Short visit to Alamo (now - in Virtual World, perhaps in the future - in real World)

http://thealamo.org

http://www.koinup.com/Anatoliy/work/467213/

Holiday in Aqua sol Sun Palace Hotel (island Rhodes, Greece)

Holiday in Aqua sol Sun Palace Hotel (island Rhodes, Greece)

A few months ago we discussed  writing travelogues and reviews in the class (small description, which could be help people to choose hotel for the holiday).

And now I have an opportunity to share this review with people as an exercise for improving writing skills before I post it to  the site tripadvisor.com.

We had a two week holiday in Aqua sol Sun Palace Hotel (island Rhodes, Greece) in August 2012. It is located in the village Faliraki where you can find a lot of tourist shops, cafes and restaurants, bars and clubs.

Most of the tourists there came from the UK.

The size of the hotel is not so big. We stayed in the room with two bedrooms and a  patio. It was in good working condition.

There is a big and comfortable hall and two restaurants, one of which has an a la carte menu.

The swimming pool is not deep and is rather small. Sometimes it was difficult to find free places near the swimming pool. There was an entertainment oriented mostly for English and German tourists. Two times a day you can play some games there such as as water-polo and volleyball. Sometimes it was difficult to swim due to the large number of people in the swimming pool.

The entertainment in the evening is rather simple. There is a mini disco for kids at 9.00 p.m., then Bingo and a show at 22.00.

The price for Wi-fi is 4 euro per hour.  The cost to rent a safe is 40 euro for two weeks.  

The usual menu for breakfast consists of flakes with milk and eggs with bacon, greek salad, tomatoes, yogurt, cookies, soft drinks, fruits (watermelons, pears, apples, bananas, grapes), tea and coffee. Four stars is a right mark for this hotel.

The sea is amazing! It is really nice and quiet, and the water is very clean and warm. During our holiday there were no waves in the sea at all.  The distance  from the hotel to the sea is near 300 meters. There is a sandy ground in the sea. All the beaches in Rhodes belong to municipalities and are free. Tourists get to the beaches from hotels on the buses or by foot.  

There are about 300 sunny days per year. Western and Eastern shores of the island are different from each other.  The sea on the Western side is suitable for windsurfing, and the Eastern side is better for a quiet rest

Tourists can visit the city Rhodes on the regular bus. It takes only 20 minutes to get there and costs 2.2 Euro for 1 person. We shouldn’t use abbreviation “Old town” for the medieval district of the city because other parts of Rhodes could be older. We should be aware that we are in the centre of the ancient World and our guides memorized it telling fabulous Greek’s myths.

Anatoly

Tour from Second to the First Life

14/04/2012

In this event everyone who came should describe place where they are live now according this plan:

1. Everybody write in the chat the place where they live.

2. We created Google Map with locations.

3. We loaded join.me account and share his desktop (Google Map) with everybody.

5. We moved to Hong Kong in place which could be casual or definite dot could be chosen by speaker.

Everybody received this notecard:

Tell us about your city and show it.

1. What is the place around us.

2. Have you been here?

3. Describe the city.

4. Describe the architecture of your city.

5. What are some historical places in your city?

6. What are some tourist attractions in your city?

7. What are the major problems in your city?

8. Where's the most popular area in your city?

9. What is the most important part of a city?

10. What part of this city do you like the best?

11 If we could move to this place in Real Life which direction should we choose. Show us your lovely places in the city.

Using Google Map and free service for sharing desktop we traveled from one place to another and listened wonderful stories from participators of this event. We could see below their “stories in pictures”

Four epochs of the photographs

We received this week the news that Kodak has filed for bankruptcy protection, marking the demise of the analogue era. This event is a good opportunity to remember the history of the photographs. We discussed this subject in the class of Dart Jarman which was dedicatedto current events. I prepared four photos for discussion, which would represent four epochs of photography.

Let’s look:

1.)

This photos were taken 100 years ago by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky and look as if they were taken yesterday. Between 1907 and 1915, Prokudin-Gorsky transported his photography-equipment in a special darkroom rail car. He printed the color photos by a method of his own invention.

