She worked in the kitchens of a top-class Austrian ski-resort but it was the strudle that impressed 19-year-old Chelsea Mayho the most.

Bermuda College student Miss Mayho is just back from a culinary internship spending six weeks working at the Hotel Montana at the Oberlich Ski Resort to find out what it was like to work in a large kitchen hotel.

The internship was offered by MEF Enterprises Ltd and she was chosen out of eight people who also applied.

"My favourite Austrian pastry is strudel," said Miss Mayho, who works in the kitchen at Fourways Inn. "It is pretty good. They serve it with vanilla sauce. They also have dessert buffets.

"I spent the most time in pastry because they didn't have many people working in that section," she said. "I asked to be moved around to different sections so I could learn as much as I could."

Miss Mayho will be finishing up in the Culinary Arts programme at the Bermuda College in December. After that, she hopes to go to New York to study at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA).

"Going to Austria was a good experience," said Miss Mayho. "It was much different than here. It was more regimented."

It was also a new experience for her to work in a restaurant that served lunch to 500 to 600 people per day.

It was her first time living in Europe, and she said: "I had been to Europe with my school, but I have never been there living on my own. The hardest part was not being able to communicate properly.

"They would show you how to do everything," she said. "Sometimes they would be shouting things in German or Dutch. I would have to wait to find out what they were saying. I could start reading the orders after awhile."

Miss Mayho said one of the reasons she decided to study the culinary arts was that she was looking for an active career. "I don't think I could handle sitting down for a job," she said. "Cooking is fun and it always changes."

She started out working at Blu Bar & Grill when she was younger. When she became a student at the Bermuda College she worked for Coco Reef Bermuda.

She was inspired to be a chef by her godfather who runs a restaurant in Atlanta. "He is originally from Switzerland," she said. "He told me to become a pastry chef."

But she said she is not yet ready to settle down and commit to pastry. She still wants to experiment and try different types of cooking.

She currently works six days a week. She plans to return to the Bermuda College when school starts again in September. She had to stop for a semester because she missed time going on the internship.

"I don't work during school," she said. "I was working during school but it was too hard trying to balance it all."

She said the hardest thing about cooking is the hours. "Cooking is fun but it is a lot of work to get to where you want to be," she said. "I would eventually like to have my own restaurant in Bermuda. I don't know what kind of food I would serve, but it would be something different."

She said while in Austria she did get to try the slopes on her days off.

"No skiing for me, I prefer snowboarding," she said. "I had a day off every week so when I had the chance to go I would snowboarding and hang out in the town.

"I was living in the mountains so I had to catch a cable car to work every day. At first it was weird because I had never been in one, but I got used to it. I took the train a few times."

She was thankful that MEF sent her on the internship.

"It was a good experience," she said. "I had a chance to learn a lot. I would like to one day study in Japan and Italy. I am a fan of Japanese food."