Thurs and Fri I signed up to do a two half day Pre Celta Language Awareness course before the main 4 wk Celta begins on Monday. This is a grammar crash course for those that have had no formal training.

Even though I speak English, have professional designations, and have had articles published, I have had no formal training in English grammar and sentence structure (as have most native speakers of English). Often foreign students have better grammar training than native English speakers.

I'm learning lots of new rules that I'm supposed to be teaching to students during the 4 wk course. Its all a bit confusing choosing if a word is present simple, present perfect, present continuous, past simple, past perfect, past continuous, past perfect continuous, present perfect continuous, future form progressive, future form perfect. Its all making my head hurt

The school is a 30 min walk from the hostel but this weekend I will move into the schools apartment for the duration of the course. Somebody is living there now for the August course and they will move out on the weekend and I will move in. The apartment will be about a 5 min walk from the school

The school is in a busy commercial area next to a metro station that is built under a tram terminal centre. There are lots of gypsies hanging around in the station area selling embroidery, underwear, flowers, or just loitering

Budapest has gone shopping mall mad and they have been building them everywhere. Across from the tram station are two separate shopping centres linked by a walkway. I found a German seafood restaurant Nordsee where I had a prawn egg wrap for breakfast on Thursday

Budapest has also gone Turkish kebab crazy. Walking around the perimeter of the tram station or the shopping centre there are about a dozen separate turkish kebab places but run by locals.

Behind the shopping centre is a multi level produce market. The lower levels sell fruit and vegetables that are very rich in colours. The upper floors sell meats, salamis, chooses, and spirits

There are also plenty of bakers. After three years in Korea where bread is not a staple I am enjoying the many types of multi grain breads available here. Near my hostel is another massive shopping centre. None of these were here when I last came in 2007