jueves, 27 de agosto de 2009

Travel Stories

Comprehension questions:
The Perfect Moment
by Lawrence J. Caldwell

1.- What was the main reason why Lawrence had to go to Weilburg, Germany and where did he stay?

2.- What was the place which captured his fancy? Why?

3.- What things did Lawrence enjoyed which then made him feel sorry for the waitress?

4.- Who approached to Lawrence and sat down at the table with him?

5.- What was "the perfect moment" for Lawrence?

jueves, 20 de agosto de 2009

Advantages and disadvantages - City

Living in the city could be very comfortable due the facilities that people have, but also is good to be aware of the consecuences of having a non-stop surrounding. But even so there are people that would never change their preferences of living in such a bustling place.

The main advantage of living in the city is the access to many things such as comunication, education, public transportation and a wide variety of entertainment. For example, people in the city are more connected to the world and related to different kind of cultures thus the environment becomes entertaining. Also everything is nearer than in the country side, so people from the city have many options to have fun, this means parks, pubs or discoteques, cinema, etc.

One of the main disadvantages is the pollution that affects our environment because of transportation, which also has negative aspects. Besides, some places of the city are very noisy as consequence of building constructions and nature territory is basically lost. But the worst thing is that people are every time more stressed as they have to lead with all these disadvantages.

In conclusion, there will be always negative aspects of living in the city but we are able to choose where we want to live or we can just get used to living there as many people are.

Shopaholic

Personally, I think that shopaholic people should think twice what they want to buy and how much money they can spend, because it is important to save some money in case something wrong happen, so they should learn to control themselves. Also it's important to pay our personal finances first before any attempt to buy something.

In my case, I'm not a shopaholic person because I always think that I can spend my money on something more important than what I'm looking at a specific moment, but the bad thing is that it's difficult for me to spend my money and I barely give myself a treat.

It's hard to give an advice to someone who suffers from shopaholic because we can't manage their money or being with them every time they go shopping, but apart from this, we can at least let them know the consecuences of spending too much money.

jueves, 13 de agosto de 2009

Letter of Complaint

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with the service that I have received from the Brighton Marina Coaches with its shopping trip in France that it was supposed to be exactly as your publication.

Firstly, the coach departed at 8.30 am and not at 7.30 as it was programmed, so we all had to wait for the driver who was late and even in a bad mood, therefore I personally think that he was such a disrespectful person. Apart from this, the hypermarket at Boulogne was too crowded and I could not queue up for the checkouts because we only spend 1 hour in Boulonge which means that I could not buy anything.

To make matters worse, the air-conditioning was not working and coffee was the only drink they had in the coach, so we had to stand the hot trip thinking that we were going to drink something at the restaurants, but when everybody thought that we could buy some cold drinks and eat some tasty food from Haute Ville we saw that restaurants were closed as well as the antique shops. Besides, after wasting the whole day for nothing, I got home at 11.30 pm when the coach was supposed to return at 9.00 pm.

As you can imagine, I am very disappointed with the service offered by the Brighton Marina Coaches, so I think it would be fair if you give me 50% of the money back to my personal account.

Yours faithfully

C. Arellano

miércoles, 12 de agosto de 2009

Phrasal verbs and collocations

1.- I was cleaning my room when I came across my old favourite necklace.
2.- In case you're free this weekend you can come round and stay.
3.- We were watching TV when your accident came up on the documentary.
4.- Your friend came up with a good idea so we could solve the mystery.
5.- Susan wasn't doing the exercises in the group work so we came to the conclusion that she didn't understand the instructions.
6.- After planning his great birthday party everything came to nothing when his little sister told him about the surprise.
7.- When she was only 16 years old her pregnancy came as a complete surprise to her family.
8.- It came as a terrible shock when the boy had disappear from his house.