IT MAY WELL be a case of Philadelphia, Here I Come, if Jacqueline Woods has her way. "I want to travel," she says in a voice full of conviction. "I wasn't too sure at school what I wanted to do." After a pause, she realises she was sure. "It was travelling I wanted to do."
Today she is confident that her training and experience in the hotel and catering business will make her a suitable candidate for work in foreign parts. The blue distant yonder is beckoning. She has already been to France and to Belgium.
Through studying and her work in hospitality, she has developed a taste for more. She expects to hear about a job in the US shortly, where she also has family relations in Philadelphia.
Having just completed her training with CERT in hospitality skills at Killybeg's Training College in Co Donegal, opportunities are already opening up. "I want to keep going, she says.
Woods is currently employed as an assistant hospitality supervisor at the Westwood Bistro in Galway. Earlier this year she completed her placement there and then she was asked to stay on.
"I love when it's busy," she says about her work at the moment. In particular, she remembers Race. Week this year at this family-run restaurant on the Clifden Road just outside the city. With seating for up to 80 in its dining area, the restaurant was hopping with happy eaters. streaming in to sample the chef's delights. It's the kind environment that Jacqueline Woods loves best, where she is meeting people and moving about throughout the day.
At the beginning of her placement she worked in the kitchen and discovered that she prefers to be in the general bar and restaurant area. "I'm the type who loves to walk around and talk to the customers," she explains.
She completed her second year exams earlier this year and since then she has graduated with distinction in her certificate in Hospitality Skills, awarded by the National Tourism Certification Board. At the ceremony she was also awarded the CERT student of the year award and also Killybeg's trainee of the year.
"I'm working between the bar and the restaurant," she says. "On a busy day, the customers are impressed that you can keep up. You keep smiling, you keep the head." There will be no shortage of career opportunities, as demand for trained restaurant service personnel is extremely high and there are constant shortages.
Woods finished her Leaving Cert in 1994 and, without a backward glance, she turned down a job in Athlone and headed for the CERT Tourism College in Killybegs, "a lovely town," she says, where she spent two years studying and learning about the bar and restaurant business.
There were about 40 in the class, six of them boys, she recalls. Together they studied food preparation, tourism, personal and work hygiene, language skills, restaurant and bar service, office and reception techniques, accommodation services and customer relations and hospitality skills. There was an emphasis on practical work.
Her first placement was in Harry Jordan's Jordanstown House Restaurant in Carlingford, Co Louth. She worked here for five months and loved it. "You have to be very, very pleasant," she says. "You have to know what the customers want before they ask for it."
Last month Woods went to Belgium to take part in a European cooking and serving competition which tests half of the contestant in restaurant service skills and the other half in cookery. The four-member Irish team, competing against nine other teams from around Europe, won the silver medal and a certificate of excellence in catering.
Looking back, Jacqueline Woods says that it was holiday work in her uncle's shop which gave her a taste for meeting people. She grew up in Co Monaghan, at Broomfield, between Castleblayney and Carrickmacross. She went to Ardscoil Lorgain, the vocational school in Castleblayney.
As a child, she recalls, her relatives used to come home from abroad for visits during the summer. Invitations to visit them were always made and meant. Now, at last, she can think about taking them up on the invitations.
