Fill in the missing preposition or adverb.

1. Watch... while crossing the street! 2. Excuse me, where do I change... Route 50? 3. Do you want to go... the school trip... France this year? 4. Passengers should arrive... the airport two hours... departure time. 5. The Queen of England is making a two-week tour... Australia. 6. What stop do I get...? 7. It took ages to pass... customs. 8. Our flight was delayed... 2 hours. 9. Put your passport... the suit-case. 10. The tourist group arrived two days... of time. 11. To travel... the Sahara desert would be the adventure you'll never forget. 12. She spent a year travelling, mostly... Africa and Asia,... leaving school. 13. She is touring Europe now and won't be back... next month. 14..... your holiday you can cruise... the Nile and see the famous sights. 15. Margaret is.... She is staying... her friends... Canada. 16. Most tourists are amazed … all the contrasts they see in India and Egypt.

(across; after; ahead; along; at; at; away; before; during; for; for; in; in; into; of; off; on; out; through; till; to; with).

 

Fill in the blanks with articles where necessary.

A: When you arrive in Russia, you'll first proceed to ¹... Passport Control. There, your passport and visa will be examined, and after stamping your visa, ²... officer will return them both to you. After retrieving your luggage from ³... luggage carousel, you will pass through ⁴…Customs. There are two lanes. If you have nothing to declare, you may proceed through ⁵... Green Channel. However, since you will probably have some foreign currency, you will have to pass through ⁶... Red Channel. Here, you will fill in your Customs declaration form. Please keep it with you until ⁷... departure. ⁸... hotel arrangements in Russia can be made through ⁹... numerous reputable travel organizations offering considerable discounts on ¹⁰... accommodation. All necessary information about Moscow and St. Petersburg hotels, their locations and services, room facilities, etc you can find in ¹¹... Internet.

B: Every year ¹²… millions of ¹³… people visit ¹⁴…. United States. ¹⁵… most of them are amazed at all ¹⁶… contrasts, especially in ¹⁷… big cities. For example, they see and hear ¹⁸… people walking fast, talking fast and eating fast. ¹⁹… visitors are fascinated by ²⁰… height of ²¹… city skyscrapers with their clean lines of ²²… glass and ²³… steel. But, looking down, they find ²⁴… streets that are dirty and cluttered, always undergoing some kind of ²⁵… reconstruction and ²⁶… repair. If ²⁷… visitors do not speak English, they have ²⁸… hard time making themselves understood. However, at ²⁹… same time, they hear more languages around them than they might hear anywhere else.

What impressions do these visitors take home? Maybe they say to their friends, ‘This time I visited only one city, next time I’ll visit ³⁰… rest of ³¹… USA!’

 

7. Translate into English using your active vocabulary.

1. Здорово! Мы отправляемся в путешествие! 2. Как вы доехали (долетели)? 3. Попрощавшись со всеми, она села в поезд. 4. Билеты студентам продаются с 30% скидкой. 5. Вы уже сдали (получили) багаж? 6. Завтра, рано утром, они улетают в Нью-Йорк. 7. Ваш рейс задерживается на 3 часа из-за плохой погоды. 8. Где наш выход на посадку? 9. В какое время (когда) мы прибываем в Лондон? 10. Вы скучаете по дому? – Да, очень сильно! 11. Мне нужно два билета до Москвы – туда и обратно. 12. Уже одиннадцать. Мы можем опоздать на рейс. – Не волнуйся, я заказал такси. 13. В Москве вам придется сделать пересадку и сесть на поезд до Петербурга. 14. Это будет прямой рейс? Да, уже через три часа вы будете в Лондоне. 15. До острова они добрались на пароме. 16. Вечером нам хотелось бы погулять по историческим местам города, а утром поплавать в океане. 17. Заказать тур в Индонезию вы можете в любом туристическом агентстве. 18. Мы были поражены красотой открывшегося перед нами вида. 19. Туристы были очарованы манерами и тем, как говорил по-русски их гид.

