Split

After a quick freshen up at our B&B, we set out to explore Split. The old town is built within the walls of Diocletian's Palace (built by the Roman Emperor Diocletian who was from this area). The Palace walls form part of the Riva, which make the sea front look very attractive. Unfortunately, it rained for most of the morning which made the cobbled streets very treacherous!

Walls of Diocletian's Palace

The Riva (seafront) with the old town on the right Singers in the old town

Old Town

Traders in the "Green Market"

The old town was very busy as a cruise ship had just pulled into port, so we were competing with hordes of Americans wearing hiking shorts and the visually offensive socks/shoes combo. The old town reminded me of the old part of Rhodes Town, where various buildings were built within old walls for protection. It results in a higgledy piggedly feel where you plunge down a little alley not quite knowing where it will lead you and you can seemingly wander round for hours without walking down the same street twice.

It also felt very liveable - I liked the market where you could buy just about anything and was aimed at locals not tourists. I could just imagine myself living there and picking up some meat and veg to cook something wonderful for dinner!

Budapest to Split

During the CELTA course, I made plans to travel down to Split by train with Caroline, one of the members of my TP group. After collecting our grades from IH, we headed over to Keleti station (another formerly grand, but now dingy station) and caught the Budapest to Zagreb train. It was a gloriously old fashioned train and we had a compartment (the type with leatherette seats facing each other) to ourselves - at least until we were joined by a loud American traveller, oh joy. The train line ran along Lake Balaton which was quite impressive for a lake, it seemed as if we were travelling along a sea coast and then we passed the border into Croatia.

We had a 3 hour wait in Zagreb for the sleeper train which we had been a bit worried about in case Zagreb station was as seedy as the stations in Budapest. Luckily, we needn't have worried as the station was clean and non-dingy, so we relaxed with a beer and some pasta.

We booked a sleeper cabin on the Split train which was compact, but surprisingly comfortable and I managed to sleep for most of the journey. We were awoken by the guard at 6.30am who bought us coffee and croissants and then we arrived in Split. Unsurprisingly, I had lost the directions to the B&B, but we passed an internet cafe not far from the station and reprinted the directions. The B&B (Guesthouse Bulovic) was very nice - we had a huge room with a shared (very clean) bathroom plus the landlady was kind enough to let us into our room at 7.30am!

Our sleeper compartment

Last weekend in Budapest

Lisa arrived on Thursday evening after I'd completed my final teaching assessment, woo! I had to move out of my flat on Saturday morning, so we moved to a hostel on Rakoczi Ut. near Keleti station called Hostel de Luxe (and it was very de luxe!). We spent the day doing some sightseeing.

Hostel de Luxe courtyard

"My" car on Rakoczi Ut.

Me & Lisa by the Danube with Parliament in the background

In the evening, we went for Korean food (back to the same restaurant Estelle and I visited. I can't remember the name, but its on Zichy Zeno Ut. if you're in Budapest and want some tasty, authentic Korean food!) and then back to the Irish pub Becketts for cider and music.

On Sunday, we met up with Caroline, Jacqueline and Juli to go to the thermal baths at the Gellert Hotel (http://www.gellertbaths.com/). Budapest is famous for its hot springs and the art deco style Gellert Baths are one of the most well-known in the city. There are several thermal pools of differing temperatures and an outside swimming and wave pool. We spent some time in the steam room and a scary woman made us dip underwater 3 times in the icy cold plunge pool. That was definitely bracing!

Gellert Baths

CELTA course

The CELTA course is very intensive and hard work, but I learnt a lot over the course of the 4 weeks and came away with a Pass Grade B! I made some great friends on the course, especially among my TP (Teaching Practice Group).

CELTA trainees, April - May 2010

If you're thinking of doing a full-time CELTA course, you need to be prepared for long hours, a lot of hard work, being thrown into teaching (you teach a short lesson on the second day of the course, very daunting for those who had never taught before!) and to be observed and given feedback by both the tutors and your peers. A lot of the TP assessment will concentrate on lesson planning; the evenings before a teaching session were always spent doing very detailed lesson plans!

The timetable went something like this:

9.00 - 11.00 Teaching Practice

11.00 -12.00 Feedback

12.00 - 1.00 Lesson planning

2.00 - 5.00/5.30 Input sessions (seminars with the tutors concentrating on a certain topic, eg Teaching Pronunciation)

In addition, there are 4 written assignments to complete (approx. 1,000 words each).

However, it wasn't all work....some evenings (ie the ones with no lesson planning required) were spent at the Moskva Ter Bisztro across the road drinking 300Ft (less than £1) beers or meals out. Friday nights were spent at Godor (a vast underground bar near Deak Ferenc Ter) or Moskva Ter.

The only lowpoint for me was having a nasty bout of food poisoning around the end of Week 3 which left me unable to leave the flat and unable to keep any food down all weekend. I blame the dodgy Chinese takeaway...most of the Chinese takeaways here have buffet counters where you choose what you want and they stick it in the microwave to heat up, not the best way to deal with rice. Best to avoid!