Home Random Page


CATEGORIES:

BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism






National park caves

Music Hall

The main popular entertain­ment in Britain in the second half of the 19th century, surviving in places into the mid-20th century. With its origins among tavern performers, music hall gradually expanded until large new theatres were required to cater for a vast audience. Performers such as Dan Leno, Vesta Tilley, George, Robey-s-Harry Lauder and Marie Lloyd toured the country as stars, with a national following. Safe from the mass exposure of radio and television, they needed only a small repertoire of endlessly repeated but much loved num­bers.

These old-time pleasures were brought to the television audience in successive series (from the 1950s) of The Good Old Days, a nostalgic programme of music hall broadcast from the City V the audience dressed in Victo­rian clothes. And on a small scale the traditions have been kept alive by places such as the Play­ers Theatre in London.

 

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (the USA)

In Arlington National Cemetery, a plain white marble sepulcher stands over the grave of the Unknown Soldier. The tomb is always guarded by a white-gloved army sen­try in dress uniform who marches 21 paces, faces the tomb for 21 seconds and resumes marching. The marble is inscribed: "Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God." The Unknown Soldier was chosen at random from four unidentified World War I dead in France and buried at Arlington on Armistice Day - November 11, 1921 - in tribute to the 116,708 Ameri­cans who died in the war. The marble tomb was com­pleted above the anonymous soldier's grave in 1932. Since then three more unknowns, representing casual­ties of World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars, have been placed in crypts in front of the tomb. The memorial is now called the Tomb of the Unknowns, a change that was inaugurated in 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Totem poles (the USA)

Northwest Coast Indians have long been renowned for their intri­cately carved and painted totem poles. Made from the trunks of cedar trees by master craftsmen, the imposing columns sometimes rose as high as 60 feet. Like European coats of arms, their presence in front of homes announced the importance of the family within. But even more than that, the stylized figures of animals and people represented spirits who had guided the family's ancestors.

Some totem poles were designed to hold the ashes of dead chiefs or other nobility, and others were "shame" poles, carved to embarrass people who broke their word. Early missionaries mistook the sculptures for pa­gan religious symbols and destroyed many of them. Fortunately, artists from the Haida tribe began to revive the art of totem-pole carving in the 1960s. In 1969 the first Haida totem pole carved in 90 years was raised, to joyous celebration.

Trolleys

In 1887 Richmond, Virginia, became the first U.S. city to install a practical electric network of trolleys, or streetcars. Soon hundreds of electric trolley systems were being built around the country.



Trolleys were different in design and "feel" in each city; riding them became a distinctive part of the urban experience. In New York for example, Brooklynites developed a reputation as "trolley dodgers," hence the name of their baseball team. Some trolley lines, equipped with dining cars and movie projectors, ran between cities, and by 1913 a traveler could take the trolley from Waterville, Maine, to Sheboygan, Wis­consin - a distance of more than 1,000 miles - with just a few short gaps in the route.

Cities began dismantling their trolley lines in the 1930s to make way for the increasing numbers of cars and buses. Some retired trolleys became houses, restaurants, or storage bins. San Francisco's cable cars, which are among America's oldest trolleys, survived and are now a cherished tourist attraction. In the '70s new light-rail technology made it possible for trolleys to return to several other American cities.

 

New York, New York! New York City Attractions

Let's face it, New York City has it all! - from historic land­marks and Broadway theaters to hundreds of museums. "The City" with so many attractions it is hard to know where to start. Here is my "Fancy Places in NY" chart that hopefully will be inter­esting to you.

Times Square. This is the first place of interest I saw in the Big Apple. Formerly, I thought, that this square is called "Times" because of the tradition to celebrate the changing to the New Year held here, so it seemed to be somehow connected with "time". But, as it turned out, when the "New York Times" newspa­per erected a new building on 43rd Street at the turn of the 20th century, the neighborhood took on the name "Times Square". A decade later, theaters and cabarets migrated to the streets nearby which attracted tourism. Now, Times Square is a flash of different bulbs, lights, neon ads - it is probably the brightest place in the whole world. Huhh... is that possibly why we call New York "the city that never sleeps"?

