Sopping shopping

(The word 'sopping' in the title means very, very wet)

Hi everyone!!

I had a really awful afternoon on Friday and, even though its Sunday now, I’m going to explain why. Fortunately I can laugh about it now but at the time it was far from funny.

I decided to go shopping with a friend to buy some spring/summer clothes at 1pm and we both planned to be home by 5pm because of our kids. I left home with an empty bag and a full purse hoping to get lots of bargains and as I got outside my apartment it started to drizzle. I was in two minds whether to go back home and get my umbrella but decided against it (thinking the drizzle would probably stop) and carried on walking to the taxi rank –no taxis there so I waited and waited. After 15 minutes I decided to walk to the main road to find a taxi and the drizzle turned into rain as I was on the move. Another 10 minutes later I finally found an empty cab and headed to the rendezvous point, an indoor clothes market. The taxi driver was pretty rude to me as rain drops from my bag and dripping off my now wet hair were falling on his seat covers! I thought it would only be a brief shower of rain...

We spent a couple of hours scouring the market for something to buy but amazingly, there was nothing either of us liked. How depressing! We were all psyched up ready to buy, buy, buy and there were no clothes or shoes we liked in the whole place. Finally admitting defeat, we went next door to a cafe for a hot chocolate and slice of cheesecake to compensate for the fact that our shopping expedition had been a flop.

It was 4.30 when we went outside and looked for a taxi to get home. Horrors! It was tipping down and all the taxis were full and the street was lined with people (like us) getting wetter and wetter and waiting for a taxi. We were the only fools without an umbrella though. To cut a very long and frustrating story short, it was impossible to find an vacant taxi and we had to walk home which took an hour and a half in the pouring rain. I was like a drowned rat when I got home and my clothes (even down to underwear) and boots were completely sodden. That’s my tale of woe over with so now onto some readers’ comments!!

Pary, when I first arrived in China only the extremely wealthy could afford to buy a car so the roads were full of taxis, buses, trucks and few private cars. Now most people who live in the city seem to have their own car and that is the reason why the city roads are so congested. On the Chinese news a couple of months ago, it stated that there are 5000 more new private cars on the road every month in Beijing alone.

Mercè how lucky you are to live so close to the sea, it must be heavenly to know that within twenty minutes you can see the sea and relax on the beach. I went to some beach resorts in Costa Dorada and Costa Brava when I visited Spain after Erasmus.

Vladimir in China people carry around an ID card when they are in the country and use passports when they travel abroad. People from the UK just use passports for overseas travel. I don’t know if any other country has the same policy as yours about having 2 travel documents and it must be a pain in the neck for you to have to worry about visa applications and the whole visa process.

August BR from Brazil, thanks for your comment and good luck with your English studies

Silwal Kishor if you are an Erasmus student you are not obliged to be able to speak the language of the country you choose to do the exchange in however it helps a lot if you can speak the lingo. I cannot speak Greek at all by the way.

Hi Nima Vazirian I’ve forgotten the exact thesis title but it was on Irish poetry mainly focusing on W.B Yeats (one of my favourite poets), Seamus Heaney and Patrick Kavanegh

Tanya, your wish is my command because here is a picture of the Hip-Hop Granny

Pedro from Brazil do you live anywhere near Yanko? Thanks for your comments!
Jeronimo14 your patience at posting three comments has now been rewarded because I got the last one and thanks for posting it!

Yanko here are a few language pointers about the uni blog you wrote:

‘system education’, you need to invert these words to make the phrase correct Yanko because it should read ‘education system’. I’m presuming you made this error due to interference from your first language-did you just translate from your language and use the same word order? You could have also written ‘the system of education’

‘Master Course’, we all understand what you mean by this but in English we usually say ‘Masters degree’

‘ingress’- you used this verb frequently in your blog about universities. Is this a direct translation from the word you use in your own language to describe students who enter university? The word usage isn’t correct and simply saying ‘go to university’ or ‘enter university’ is correct and adequate.

Let’s look at the following sentence that you wrote:

‘In 1981, the student wanted to ingress to Universities, have to do a written exam about all subjects learned in the fundamental e intermediate course.’

And compare with what I have corrected and re-written;
In 1981, students who wanted to go to university had to do a written exam on all subjects learned on the fundamental intermediate course.

The phrase ‘fundamental intermediate course’ sounds strange in English and I don’t know what it means but I couldn’t change the phrase as I don’t know what courses or learning period that you are talking about. I changed the sentences to be about ‘students’ instead of ‘the student’ as you are talking generally about all students not one particular one and then I made the verb agree with the subject. I changed the sentence to include a relative clause but using ‘who’. Do you know how to form relative clauses? Let me know today if you need help with some explanation as there is only 1 blogging day left!

Vocabulary

drizzle (n) very light rain

in two minds about something undecided

rendezvous point arranged meeting place

scour (v) hunting everywhere; looking very hard

psyched up ready for, totally prepared

to admit defeat to realise you have to give up

compensate to make up for

flop (n) failure

tipping down raining very heavily

like a drowned rat totally soaked and bedraggled looking

sodden (adj) wet through

tale of woe sad story

lingo (n) language

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