Practice Reading English Exercises for Beginner – Holidays

New Year down under

The Duncan family, from Edinburgh, went to Melbourne, Australia, for New Year. Read Michael Duncan’s diary …

Thursday 31 December

We went shopping in Chapel Street – it has lots of interesting shops, restaurants and cafés. The weather changes all the time here. It’s hot and sunny one minute and then it’s cold and rainy. We went to a big New Year’s Eve party in a park in the evening. The children loved the fireworks.

Friday 1 January

Australia is 11 hours ahead of Scotland. New Year arrived early this year! It’s also summer time here and it’s very different to have New Year in the sun. I like the snowy, cold weather in Scotland at New Year, but in Melbourne it was very hot today and it didn’t feel like New Year. Everyone went to the beach!

WE ASKED OUR READERS TO SEND IN THEIR TRAVEL STORIES. HERE ARE SOME OF THEM.

Billy, 35

Four years ago I went to London for a job interview. Trains are expensive in the UK, so I went by bus. The journey was about five hours. I didn’t have anything to read so I started talking to the woman in the seat next to me. Her name was Milly. We got married last year and now we have a baby boy!

Monica, 27

I was in the USA on business and I had some free time, so I flew to New York to visit my friend, Chris. I didn’t tell her because I wanted to surprise her. I arrived but Chris wasn’t at home. The man in the flat next door said she was on holiday! I got a taxi back to the airport but it started to snow and there were no flights, so I slept at the airport. It was awful!

Lee, 20

In the university holiday, my friend and I decided to drive to Budapest for a music concert. We didn’t have a map, but we didn’t think it was important. The journey was fun and we arrived late at night. In the morning, we looked around the city, but it didn’t look like the photos of Budapest on the Internet. After a few hours, we realised we were in Bucharest in Romania, not Budapest in Hungary!