Travelling

Holiday Travel
Slow dialog: 0:46
Explanations: 2:43 
Fast dialog: 14:48
It's hard to avoid traveling over the holidays but the experience I had last week really takes the cake. 

I flew back to Tucson, Arizona, to be with my wife's family, as we do every Christmas. I got to the airport an hour and a half before my flight, which I thought would be plenty of time. When I got there, though, Isaw that the security line was out the door. Because it was the holidays, people were traveling with a lot of extra packages. It took twice as long as it normally would to get to the front of the line. When I finally got to the gate, I found out that my flight had been oversold. The gate agent was looking for people to voluntarily give up their seats for a later flight in exchange for a $100travel voucher. If she didn't get enough volunteers, she would have to bump peoplefrom the flight. Luckily, several people took her up on the offer and the rest of us boarded. 

What a hassle! I love the holidays but I don't love holiday travel.

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Traveling by Train
Audio Index: 
Slow dialog: 1:12
Explanations: 3:07
Fast dialog: 12:40-------------------------------------------------
Katerina: Hey, Joel. Have you ever traveled by train? 

Joel: Only once, and that was a long time ago when I lived in Orlando. I’m not even sure where the train station is in this city. Why do you ask? 

Katerina: I need to go to San Francisco at the end of May for a friend’s wedding, and I’m thinking about taking a train instead of flying. Joel: That’s a long trip from Chicago, with a lot of stops. How many days does it take to get there? 

Katerina: I just printed out the timetable. Let me see...It looks like it’ll take about four- and- a-half days. I would depart, say, on Tuesday morning and arrive on Saturday afternoon. 

Joel: Can I see that? It looks like there are good on-board services, with a dining car and a lounge car oneach train. 

Katerina: Yeah, I like that. I don’t know if I should go coach or business class. I suppose that’ll depend on the fare. I’ve heard that thesleeping cars are pretty comfortable, too, so I’m glad about that. 

Joel: What day of the week do you have to leave? 

Katerina: Let me look at the days of operation. This service runs daily, so that’s convenient. I’m going to look onlineto see how much it’ll cost. It’ll be nice to take a train for a change. 

Joel: Let me know what you find out and what you decide. Maybe I’ll look into it for my trip to Washington in September. 

Reading a World Map 
Audio Index: 
Slow dialogue: 1:30
Explanations: 3:30 
Fast dialogue: 15:34 |

Greg: What are you doing with that map and that globe? 

Julianna: I’m trying to keep trackof Carmen as she travels from country to country. I just got another postcard from her today. 

Greg: I’m not sure I like the idea of my daughter traveling around the world with a group of people for three months. It’s not safe. 

Julianna: She can take care of herself. You know she’s the adventurous type. Give her a compass and she can find her way around anywhere. Help me find Nauru on thismap. I don’t even know what continent it’s on. I was never any good at geography. 

Greg: All right. You look above the equator and I’ll look below it, but couldn’t you just look it up on the Internet? It would be easy to find the latitude and longitude of this place. 

Julianna: This is more fun. I sort of feel like I’m on an adventure myself. 

Greg: I can’t make heads or tails of thismap. It’s not to scale and this legend is all wrong! 

Julianna: It doesn’t matter. We just need to find the place name, and then I can put a pin in this map showing where’s she’s been. 

Greg: I have a better idea. I’ll look it up on the Internet and get you all of the vital statistics you’d want, like its location, okay? 

Julianna: Forget it. Sometimes it’s more fun doing things the hard...