Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast,
number 16. Hello again and welcome to English
as a Second Language Podcast. My name is Dr.
Jeff McQuillan from the Center for Educational
Development in Los Angeles, California. If this
is your first time listening to the ESL podcast,
please go to our website at www .eslpod .com
to find out more information and to download
our previous podcasts. Before we get started
on today's podcast, I wanted to thank all of
you who have emailed your ideas and suggestions.
We encourage all of our listeners to email us
at eslpod at eslpod .com or go to our website
where you'll find our email address. We had several
people suggest that we put up the script or the
text for the first part of our podcasts. And
I am happy to say that beginning today we will
be putting up the text of the podcast on our
website. Go to our website and click on the link
that says scripts and you will find a list of
the podcasts that we have scripts for. posted
on the site. The most recent podcast, the current
podcast, will be on top. We do not have all of
the podcast scripts up on our website yet, but
we are working on it. So, thank you for your
patience and your suggestions. Now let's get
started with today's podcast. Today we are going
to talk about taking a trip and traveling. And
as usual, after our first section, a monologue
section, we will come back and talk about vocabulary.
Now let's get started. I think the best summer
vacation I've ever taken was when I went out
east a few years ago. Two of my friends and I
went on a two -week road trip. At the time, I
was living in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the Midwest
of the United States. Anyway, we started off
camping every night, but that got real old real
fast. So we started checking into hotels after
about the third day. We were headed for Washington,
D .C. first. Checking into the hotel was always
a bit of a hassle. I wanted to sleep in a double
bed. My friends wanted to get a king to share.
Lodging is more expensive at a hotel than in
a campground, but it is much, much more comfortable.
We went to the major tourist attractions in Washington,
D .C. The Capitol, Lincoln's Memorial, the White
House. We then headed north, passing through
Boston and headed towards Canada, to Quebec City.
When we arrived at the Canadian border, we had
to pass through customs and immigration. Customs
was easy. We had nothing to declare. Immigration
was more of a pain. We were asked the standard
questions. How long will you be staying in Canada?
What is the nature of your visit? Finally, we
were permitted to enter, and we drove on to our
destination. Quebec City is beautiful. Unlike
many cities, There are no tourist traps to sidetrack
you. We spent two days there, then drove on to
Montreal. Of course, we had to pass through customs
and immigration again when we re -entered the
United States. Our bags were searched in customs,
but other than that, we got through fairly easily.
A few days later, we were back in Minnesota.
Home sweet home. Our topic today was taking a
summer vacation. I talked about a vacation that
I took a few years ago. I said that I and my
friends went out east. In the United States,
to go out east... usually means to go to the
eastern coast of the United States. If you say,
I'm going out west, that is more general, referring
to any part of the western United States, from
the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. I
said that we went on a road trip. A road trip
is, as you might have guessed, a trip where you
drive somewhere. We sometimes use this term informally.
Let's take a road trip means let's drive somewhere
more or less on the spur of the moment. On the
spur of the moment means without a lot of planning.
I mentioned that camping got real old real fast.
That's an informal expression you hear. To get
old means to get tiresome, to be boring, to be
not very interesting anymore. For example, going
to the movies every Friday gets old means going
to the movies every Friday is boring if you do
it all the time. Talking to my friend Bob gets
old after a while, meaning it gets boring after
a while. The expression gets old real fast is
a pretty common one. We'll say, for example,
that gets old real fast, meaning very quickly.
I said that we were headed. for washington dc
i use that expression several times we were headed
or we headed to head somewhere means to go somewhere
to go in the direction of somewhere someone may
say to you where are you headed and you say i'm
headed to the dining room i'm hungry or i'm headed
to chicago to see my sister You can use it both
for long distances and for short distances. I
said that checking into the hotel was a bit of
a hassle. A hassle is when you have a problem
with something. So we say, for example, it's
a real hassle to go through immigration. Meaning,
it's a real bother. It always causes some problems.
Hassle is also a verb, meaning to cause someone
problems. Don't hassle me means don't cause me
any problems. The term double bed and king refer
to the type of bed that you sleep in. A king
size bed is the largest, one of the largest beds
you can get. It sleeps two people very comfortably.