New York's famous Empire State Building, a New York City and a National Historic Landmark, I saw on the last day of my stay. It soars more than a quarter of a mile into the air above the heart of Manhattan. It rises over400 meters above the ground I and has 102 stories. Snow and rain can be seen falling up! I would say that this was extremely exciting. All in all, the feeling and spirit of New York City are embodied in the Empire State Building.

Oh…Rockefeller Center is a fascinating combination of contradictions: futuristic and classical, with soaring buildings and underground tunnels, inspired by both hard-headed commercialism and philanthropic idealism. Below street level, the Center's buildings are linked by a pedestrian shopping con­course. Shopping is arguably the prime reason lots of people visit New York. (By the way, I bought some nice accessories as well.) This is an oasis of order in the heart of the busiest city in the world, a city within a city, functionally efficient and aes­thetically elegant. Enjoy the symmetry and serenity of Promenades and Gardens or get a jolt of urban bustle on Fifth Avenue. It's a really wonderful place. Perhaps that's why in 1988, Rock Center was declared a national historic landmark.

Ground Zero- the place where the World Trade Center used to be. There is nothing to see only a huge area in the middle of other skyscrapers. As I was at home in Moscow on 11 Sep­tember, I watched with rising horror and confusion as the events of the day steadily unfolded. That both of these monumental sym­bols of capitalism and democracy were gone so quickly defies logic. Now, in this place, is the memory of these gargantuan build­ings and all the very unfortunate people who died here, simply going on with their everyday, frequently dull jobs. Standing in the middle of the plaza, staring up high into the skies, I craned my neck to view the summit that no one will ever again be able to see.

One thing you must do if in New York is towalk across the Brooklyn Bridge - a giant wooden suspension bridge joining Manhattan to Brooklyn with a large pedestrian section. Walk half­way along the bridge, and do not turn around at any point and face back toward Manhattan until the half way point has been reached. Take a deep breath, turn around, and the view is abso­lutely stunning as the entirety of Manhattan comes to life - the Financial District tower blocks are bathed in office lights, and this is a splendid sight not to be easily forgotten.

Other places I would like to mention are: the Wall Street Fi­nancial District, that in Soviet times we would call "the heart of the capitalistic world" and also, the fifth oldest institution of higher learning in United States - Columbia University. As a future college student, I was especially rapt by the Columbia traditions of studying.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, New York has been not only the imperialism capital, it was also (and still is) one of the world's centers of art. There is something for everyone in the Big Apple; from a real aircraft carrier museum, the Intrepid, to the smaller more intimate 19th Century Frick Collection, all the way up to the Grand Daddy of all New York muse­ums, the Metropolitan Museumof Art.

"My own Manhattan..."

I can not say that I saw all the places of interest in New York - my sessions in the UN took a lot of time. But I had a tremendous opportunity to see not only the "outside" city that is for tourists, but also to view the indigenous life of the metropolis, to become a part of it. Here are some of my travel notes.

Simply walking around you'll get the feel of New York in!' your veins. Don't keep looking up when strolling around Manhattan, or everyone will know you're a tourist. If you really," want to get to know the city, you should not spend all your time in a tour bus or with a map in your hands. Try to open your own Manhattan. For example, answering other tourists on how to get to Canal St., eating in "Taco Bell", trying different cream." cheeses with your morning bagels, etc. You can see the Statue of Liberty on postcards, but you'll never see the tablet "Strawberry Fields Forever" which is in Greenwich Village.

 

Final Thoughts

It is no secret that every city has a spirit of its own. New York is a mixed bag of surprises, a melting pot of people, and a strong cocktail of emotions. Just walk along Broadway, throwing back your head to see the top of skyscrapers and a little piece of the sky - it's more than enough to spice up your life! New York is an amazing maze of numerous avenues and streets, and the geometry of the city is as complex/imperfect and sophisticated as human life. Probably that's because this Big City attracts so many people from around the world. Just try to have a bad time in New York. Not possible!

It is a well-known stereotype in Russia that New York as other American cities, is actually less friendly then our Motherland towns. I am not sure. I can only speak for myself, and what I saw really prodded at my heart: whenever I was asking for directions in that so-much-complicated New York subway, whether it be people I knew or didn't know, I assuredly would receive about twenty explanations for how to reach the place I need.