 

DIALOGUES

Practise the dialogues using the substitutes:

Planning a Holiday

A: Going away this weekend ( Tuesday,tomorrow)?

B: Yes, we’re going to Liverpool (the mountains, the island).

A: Who are you going with?

B: John (….). He has some friends (relatives) there we can stay with.

A: What are you going to do? Made any plans?

B: We want to see a museum and go up a couple of exhibitions (to climb the peak of the mountain, to go swimming in the lake). Whydon’t you come along?

A: I can’t.I have a maths (history, English) examination next Monday.

 

Booking a Flight

A: I'd like to book a flight to Tokyo (Moscow, Washington), please.

B: Which airline would you like to use?

A: Which is the cheapest?

B: When do you want to travel?

A: Next week, the 15^th (the day after tomorrow, in a fortnight).

B: Would you like a return (single) ticket?

A: Yes (No), I'm (not) coming back very soon.

B: Let me see... ABC costs $ 299, but you have to transfer at

Hong Kong (Vienna, Paris). XYZ is the cheapest direct flight at $ 349, both tourist class, of course.

 

At Passport Control

 

A: May I see your passport, please?

B: Here you are.

A: What is the purpose of your visit?

B: Business (tourism, exchange programme).

A: How long will you be staying?

B: Fifteen days (a week and a half; two months).

A: Thank you very much. Enjoy your stay.

 

 

On a Boat

A: The boat sails in fifteen (twenty,…) minutes.

B: Let's hurry up and find good seats. The boat is filling up very rapidly.

A: The weather turned out so beautiful (nasty). Where shall we sit?

B: If it gets cold (hot), we can go downstairs (upstairs).

A: The trip takes three (four,...) hours and we arrive at one o'clock.

B: At what time does the boat leave on return trip?

A: At half past four (five o'clock sharp,...).

B: Does the boat go back the same way?

A: Yes, it does. We should arrive back at about eight o'clock.

B: Yes, there goes the whistle. We are off on a pleasant trip!

 

At the Hotel

 

A: Good evening. Can I help you?

B: Have you got any rooms?

A: Yes. Single, double or twin?

B: Single (double, twin), please.

A: Would you like a room with a shower or a bath?

B: Just a shower (bath) will do.

A: Room 319. That'll be $ 12.50 (30) a night, including breakfast.

 

THE JOURNEY OF ESCAPE

(from ‘Destination Unknown’ by Agatha Christie)

(Abridged)

‘Flight 108 to Paris. Air France. This way, please.’

The persons in the lounge at Heathrow Airport rose to their feet. Hilary Craven picked up her small, lizard-skin travelling case and moved in the wake of the others, out on to the tarmac.

Hilary shivered and drew her furs a little closer round her. She followed the other passengers across to where the aircraft was waiting. She was escaping! Out of the greyness, the coldness, the dead numb misery. She would leave all this weight behind, this dead weight of misery and frustration. She went up the gangway of her plane, bending her head as she passed inside and was shown by the steward to her seat.

The plane taxied gently along the runway. The air hostess said,

‘Fasten your belts, please.’

The plane made a half-turn and stood waiting for the signal to depart. Hilary thought, ‘Perhaps, the plane will crash... Perhaps, it will never rise off the ground. Then that will be the end, that will be the solution of everything.’ They seemed to wait for ages on the airfield. Waiting for the signal to start off to freedom, Hilary thought, absurdly, ‘I shall never get away, never. I shall be kept here - a prisoner...’

A final roar of engines, then the plane started forward. Quicker, quicker, racing along. Up they went, circling round, the aerodrome looking like a ridiculous child’s toy beneath. A ridiculous childish world where people loved and hated and broke their hearts. None of it mattered because they were all so ridiculous and so pettily small and unimportant. Now there were clouds below them, a dense, greyish-white mass. They must be over the Channel now. Hilary leaned back, closing her eyes. Escape. Escape. She had left England, left Nigel...All left behind.