A California king is even bigger than a regular
king. So technically the biggest bed you can
get in a hotel, in the United States anyway,
is a California king. A double bed is a smaller
bed. Two people can fit if they're very good
friends. comfortable sleeping close together.
I said that lodging was more expensive in a hotel
than in a campground. Lodging is a general term
we use to cover any place where you are sleeping
or staying overnight or in some temporary situation.
So typically lodging includes campgrounds It
includes a trailer park where you might have
a trailer where you sleep. It includes a hotel.
It includes a bed and breakfast. All of these
would be considered lodging. I said that we went
to Washington DC and saw the major tourist attractions.
A tourist attraction is anything that Someone
visiting that place would want to see a museum,
a memorial, a historical site. All of these are
tourist attractions. Here in Southern California,
in Los Angeles, people go to see Hollywood, the
Hollywood Boulevard, Disneyland, Santa Monica
Beach. All of these are tourist attractions.
I live about two miles from Santa Monica Beach
and there are always a lot of tourists there.
I said as we went through customs that it was
easy because we had nothing to declare. To declare
something when you go through customs means that
you have something you are bringing in that requires
usually that you get permission or that you pay
a tax. So if you are coming to the United States
and you are bringing $10 ,000 worth of jewelry,
you should visit me. Well, I'm kidding. If you're
bringing in a large amount of... merchandise
of something that is valuable you often have
to pay a tax on that when you go to another country
and that is called making a declaration when
you declare something you put down on your customs
form and tell the customs officer that's the
person working at the customs booth you tell
the customs officer you have something to declare
I said also that immigration was more of a pain.
This is an expression, a colloquial and informal
expression, meaning it's similar to hassle. To
say something is a pain means that it bothers
you, it causes you problems. It's actually an
expression, a polite expression. that comes from
the expression a pain in the neck or a pain in
the butt. These are terms that we use a lot.
Nowadays, more informally, we simply say it's
a pain. And people understand you mean it's a
pain in the neck. It's a problem. When we went
through immigration, I said we were asked the
standard questions. This expression, the standard
something, the standard questions, the standard
menu, the standard routine, means the normal,
the regular, what you would normally expect.
One of the standard questions you are asked at
immigration is how long will you be staying in
this country? You are also typically asked what
the nature of your visit is. The nature here
means the reason. Why are you here? Is it for
business or is it for pleasure, for relaxing?
The nature of something means also the most important
quality of something. We may say, for example,
The nature of jogging is that you get tired,
meaning an essential part of jogging is after
a while you get tired. I mentioned that there
were no tourist traps to sidetrack us in Quebec
City. A tourist trap is a type of tourist attraction
that is designed mostly to Take your money, but
not necessarily be very entertaining. A tourist
trap would be any place that someone goes that
isn't very enjoyable, but that costs a lot of
money. To sidetrack means literally to get off
the track. Track means the path, the road that
you're on. So to be sidetracked means to be pushed
off or directed away from where you were going.
To sidetrack someone means to get them talking
about or interested in a different topic than
the one they were interested in before. It's
usually used as something of a negative thing.
I don't want to get sidetracked. means I want
to focus on the most important thing and not
things that are less important. So sidetrack,
by definition, is always a negative thing. I
said that when we went through customs returning
to the United States, that our bags were searched.
To search, of course, means to look in. And that's
the expression we use particularly when you go
through customs or if you are stopped by the
police, they search your car or they can search
your bags, they can search your house. Finally,
I said that when we returned to Minnesota, I
used the expression, home sweet home. This is
a very old... but common expression in the United
States, referring to the place where you live,
your home, physical home, but also the home city,
your home state. Home sweet home is an expression
that you will sometimes see on little plaques,
little signs in someone's house. It's just a
nice expression that means, I'm glad to be home.
It's nice to be here. Sweet, home, sweet. We
normally think of sweet as like candy, but sweet
can also mean very nice. She's a sweet girl.
She's a sweet, or he's a sweet person, means
they're very nice. They're very polite. And that's
more the expression here. Home sweet home means
it's very nice to be here. That's going to do
it for today's ESL podcast. As usual, we encourage
you to email us your ideas and suggestions. Remember
that our scripts are now available online beginning
with this podcast, podcast number 16. We'll also
get the other scripts up as the week and the
month progresses. Thank you again for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast. ESL Podcast
is produced by the Center for Educational Development
in Los Angeles, California.