Saturday, January 14, 2017

Take trips in and out the UK


This lesson in the online school engoo.com was managed by the teacher Dan, who is from England but he studied at the university in New Zealand. It was a great opportunity to ask about life in the UK and in New Zealand in comparison.

I asked Dan if he can confirm my opinion that the standard of living in the UK and in Europe is much higher than in New Zealand. For my surprising, he answered no, more likely is opposite fact. For proving this, Dan told about many emigrants from Scotland to Dunedin. Dunedin is the city in New Zealand which was named for the capital of Scotland, generally Anglicized as Edinburgh (with burgh being a literal translation of the Gaelic dun, meaning fort). New Zealand is more rural country.

Dan believes that Sough island is more interesting for tourists but if you come to New Zealand for a beach holiday, you'd better stay on the North island.

There is an anecdote (joke) about two ships with emigrants from Australia to New Zealand and from New Zealand to Australia. The ships move towards each other and in the place of the intersection of their ways people from each ship are looking at the emigrants from another ship as the oddities who made a wrong decision about the emigration.


The following question is where the higher standard of living and in which direction more emigrants are moving. Dan said that it is mostly in the direction to Australia especially to the Sydney.

My all time dream is to visit Australia sometimes. Because the price of air tickets from Europe is very high, I thought about fly instead of Sidney to Perth - the capital city of Western Australia. Dan commented that it is also interesting place but nature around is emptier, his opinion is that Sydney is the most interesting place for tourists.

I asked Dan about stereotypes regarding England and these are his answers:
Drinking tea at 5 o'clock: It is not suitable time between dinner and supper, he doesn't know people who follow this tradition.
Bacon and eggs as a typical English breakfast: It became less popular last years because concerns about health are rising.
It's raining cats and dogs: It is not just inventions of the authors of English study books, but this idiom is not used in modern English.

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