St Davids

The day after returning from Croatia, I went on yet another holiday; this time a family holiday to a cottage by the coast in St Davids, West Wales. St Davids is a special place for me as we used to come here every year with my whole family, staying in caravans on the cliffs near Porthclais harbour. This part of Pembrokeshire must be one of the most beautiful areas in the country.

Whitesands Bay (view from back garden)

As you will see from the photos, we were very lucky with the weather. It was a very relaxing holiday, much needed after all my hard work on the CELTA course! Evenings were spent watching the sunset over the bay, glass of wine in hand, of course!

Glorious sunsets

One night, we watched a thick fog roll in off the sea. Eventually we were unable to see past the wall around the garden. The fog seemed to deaden any noise, so it seemed very eerie!

Sea fog

The cottage overlooked Whitesands Bay, one of the best beaches in Wales. Sadly, the sea was far too cold to risk taking a dip! I say a cottage, it was really quite a big house with 4 en-suite bedrooms and a massive kitchen. It was dated in style, but very clean and well equipped. Ben seemed to enjoy lieing outside and soaking up the spring sunshine!

Whitesands Bay

Ben

Mum and I went for a walk along the coastal path to St Justinian's Lifeboat station. The spring flowers were out in full bloom.

Pembrokeshire coastal path

(our cottage is the house on the right)

St Justinians Lifeboat Station
I also got the chance to catch up with my friend Suzanne, who lives in North Pembrokeshire, who I hadn't seen for over a year. We met for lunch on one of the hottest days of the year and ate salad in the beer garden of the Farmers Arms pub in town. We then walked down to the cathedral and Bishops' Palace. Although St Davids is only the size of a small town, it is officially a city (the smallest city in the UK) due to it's cathedral named (founded by?) for the patron saint of Wales. The Bishops Palace lies next to the cathedral, but is now in ruins.

St Davids Cathedral and Bishops' Palace

Brac

On our last day in Croatia, we took the ferry to one of the many islands off the coast of Croatia called Brac. The harbour was at a(nother) very pretty town called Supetar.

Supetar

We browsed around for an hour and walked out to the mausoleum along the coast, then caught the bus across the island to Bol.

Mausoleum

From Bol we walked to Zlatni Rat, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world (and that's not just my opinion). We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the beach and then spent the afternoon sunbathing and paddling. I wanted to stay there for ever!

View while eating lunch

Zlatni Rat Beach

The sea looked so clear

Caroline braving a paddle

On the ferry back, we met a guy from London who sells holiday homes in Croatia. We got chatting and (once he had quickly sussed that there was no point in giving us a sales pitch) offered us a lift to the airport the next morning which was very nice of him and if you ever want to buy a holiday home in Croatia (I definitely plan to one day!), I will give you his details!

Beautiful sunset on the ferry ride back

Arriving back in Split

I was sad to have to leave Croatia; I would love to work and live there one day, but teaching jobs and fairly few and far between. The only downside (and this is a small gripe) was that the food was pretty bland, everywhere seemed to serve pasta and pizza. Maybe the restaurants here cater mainly for the day tripper/cruise ship crowd, but I'd have loved to have found some traditionally Croatian food on the menus. However, that won't put me off and I'll have to hunt harder next time, maybe they're just as elusive as that Macdonalds (we never did find it!). I'm sure I'll visit again and hopefully stay longer next time.

Trogir

The weather was much better the next day and we took a bus to Trogir, a UN World Heritage site, a few miles up the coast from Split (after unsuccesfully hunting for a MacDonalds for breakfast as we were both craving a McMuffin - and still am). Trogir recently stood in for Venice (with a bit of CGI) on Dr Who, so it may look a little familiar! We walked around the little alleys, shopped for souvenirs, then had a late lunch at a restaurant on the sea front before returning to Split. We then walked down to the beach area, about 20 minutes walk from the city centre and had a couple of beers overlooking the sea.

Trogir

Alleyways and courtyards in Trogir

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!

Budapest

After leaving Korea, I went to Budapest to do a CELTA course (CELTA stands for Certificate for English Language Teaching to Adults). I did the course over 4 weeks at International House and cannot recommend it highly enough! Budapest is beautiful and a great city to visit and live in.

Royal Palace

View over the Danube taken from the top of the Citadel

I was lucky that Estelle came over with me for a few days before the course started and then Lisa visited me for my final weekend. We arrived at Ferihegy airport on Thursday evening and caught the train to Nyugati station. My first impression of Budapest was not that favourable as the station (designed by Pierre Eiffel who also apparently designed a famous tower in Paris) was dirty and seedy. Our hotel was a few minutes walk away and was great. We stayed at the Star Inn Centrum which was a bargain at £32 a night. After checking in, we headed to nearby Irish bar for cider and caught a good covers band.

The next day, we bought tickets for the open top bus tour (I think they were around £20 each) which allowed us to hop on and hop off for 24 hours. There are great viewpoints from the Citadel and the castle, from the fairy tale looking Fishermans Bastion. In the evening, we went for Hungarian food at a restaurant on V. Utca and got ripped off by the waiter offering us "traditional Hungarian licquers" which tasted like nail varnish remover and an equally offensive price of £6 each....

St Stephen's Basilica

On Saturday morning, I went to collect the keys for my temporary home for the next 4 weeks. The flat was on the Buda side of the river, inbetween Margit Bridge and Moskva Ter (which IH is located). The block was very communist era and the flat was old fashioned, but was spacious, comfortable and most importantly clean. I also had the feeling that I wouldn't spend that much time there! Estelle and I had a wander along the Danube to look at the Parliament building. We stumbled across a sad monument of lines of shoes honouring the Jews who were murdered during the Second World War by tied together, shot and falling into the river.

Parliament Building

Memorial to the Jewish people murdered during World War 2.

We then had a stroll down Andrassy Ut. which is Budapest's grandest street down to Heroes Square and City Park. Andrassy Ut. is notable for two things, firstly it is home to the world's second oldest underground railway (the oldest, of course, being the London Underground) and secondly, it stood in for Buenos Aires in the film version of Evita!

In the evening, we went to a Korean restaurant which Estelle had stumbled upon and had excelled dolsot bibimbap! Then we had a few beers in the theatre district and stumbled back to the hotel. Estelle had to leave the next day and I had to go and unpack in my new flat!

Gran Canaria

About a week after I returned from Korea, I went on a week's holiday to Gran Canaria with mum for a bit of winter sun. We stayed in a lovely apartment in Playa del Aguilla on the outskirts of San Agustin. It was a very quiet resort, but it was a 15 minute walk into the centre of San Agustin or a short taxi journey.

We spent most of the week chilling out on the beach and eating out in the evenings. Towards the end of the week, we ventured into Playa del Ingles and discovered the simple joys of drinking margaritas in a beach bar!

View from our apartment

Not far from Playa del Aguilla was a place called Sioux City, a western style town nestled in the Canarian hills, which did actually look like the American west. It was a fun day with lots to look around and shows taking place throughout the day.

Sioux City

Always knew there was something suspicious about mum!