2.)

The mid-20th century was an era of black-white photos for ordinary people and color photos for the professional photographers (look the famous photo of the Beatles). I remember this time. I made my photos using special equipment and chemicals in the darkroom. I stored my black-white photos in photo-albums. I couldn't imagine that doing color photos would be so easy thanks to Kodak’s technology.

3.)

This photo was taken in Copenhagen by me using a simple camera and was printed in a service-centre which used Kodak technology. We kept photos like this in albums. We admired the colors. It was only Kodak’s technology which allowed us to keep our memories in color. Thank, you, Kodak! But the times changed and today is epoch of digital photos.

4.)

This photo was made by my daughter on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean in Portugal. If it was made 50 years ago it would have been a model photo for a magazine or for exhibition. This process so simple today. We have thousands of photo files in our collection. We don’t print them.

It was great of course. But we can remember a wonderful company which gave us the ability to make our own COLOR photos.

Thank you Kodak, your photos stay in the our memories...

Anatoly

Fill up vocabulary with Fran McMinnar in Airport Woes

Fran knows how stressful it can be to travel during the holiday season. Has your flight been delayed? Has an airline ever lost your luggage?

It happened with me this summer and I shared my travel story with Fran. Yes, I really lost my luggage when I arrived to Sicily. In fact, everybody in the plane lost the luggage. And I remembered about this adventure in the class.

I was happy before I had lost my luggage. I had three pieces of luggage: two suitcases and briefcase.

We should know types of luggage:

Suitcase: a large rectangular case with a handle for carrying clothes and possessions while travelling.

Rolling suitcase: a suitcase with wheels and a handle to make it easier to move.

Rucksack: a large bag used to carry things on your back, used especially by walkers and climbers.

Holdall: a small case used for carrying clothes and personal things when travelling.

Briefcase: a rectangular case, used especially for carrying business documents.

Luggage Labels - to identify your luggage

Padlock - to lock you luggage

So. We descended from the plane and went through some aircraft to the airport.

We came to the baggage carousel and waited for our luggage. After one-hour waiting we understood that our luggage had been lost by staff of our air company.

We went to the “Lost and found department”. Our teacher asked us to describe our luggage.

The young lady (Oxana) who traveled that flight described her luggage: carrycot (or pram).

Our teacher recommended us to claim compensation because we had to buy some new clothes.

What are reasons could be if your flight delayed?

It delays due to the weather or technical problems.

Information about it we can see on the information desk.

What should we do in the check in area?

We can weigh there our luggage and receive the luggage tag.

What places can we choose when we ask for a boarding pass?

As usual three options: aisle, window, centre seats.

After we had left our luggage we walked to the security area.

The staff asked us to put our hand baggage into the trays for checking by x ray machine.

There are some things which are illegal for traffic like the guns, liquid, flammable or an aerosol

For private watching we should took our shoes and a metal belt off.

When this procedure was over we went up the escalator.

In the zone of duty-free we can buy lots of travel products such as an electric adapters.

We could choose travel adapters with two pin plugs or three pin plugs.

If we are in the big airport the best way to come to your gateway is to stay on the moving walkway.

And the last place for our class was the hall for air traffic control. Usually, we don’t have access for visiting this place in real life but we can visit this place in English city.

It might be a subject for the next lesson …

The Top 5 World political events of 2011

In the class “Talk about current events” which is managed by Dart Jarman every Saturday we discuss about the most important event.

I suggest this list:

“The Top 5 World political events of 2011 (according to Anatoly)”
1. Arab Spring
2. Greece debt crisis (euro-zone crisis)
3. War in Libya
4. Occupy Wall Street Movement
5. Kim Jong Il’s death in North Korea
AndreasF Ashland added:
6. End of the Iraq War
And we discuss the Top 9 political events of 2011 (according to American people from usnews.com)
1. Shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
2. Arab Spring
3. Killing of Osama bin Laden
4. Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
5. Occupy Wall Street
6. GOP presidential race
7. Greece debt crisis
8. Debt ceiling fight
9. End of the Iraq War

What would you add to this list?
What other events were important in the last year?