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Cheryl: So, Nick, let's talk about touching and holding hands and physical touch with your significant other. Do you and your partner hold hands when you go out in the street?

Nick: We hold hands all the time. Initially, we ... when we first went out, holding hands was the first thing we did, and then progressively moved on from there to kissing, but holding hands was certainly the first thing we did in our relationship.

Cheryl: Do you remember when you first tried to hold her hand, or did she try to hold your hand first?

Nick: I made the first move. We were sitting on the couch watching a movie, and I was getting a bit nervous, and I couldn't quite concentrate on the movie, so I moved my hand over to hers, and she reciprocated, and it moved on from there, so ...

Nick: You've lived in three different parts of the world, so is there any difference between each part in terms of physical contact?

Cheryl: Yeah, I have lived in Hong Kong, Guam, and the U.S. Hong Kong is in Asia. Guam is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and the U.S. is American culture. So in Hong Kong I think most people would not touch each other, just give each other a little bow. I find that a bow is very common in Asia. If you're very good friends, you wouldn't really hug. Hugging I think is a very American thing to do. I think you would just touch each other on the shoulder, or give each other a side embrace. A mini-hug.

In Guam, you would definitely greet your friends and family with a kiss on the cheek. A handshake is much too formal for island culture because Island culture is so relaxed and laid-back. You would only do a handshake with business partners or in a really formal setting, but usually a kiss on the cheek is what you receive and give when you see your family and friends.

In the U.S., hugging is most common I think for friends and family, but if you're not friends and family, a handshake would probably be the most common.

Todd: Okay Monica, we're going to debate winning and sports, especially for young people. So do you think that winning should be stressed with sports, with, let's say high school athletes?

Monica: Well, it depends on the situation and what they're training for, but generally I think that winning is overemphasized in sport. I think that participation is more important. Yeah.

Todd: Why would you say that?

Monica: Well, I think if you concentrate too much on winning, then the problem is, if you don't win, you don't enjoy the sport, so the emphasis is shifted from enjoyment to basically results, so I think it can be quite damaging.

Mike: Hey, MJ, I heard that herbal tea is good for your complexion?

MJ: Yes, I think so, cause recently I'm drinking lots of herbal tea, and then face getting more white and smooth I think. It really helps on your complexion. Mike, you should try sometime.

Mike: Actually, for me it's the opposite. My skin's pretty dry right now, especially since summer is coming, and so I've been using some kind of moisturizer but it doesn't really work that well so maybe I should take up the ... I should start drinking herbal tea.

MJ: Yeah, you should cause, a long time ago my face was kind of dry like you, but after drinking herbal tea, which my roommate recommended to me, and you really help your skin to be more bright and energetic. My skin no more dry. It's really good.

Todd: So CleAnn can you talk a little bit about your country?

CleAnn: Sure. My country is called officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. For short, Trinidad and Tobago. And even shorter, Trinidad. However, it is best to just say Trinidad and Tobago cause sometimes people from Tobago may get offended if you just say Trinidad. People from my country are usually just called Trinidadians, but if you are, again, trying to be inclusive of people from Tobago, we say Trinbagonians.

Todd: Trini-bagonians?

CleAnn: Trinbagonians.

Doron: So, we are both expats. We both left our home countries. Are you going to go back, do you think? And live in Jamaica?

Pernais: I will. I will, eventually. I think Jamaica is the only place that I could actually settle down in. It’s the only place that I would really consider home, because so much of who I am is dependent on my culture.

Doron: Your roots.

Pernais: Yes.

Nick: Is there any natural disasters which happen?

Cheryl: Yeah, there’s plenty of natural disasters. Guam is actually right on the coast of a reef formation called the Mariana’s trench and underneath, in this trench is the lowest part of the world, the deepest part of the world.

Nick: Wow!

Cheryl: Yeah, so we joke about it. We joke that Guam’s highest mountain, Mt. Lan Lan is actually the highest mountain in the world if you count off from its base which is in the Marianas trench, the lowest part of the world.

Yuri: So, Shirley, we were talking about politics. How is the situation in your country?

Shirley: Well, you know I'm pretty much an on-the-fence kind of person and politics is not my forte. It's not something I like to get into a conversation about, so I'll just change the subject if that's alright. I'd like to tell you a bit about the United Kingdom. You know, I'm from Scotland and, you know, where is Scotland. I get this question so often. Is that in Norway? Is it a region of England?

So just to clarify, it's a bit complicated, but in the United Kingdom - the U.K - we have Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and then people know Great Britain.

