tests and mostly a lot of stress. One year that everyone waits for summer to come and replace the hard work during the winter. I have to say that I was one of them…

The summer finally came and everyone had to decide what they are going to do now. I decided to spend one month on vacation around the beautiful Greek islands in order to relax and the rest of the summer to work in order to increase my hospitality knowledge. The only destination that came to my mind again was the island of Mykonos, a major touristic destination which attracts people from all around the globe.

View of the restaurant /bar that I was working as a waiter.

This time I found work as a waiter in Tropicana beach bar. Tropicana was voted the best beach bar in Europe and one of the most famous around the globe so I thought that would be a good experience for my resume. The experience was amazing, I met people from all around the globe and increased my service techniques knowledge. Additionally, I had the opportunity to collaborate with employees from several parts of Europe.

Tropicana beach bar

During this period, I had the ability to work in a fast service environment serving around 500 people over the day. I have to say that it was difficult but really beneficial to understand the hard working and motivation part that the hospitality industry wants.

Part of Mykonos city (chora)

All the experiences described above have helped me to decide the industry that I want to work for, they affect me in a beneficial way to develop several new abilities, put a goal in my career life which is to succeed and become a successful general manager of a hotel after years and finally to join the BBA/Hotel Management program of Les Roches International School of Hotel Management.

I can’t wait to join the school in January and with the support of my family I am ready to succeed and face the demands of the school. I am sure that’s it is going to be a memorable experience for my entire life both for my career but also as a person. Can’t wait to meet all you guys!! Hope you are having fun and see you soon all on campus.

Summer pictures of me in Greek islands

Leandros Pembos

LRB Blogger : Samantha Parkyn

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Hi, my name is Samantha Parkyn (I prefer Sam though), and I was born and raised in Switzerland. To be more specific I was born in the French speaking region of Switzerland – the beautiful, international city of Geneva. As well as being the home to the European Headquarters of the United Nations, Geneva also houses the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which has proved popular in the media over the last couple of years.

The City is famous for its tourist attraction and landmark; The Jet d’Eau, which paints a beautiful picture of the city on a sunny day.

Geneva is situated just over an hours drive away from multiple ski resorts such as ‘Les Portes du Soleil’ (a favorite of mine), Verbier, and of course the amazing resort of Crans Montana which is sat just above the lovely town of Bluche, home to Les Roches.
Geneva is also a great place to see some breath taking views, such as Mont Blanc (shown above), and the lovely silhouette of the sun setting behind the Jura.

Me in the Three Valleys - Meribel, on my ski instructors course.

Because I have lived my whole life in Switzerland, I was fortunate enough to learn how to ski at a young age, and I have learnt to love the sport of skiing. Which is why I attended a 10 week ski instructors course in the french resort of the 3 Valleys during my gap year. I had the most amazing time, unfortunately it ended less well, with a ruptured cruciate ligament in my knee.

However, during my recovery from this accident I stumbled upon my desire to return to my studies, which then led to my discovery of Les Roches.

My dog Benji in the snow. And me at a local ski resort called Crozet, looking down onto Lake Geneva

I have to admit that the location of Les Roches and the fact that it is situated so close to Crans Montana, slightly aided my decision when choosing a school. Although, I knew I wanted to go there as soon as I went to visit the campus. Even after visiting the campus for only a few hours, I was already feeling comfortable and at home, I wanted to stay and start studying straight away!

My hobbie and passion is horse riding and I am lucky enough to own my own horse (Lysi, the one in the pictures!), we have competed in local show jumping competitions together. I love nothing more than spending all day at the stables with the horses.

Unfortunately I recently had yet another accident, this time a broken ankle caused by a fall off a horse. It would seem that my hobbies have not been too kind to me this past year! However, the time needed to recover has proved rather useful as I am using it to learn a new language – Italian.

I attended the International School of Geneva – La Chataignerai, for 13 years and obtained my IB. I Studied Geography, Economics, French, Environmental Systems, English and Maths, my favourites being Geography and French. During my time at La Chat, I was lucky enough to go on several school trips and study trips to different locations within Europe, including; Barcelona, Florence, the Camargue, Strasbourg and Wales, which were all educational and enjoyable.

I have always been interested in the hospitality/tourism industry, I was always happy when my geography lessons in school were centered around tourism. I even chose to complete my Extended Essay for my IB by researching how a small ski resort could improve its number of tourists.

I really enjoy traveling and going different places with my family, and I have always found myself being interested in, and observing the level of service given in hotels. Having been the customer many times before, I think it will be interesting to learn how to be on the other side of things, and to be the person providing the service. I think that this will be a challenge, but it is a challenge that I am looking forward to.

I will be starting at Les Roches in January to do my BBA in International Hotel Management and I am very much looking forward to joining the school, and to starting this new chapter in my life, January couldn’t come sooner!!

Looking forward to meeting you all!

Sam