When Hilary awoke, the plane was coming down. ‘Paris,’ thought Hilary, as she sat up in her seat and reached for her handbag. But it was not Paris. The air hostess came down the car saying, ‘We’re landing you at Beauvais as the fog is very thick in Paris.’

Hilary peered down through the small space of window at her side. She could see little. Beauvais also appeared to be wreathed in fog. The plane was circling round slowly.

It was some time before it finally made its landing. Then the passengers were marshalled through cold, damp mist into a tough wooden building with a few chairs and a long wooden counter. A man near her murmured, ‘An old war aerodrome. No heating or comforts here. Still, fortunately being the French, they'll serve us out some drinks.’

True enough, almost immediately a man came along with some keys and presently passengers were being served with various forms of alcoholic refreshment. It helped to buoy the passengers up for the long and irritable wait.

Some hours passed before anything happened. Other planes appeared out of the fog and landed, also diverted from Paris. Soon the small room was crowded with cold, irritable people grumbling about the delay.

To Hilary it all had an unreal quality. It was as though she was still in a dream, mercifully protected from contact with reality. This was only a delay, only a matter of waiting. She was still on her journey - her journey of escape. She was still getting away from it all, still going towards that spot where her life would start again. Her mood held. Held through the long, fatiguing delay, held through the moments of chaos when it was announced, long after dark, that buses had come to convey the travellers to Paris.

There was then a wild confusion of coming and going, passengers, officials, porters all carrying baggage, hurrying and colliding in the darkness. In the end Hilary found herself, her feet and legs icy cold, in a bus slowly rumbling its way through the fog towards Paris.

It was a long weary drive taking four hours. It was midnight when they arrived at the Invalides and Hilary was thankful to collect her luggage and drive to the hotel where accommodation was reserved for her.

The plane to Casablanca was due to leave Orly Airport at ten-thirty the following morning, but when they arrived at Orly, everything was confusion. Planes had been grounded in many parts of Europe, arrivals had been delayed as well as departures.

In the end she was summoned and told that there was a place on a plane going to Dakar which normally did not touch down at Casablanca but would do so on this occasion. ‘You will arrive three hours later, that is all, Madame, on this later service.’

Hilary didn’t say a word and the official seemed surprised and positively delighted by her attitude.

‘...It is not I who made the fog! Naturally it has caused the disruptions....a little delay of an hour or two hours or three hours, what does it matter? How can it matter by what plane one arrives at Casablanca?’

Yet on that particular day it mattered more than the little Frenchman knew when he spoke those words. For when Hilary finally arrived and stepped out into the sunshine on to the tarmac, the porter who was moving beside her with his piled-up trolley of luggage observed,

‘You have the lucky chance, Madame, not to have been on the plane before this, the regular plane for Casablanca.’

Hilary asked, ‘Why, what happened?’

‘It crashed - landing.’

Hilary’s first reaction was a kind of blinding anger. Almost unprompted there leapt into her mind the thought, ‘Why wasn’t I in that plane? If I had been, it would have been all over now - I should be dead, out of it all. No more heartaches, no more misery. The people in that plane wanted to live. And I - I don't care. Why shouldn't it have been me?’

Notes

 

1. Heathrow Airport - one of the four international airports serving London (20 miles to the west of London).

2. Channel - the English Channel. In order to reach the main part of Europe, the British have always had to cross the Channel, and this makes them feel separate from the rest of Europe.

3. grumble about v - to keep complaining in an unhappy way. E.g. Some passengers are always grumbling about the weather.

4. convey v (formal) — to take or carry something from one place to another. E.g. Your luggage will be conveyed to the hotel by taxi.

5. Casablanca - the largest city in Morocco, on the Atlantic coast.

6. summon v - to order someone officially to come (to a meeting, etc). E.g. They were all summoned to a meeting with the principal.

 

 

Proper Names

Paris /'pxrIs/ Channel / 'tSxnl/

Heathrow / 'hi:TrqU/ Casablanca /"kxsq'blxNkq/

Hilary Craven / 'hIlqrI 'kreIvn/ Dakar /da:'ka:/