Yuri: Yes, so I do.

Nick: What's your ideal date situation?

Cheryl: What's my ideal date?

Nick: Well, I think I would want the guy first of all to make a plan for everything. He should plan the date, and not rely on me to make the suggestions because I think it's very nice and attractive when a guy makes the first move and makes the plans.

Secondly, I would probably want him to drive me around to the places, or would could go on public transportation together, as long as he has a plan it's OK.

Edwin: Hey Buddhi, how ya going?

Buddhi: I'm good Edwin, how are you?

Edwin: I'm not too bad. Did you do anything last weekend?

Buddhi: Yes, I did. I went out with a bunch of friends after a very long time. And, yeah, I had a nice time.

Todd: When I was in Thailand I had experiences with bribery, and we don't really have it with government officials in the U.S., but I have to admit I thought it was really convenient, because let's say you are driving and you get a speeding ticket, or you do something wrong, in Thailand you would just pay ten dollars, twenty dollars and the whole incident was forgot. In my culture were brought up to think that that's really bad but I have to admit, I liked the fact that you would pay a little money, and then it was not on your record, because in the United States if you get a speeding ticket, or you do anything wrong then it's on your record, and it's permanent and that can affect your insurance payment and things like that, so it was this really weird feeling where I felt odd doing it, and I felt awkward doing it because it wasn't part of our culture, but at the same time I thought it was almost convenient. Have you ever had experiences like that?

Aiman: Well, I have two different experiences. Because in Syria it is pretty different to Dubai, so in Syria for example, you'd have to bribe the police officers even if you didn't do anything because that's how they live. But in Dubai they get really nice wages and they don't need your bribe. For example, once I was eating dates while I was driving. I was speaking on my phone, my mobile phone, and I was not wearing my seat belt, and I was not paying attention, and then the policeman asked me to pull over, and when I did, I didn't even know what was the problem, so when he came to me and said to me, "Can I have the car registration and license?" I said, "Yeah, sure. Please take one date, or a date, while I look for them." And he said, "No, sorry, I can't." And I was so upset with that. I said, "What do you mean you can't? Are you better than me? Is that what you're trying to say?" And he said, "No, It's illegal. I can't. You know what, just go. I don't need anything from you. Please go."

Todd: So the policeman in Dubai was very straight and honest. He can't except anything from a driver, and so he turned you down.

Aiman: Exactly. Because he turned me down, it is really bad in the Arab culture. He decided to just let me go. Please just go.

Todd: So, Aiman, we're talking about bribery. Now you've worked in a very modern country like Dubai in the business setting, so even in large business settings, do you have some type of bribery. Is that still like part of the culture? The System?

Aiman: Yes, of course. A business deal would never go through without a bribe. And it's not the Arab culture alone because even Westerners that work in Dubai have to bribe and they take bribes, even Indians, Asians, anyone who works in Dubai has to do it. It's the countries culture, and it is a known fact now.

Todd: Right, so you're saying if a Western country is in Dubai, and they want to succeed, they follow the customs, so they also are part of the system where they would bribe … one country would bribe another country if they want something done?

Aiman: Yes, of course.

Yuri: So, Todd, what about the situation with immigration in the United States? Is it similar to Italy or different?

Todd: Actually, from what you're saying it sounds really similar. The U.S. has a lot of immigration, and it's very controversial now in America, probably because the economy is going bad but we get a lot of people from Latin America or Central America and they either cross the border through Mexico, the Mexican border, or they come by boat similar to Italy. So yeah, it's kind of a big problem.

Yuri: I have a question, please. I understand that a lot of the population, they are actually from South America or Central America. Do people now start to teach Spanish at schools?

Todd: Actually, the language is very controversial. We are taught Spanish actually, but they do a very bad job. Most people can't speak Spanish. But most of the immigrants actually, I think that come to the U.S., do a really good job of learning English. The first generation struggles, but always the second generation, their children, become bilingual rather quickly, so even though we try to learn Spanish, I think the fact is in reality people that come to America, just learn English really quickly.

Matt: So, Rachel, where are you from?

Rachel: I'm from Scotland.

Matt: Okay, Okay. Scotland like, what's the biggest city in Scotland would you say?

Rachel: The capitol city is Edinburgh but the biggest city, size-wise and population-wise is Glasgow.

Matt: Hey, Rachel, so do you read the newspaper these days?

Rachel: Actually, no. I used to get a newspaper delivered and I didn't read it at all, so I cancelled it cause I was worried about wasting trees, and wasting paper and therefore trees.

