¡Hola de nuevo!
Hoy quería hacer un texto y listening en inglés.
Hace poco me fui a Estados Unidos y quería contar un poco sobre el viaje.
(Para aquellos que no me conocen, soy de EEUU pero llevo unos 20 años viviendo en España, entre Madrid y Barcelona.)
Este texto pronto estará en el podcast de Aprende Más Inglés, como listening.
Vamos allá…
My trip to the USA
I recently went to the US.
This is not something I do very often.
Since I moved to Spain in 2004, I’ve only been back to my home country a few times.
This time, my wife had a conference to attend in Las Vegas – something organized by her company. She also wanted to visit New York. Personally, I’m not very interested in Las Vegas or New York, but I went along anyway.
My wife had never been to the US before, so I felt like I should go with her, as a tour guide.
We also planned to visit my mom in Phoenix, Arizona, and I decided to visit my dad in Portland, Oregon (instead of going to Las Vegas). So off we went, leaving Barcelona and arriving in New York on the afternoon of October 1.
New York City
New York is very expensive. I had only been there once before, when I was about 22, and I don’t remember much. But I do remember the sensation of walking in crowds of people between the massive skyscrapers. And I remember how expensive it was.
This time, I enjoyed New York, more or less. At least I enjoyed the museums. We visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art – also known as the Met – which is a spectacular old building on the edge of Central Park. The Met has a few paintings by Van Gogh, and several by El Greco. Really, it’s got too much to see in one day.
My favorite thing at the Met was the massive painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware (which I’d seen copies of, but had no idea it was so big).
The other museum we went to was the Museum of Modern Art, also known as the MoMA. The MoMA has all sorts of interesting paintings: The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí was there. So was The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, and the massive mural painting Water Lilies by Claude Monet.
Other highlights included the New York public library, which has an exhibition of important documents, including a hand-written copy of the proposed Bill of Rights from 1789. The original had 12 articles, but only 10 were accepted, forming what Americans now call the Bill of Rights – the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.
I also enjoyed the pastrami and reuben sandwiches at Katz’ Deli. The food in New York wasn’t bad. We had a lot of pizza by the slice, and Thai food as well. But nothing beats pastrami.
Portland, Oregon
After a few days in New York, my wife flew off to Las Vegas, and I went to Portland.
Portland is in the Pacific Northwest, which is a place I haven’t spent much time. My dad lives downtown, next to the university, but I was staying in a hotel in Chinatown, which has a lot of homeless people.
Portland is a bit strange. Before I first came here, I had heard it was “just like Europe”. But since I live in Europe I’d say it’s not like Europe at all. But it does have some better architecture than some places in the US.
In Portland I hung out with my dad, and walked around drinking coffee. I enjoyed walking up 23rd Avenue, and the big trees in Washington Park, and Powell’s City of Books.
Portland is a pretty nice place, and a lot of people I knew back in high school moved up there at one point. I moved to Spain and haven’t lived in the US, so it’s a mystery what my life would be like in a place like this.
The weather was pretty good while I was there – it didn’t rain at all.
After a few days I’m off to Phoenix, my hometown.
Phoenix, Arizona
My wife enjoyed her business conference, but didn’t like Las Vegas much. I can understand that. I don’t like Las Vegas either. Coming in to Phoenix, her plane was several hours late, but she finally arrived late at night. We stayed with my mom, who lives in a nice area of what we call “downtown” Phoenix.
It’s not a downtown like most cities, because everybody lives in small houses (not flats or apartments) and you can’t really walk anywhere. The nearest coffeeshop or supermarket is two miles away.
My mom has a dog, and spends a lot of time weaving. She has two big looms at home, and she participates in local weaving organizations. She also grows fruit trees – there’s a big fig tree in her front yard, and peach and pecan trees out back.
My mom took us to some of the museums around Phoenix. The Heard Museum has one of the world’s best collections of Native American art. (The tribes living in Arizona include the Navajo, the Hopi, the Apache and others.) We also went to the Phoenix Art Museum, which has a temporary exhibition of Florentine Baroque paintings, as well as textiles from the north of India. And there’s a new Western Spirit museum out in Scottsdale that has art related to the “Wild West” period.
One day we went up to the desert, to the house where I grew up. When I tell people I grew up in the middle of the desert, nobody believes me. But it’s true. We lived on a dirt road with few neighbors, out in the desert to the north of Phoenix. It was, in my opinion, a pretty boring place to grow up.
In Phoenix, I enjoyed eating Mexican food. I ate a lot of chimichangas, sort of a fried burrito that’s typical in the Southwest US. And I enjoyed seeing my mom. But generally there’s not a lot to do in Phoenix.
Final thoughts on the USA
My wife is from South India, and she’s lived in Spain for about 10 years. Like I said, this was her first time in the US, and she said everyone was really nice. Like a lot of people, she commented on the abundance – there’s just so much stuff in the stores, and the sizes of the products are all huge.
So she enjoyed the experience. But we’re both happy with our lives in Barcelona.
I’m really happy, actually, that I don’t live in the desert. I’m sure it would be different as an adult, but I really didn’t enjoy being in the middle of nowhere like that. I like being in the city, for now.
When I got back to Spain, I also received some good news: my application for Spanish nationality was accepted, so now I’m officially Spanish. I have the passport and everything.
This is a pretty exciting development for me, because I’ve lived in Spain for so long.
¡Viva España!
(And God Bless America…)
Vocabulario del texto en inglés
Aquí un poco sobre el vocabulario del texto…
- go along = acompañar
- crowds of people = masas, multitudes
- skyscrapers = rascacielos
- paintings = cuadros
- highlights = cosas destacadas
- hand-written = escrito a mano
- pizza by the slice = pizza por trozos
- nothing beats… = no hay nada mejor (más sobre beats aquí)
- hang out = pasar el rato
- weave (weaving) = tejer
- loom = telar
- fig tree = higuera
- in the middle of nowhere = en medio de la nada
En fin. Para más, puedes consultar un diccionario.
¿Quieres aprender mucho más inglés?
Ok pues, ahí tienes el texto sobre mi reciente viaje a EEUU.
Tengo más textos aquí en la web. Por ejemplo, uno sobre la Acción de Gracias, un día festivo que celebramos cada noviembre. Y también una lectura que te dará más información sobre el estado de Arizona.
Que pases un muy buen día.
Buen aprendizaje,
Daniel.
P.D. Hoy en día tienes las ofertas de Black Friday ahí en la escuela online. Utiliza el código FRIDAY en cualquier curso para un descuento del 50% – o bien, compra más de uno. Todo aquí: aprendemasingles.com/cursos … ¡Gracias!