Away from Home - Planning a Trip

In the second lesson of the week we went a bit farther from our homes. We started exploring how we can prepare for a trip. We kicked off our learning adventure with the world of guide books. Generally what we do when we decide to go to a place we have never been before is try to get some information about the place in a guide book. So, we saw some famous guide books and samples of their descriptions of Thailand and San Francisco.

Right after that, we listened to conversations between tourists and travel agents getting information about destinations, tourist attractions, and what to do on trip (which you discovered is different from a journey, a drive, a ride, and a tour).

When planning a trip, we usually think about possible future situations and consequences of decisions or actions. So, it was time to revisit the first conditional and think about the consequences of taking a certain course of action not only when we travel, but in our lives in general once we are always making decisions, aren’t we? I love traveling, but I always say to myself “If I travel light, I won’t be dragging a huge bag in airports” or “If I buy the ticket earlier, I will get a discount.” Of course the weather is also present in our predictions and affects our traveling or weekend plans. We did explore consequences in many ways trough practice activities and a board game.

We wrapped up our adventure with an excerpt about a film called “The Beach.” This one telling a story of a trip that was not as good as the main character (played by Leonardo di Caprio) had expected. So we also learned that sometimes we should not believe in every information people give us about a given place. I guess the end reaffirms the value of guide books, travel agents, and above all the value of being informed about our destination.