Matt: Right, right. Yeah, me neither. I don't get any of my news from Newspapers themselves.

Rachel: So how do you find out what's going on?

Matt: Taking one step back to the newspapers, my impression was that newspapers got all their money from the advertisements, and that people buying newspapers basically paid for the paper, like the actual printing and maybe the delivery. That the actual cost, that any money they make was through advertisements so I don't see how that's any different than if they just had it online where they would get rid of all those costs of delivery and the paper and the printing and then just still have the same advertisement so I don't understand why they can't make that transition more smoothly.

Rachel: And actually I heard that they get more money from online advertising than from the print advertising so, yeah, I don't know really know why it matters come to think of it.

Matt: I'm sure that the newspaper will go the way of the Dodo fairly soon.

Rachel: Yeah, yeah.

Ray: Well so Shirley, tell me about your career as a Customs inspector.

Shirley: Yes, many years ago in a previous lifetime, I worked as a Customs Officer in Australia. And, I don’t know if you know but that means … basically taking control or monitoring our borders and checking what comes in and out of the country.

Ray: Well that sounds pretty interesting.

Shirley: Yeah, it had its moments.

Ray: I remember watching a television documentary in the United States a few years ago that at one point they brought up the subject of these toads that live in Australia that supposedly have some substance that is for humans a hallucinogenic, does that ring any bells with you?

Shirley: Well, I don’t know about those ones specifically but I know that in Australia for example we have a huge Cane Toad problem. Cane toads are very big toads they are about the size of a small cantelope probably, and someone brought them in at the turn of the 20th century and they got loose in northern Australia and now there’s thousands and thousands and thousands of hectares covered with Cane toads and every year it costs the government a huge amount of money trying to control them and they’ve become a pest. And that’s one of the reasons why we have such strict quarantine regulations.

Ray: That makes sense. Of course, I guess we all know about the rabbits.

Shirley: Yes, rabbits were first brought into Australia from Britain, and probably just as someone’s pet and one got out …

Todd: So one very popular conspiracy theory is the moon hoax.

Jonathan: Yes, that's always a very funny one to hear people talk about. They saw this one program on Fox which had five or six points which look so impressive, you know, when you've got the guy from Star Trek presenting them, and then now they believe it to be complete truth. Something like thirty percent of Americans now believe that the United States never went to the moon.

Todd: So let's go through these points. And you can refute them. What are some common points that are brought up?

Jonathan: People talk about the flag. That the flag is waving on the surface, and they say, "Well, there's no atmosphere on the moon. The flag wouldn't be waving." But of course the reality is if you see the entire footage, the astronaut takes some time to plant the flag on the surface. His hand is moving about, so of course the flag, which is connected to the pole, naturally moves about. When the astronaut steps away from the flag, you'll see that it hangs completely limp in space.

Todd: Jonathan we are talking about conspiracy theories. What about the one where the sound? That when the rocket lands, they have actually audio of the rocket landing and you can't hear the rocket engine, and the rocket engine should be making a really loud noise?

Jonathan: I don't remember if I've heard that one before. I would think that perhaps though the engine might be situated in such a location that the noise is being dispersed out into open space.

Todd: So you're saying that because in space there's no pressure. There's nothing for the sounds to bounce off of so it would just be silent.

Jonathan: I mean, people have grown up watching movies like Star Wars and they think that when spaceships go through outer space that they go "vooooom" as they travel. The reality is that there is no sound in space. You know, there are no lasers that go "tchoo tchoo tchoo" as they go from one ship to another. It makes great entertainment. It doesn't make great science.

Todd: So, Layla, we're talking about being an au pair. What is the daily routine of an au pair? Like, what do you do everyday?

Layla: So, every day I wake in the morning at seven and I take care of the kids, and get them dressed. I drop them at school. After that I go to my class. I take a class, and English class, and then I pick them at 12:30 at school. And he come back at home, the kid, and he take his nap. After that we go to the park by car, go to the library or until the parents come back from their work.

Todd: That's a pretty full-day. So what's the best thing about being an au pair?

Layla: The best think for me I think is to meet new people and new culture, new lifestyle, and I think for me it's a very good experience.

Todd: So Jeff, have you had all the different types of facial hair? We have beard, sideburns, goatee, mustache, soul patch.

Jeff: Handlebar.

Todd: Handlebar.