The "Big Apple" City with its friendly, nice people, hip, hot and handsome guys, extremely gorgeous girls and so many heartfelt smiles impressed me the way nothing else could. Fascinated by the unpretentious warm atmosphere, humid climate and easygo­ing people, I returned to Moscow. Now I am imagining my ideal future life surrounded by people who do their best to succeed in every possible way and manage to stay energetic, friendly and smart at the same time. Exactly like New Yorkers.

 

The most beautiful month

 

October is one of the most beautiful months of the year in the USA. It usually brings the first frost of the year, with its exhilarating hint of win­ter to come. It is harvest time, and farmers must finish harvesting most crops during the month, including many varieties of that all-American fruit, the apple.

But the cold weather that turns the leaves to brilliant crimson, russet and gold has not yet come to stay. Still to come are those last warm days of hazy sunshine touched by the tang of autumn that we call «Indian summer».

October is also a big sports month.

With most educational institutions just recently opened (in Septem­ber), October is charged with the excitement not only of a new school year but also of a new football season.

All this is triggered off early in the month by the World Series, the culmination of the professional baseball season - a few days during which, for baseball fans and readers of newspapers, normal activities take a back seat while attention is focused on the outcome of the championship games. October is truly a good and exciting time in the USA.

 

Greenwich mean time

How did the name of a pleasant part of London situated by the Riv­er Thames become synonymous with international time keeping? The reasons go back into history. Thousands of years ago, people had no reason to divide their lives into hours and minutes. Their time was the movement of the sun, which created day and night, and the rhythm of the seasons. Gradually, a 24-hour cycle was introduced, based on the point when the sun was in the middle of the sky which became midday. But, because the earth rotates, midday in one town might be twenty minutes after midday in another town a hundred miles away. So each area of the world kept its own time. The obvious solution - a national standard time, so that every town could set their watches and clocks by it. The electric telegraph was the key to success, for a simultaneous signal could be sent along it to any part of the country. So, in 1852, the first signal went out from the astronomers of Britain's Royal Observa­tory which was then situated at Greenwich. From then on, Britain fol­lowed Greenwich Mean Time.

The word «Ìåàn» refers to something which is in the middle - an average. When the noonday sun at its highest point was directly over a particular place (the Meridian Line in Greenwich), the astronomers de­fined this as noon, Greenwich Time. This Greenwich Time was used for the whole country, so it became the «Ìåàn» by which time was calculated in Britain.

Britain managed quite well with Greenwich Mean Time, but the de­velopment of many different national times around the world meant that a country could still be out of step with its neighbours. So in 1912 an international conference decided that Greenwich Mean Time would be used throughout the world. In 1948 the Royal Observatory was moved away from the London air to a village in the South of England called Herstmonceux. Instead of changing the G in GMT to an H, the astronomers simply added 81 seconds to their calculations.

National park caves

Among the most interesting of US national parks are those that include big caves. These caves were cut from the rock by underground rivers thousands of years ago, and now the rivers have dried up or have »own much smaller.

It is interesting to learn how one cave is said to have been discovered.It had long been the home of millions of bats that flew forth each evening during the warm seasons of the year in search of food. From a distance they looked like smoke. It was this «smoke» that first led acowboy to approach and discover the entrance to the huge caverns below.

Many caverns are enormous - so enormous, in fact, that they have never been completely explored. Such a cavern is not just one hollowed-out place, but a succession of rooms, aisles, and passages. It is difficult to imagine a room a mile long, but one room in a cave in southern New Mexico is even longer than this.

The rooms are not all on the same level, nor do all of them have entrances large enough for people to go through comfortably. In the na­tional park caves, steps have been cut in the stone from one level to an­other. In one cave, where the lowest level is very deep, an elevator shaft has been constructed.

Visitors to US national caves today are taken on trips through the many great caverns by guides. As not the faintest glimmer of sunlight could find its way into these caverns far below the surface of the earth, the halls and passages have been well lighted by electricity in such a way as to make them as light as day. When the guide suddenly turns off the lights, the inky blackness never fails to startle the visitors.

 

 


Date: 2016-01-14; view: 951


<== previous page | next page ==>
Video activity – Past Simple | HURRY TO RESERVE COMFORTABLE SUITE AT THE LOWEST PRICE OF THE YEAR AND PLUNGE IN TE HOLIDAY FAIRY ATMOSPHERE
doclecture.net - lectures - 2014-2024 year. Copyright infringement or personal data (0.009 sec.)