Welcome to English as a second language podcast, number sixteen.
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 us your ideas and suggestions. We encourage all of our listeners email us at “eslpod@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 of our podcast and I am happy to say that Beginning today, we will be putting up the text of our podcast on our web site. Go to our website and click on the link that says, “Scripts” and you 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’s 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 travelling and as usual, after our first section, (Our monolog 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 by camping every night, but that got real old, real fast. So, we started checking in to hotels after about the third day. We were headed for Washington, DC first. Checking in at 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’s 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 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 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 was beautiful! Unlike many cities, there were no tourist traps to sidetrack you. We spent two days there, then drove on to Montreal. Of course, we had to pass 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, Usually means to go to the eastern coast of united states. If you say, “I’m going out west.”, that is more general, referring to any part of 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 spur of the moment.
“On the spur of the moment” means, without allot of planning. I mentioned that, “Camping got real old, real fast.” That’s an informal expression you hear. To get old means to get tire some, to be boring, to be not interesting any more. For example, going to the movies every Friday gets old. Means, going to the movies every Friday gets boring if you do it all the time. Or talking to my friend bob gets old after a while. Meaning, it gets boring after a while. The expression “get 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, D.C.” I used 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 you headed?” and you’ve 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 in to the hotel was a bit of a hassle.” A hassle is when you have a problem of 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 type of bed that you sleep in. A king size bed is 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, if they’re very 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 in breakfast. All of these would be considered lodging. I said that, “We went to Washington, D.C and saw the major tourist attraction.” 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 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 allot 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 10000 dollars worth of jewelry, you should visit me! Well, i’m kidding. If you bring in in a large amount of merchandise of something that is valuable, you often have to pay a tax on that. When you go to the other country and that is called “making a declaration.” When you declare something, you put down on your Custom’s form and tell the customs officer -that’s the person working at the Customs boot- You tell the Custom’s officer you have something to declare.
I said also that, “Immigration was more of a pain.” This is a colloquial and informal expression, meaning it’s similar to hassle.
To say something is a pain, means that it’s bothers you, it’s causes you problems. It’s actually a polite expression that comes from the expression “a pain in the neck or a pain in the bott. These are terms that we use allot. Now A days, more informally we say simply, “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? or 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 is no tourist trap 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 cost allot of money. To sidetrack means literally to get off the track. Track means the path, the road that you run. 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, “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, the 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 Plax, little sign 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 black candy, but sweet can also mean very nice. She is a sweet girl. She is a sweet or he is 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 center for educational development in Los Angeles, California. This podcast is copy right 2005.