Jeff: Nice big chops, sideburns. Oh, yeah, I've had the Abe Lincoln style where you got the beard that just goes around from your ears around your chin, and back up to the other ear, Abe Lincoln, the soul patch, the mustache, the handlebar, the sideburns, the full-on lumberjack beard. Yeah, facial hair is really good. I like it, so.

Cheryl: So Nick, I've never actually been to Australia. Can you tell me about any famous people that live there?

Nick: Well, one famous person, his name is Ian Thorpe.

Cheryl: Ian Thorpe.

Nick: Ian Thorpe. He's a very famous swimmer. He won so many Gold Medals.

Nick: Obviously from Seattle, there's many famous people.

Cheryl: Ah, yes, from Seattle. We have Jimmy Hendrix.

Nick: Jimmy Hendrix. Wow! I love Jimmy Hendrix.

Cheryl: Yeah, he is a very famous musician, and we have his statues on the street in Seattle and he's quite the star in Seattle. But he's no longer around unfortunately.

Todd: So, Steven, you're from Costa Rica. Now, I look on the internet sometimes for really cool adventures, and Costa Rica's always up there for these wild things you can do, like Kayaking, surfing, windsurfing, nature hikes, volcano hikes and stuff. Have you done any of these things in your country?

Steven: If you haven't done all these activities in Costa Rica, you pretty much are not in Costa Rica. And Costa Rica is mostly composed of these activities. You can surf in both seas, because we have both seas. We also kayak. Kayak you can go through the forest in Costa Rica. You can go inside, look at the roots of Costa Rica and also rock climbing. Rock climbing ... we got tons of mountains, everywhere. You can see them everywhere and if you see a mountain, you can climb it.

Todd: So of all these activities, sounds like you've done them all, which is your favorite?

Steven: My favorite I think is kayaking because you just goto the inside of the forest. You go inside. You can see animals moving around. You can see the sea where fishes are just swimming through you. And of course if you are a nature lover as me, I would recommend kayaking.

Diego: So, Silvia, I hear you have thirty handbags and thirty-five pairs of shoes.

Silvia: Yeah, I know. Actually, it's a little bit of a sad story if I tell you why I have a lot of bags and shoes.

Diego: It's OK, we have time.

Silvia: Actually, I love to shop. I don't know what girl doesn't love to shop, and I love shopping and so basically how I ended up with all these shoes is because I broke up and I was sad and it was like therapy for me to go shopping.

Silvia: So Diego, you've asked me about shopping, but what about you?

Diego: I think that now I have to pay for everything myself I'm a much more conservative shopper so I only buy strictly what I need.

Silvia: And that's all.

Diego: I think so, yes.

Todd: Well, what about Area 51?

Jonathan: Area 51 i something people always talk about. I'm not really sure what to believe but I essentially think that something's that's a secret that large could never be covered up for such a long period of time. There has never been solid evidence that anything happened there, and I really doubt that there was anything. Probably the United States military was testing something secret that they wanted to keep a secret and a lot of things that people report as UFOs

Todd: Yeah, I agree. i think that's my, you know, my explanation for it, although I think personally, I do believe that there must be life out there, I just don't know if it's in the way we see aliens. What do you think?

Jonathan: I certainly believe that there must be something out there. I mean billions of other galaxies, countless billions of other starts. I think it's a little bit arrogant to somehow believe that we are so special, that we're the only life. I mean, just recently, they found that there is in fact water on our moon, which suggest that water can exist in other places and if that is the basis of life perhaps we may find out in the future that life is no so special as we believe even if it happens in one in one thousand galaxies, that would mean there are millions of other creatures out there, although because of the distances we may never get to know.

Todd: So, have you had any other jobs you didn't like?

Monica: Well, I trained to be a chef when I left school, and I've had a lot of jobs actually over the years in different restaurants, and some of them I didn't like at all.

Todd: What was it about the job you didn't like?

Monica: I didn't like the people I was working with a lot of the time, so I worked with some very aggressive chefs, and some people who weren't very good at communicating their ideas to me, I felt, and so I found some jobs difficult.

Rachel: So Steven, we've been talking about Costa Rica and how beautiful nature is there and how important it is to preserve it. What do you do in your life to save the environment or to protect the environment?

Steven: It's almost daily that I think about this question that you just asked me. For example in my university I made this project for promoting Earth Hour which is just turning off the lights for one hour and enjoy a concert or some activity that doesn't require electricity. This Earth Hour is actually produced or created in Australia but we just trying to promote eco-systems, eco-friendly programs to the world.

Rachel: That sounds great, so how many people attended the event?

Steven: More than two hundred people from the university came in and watch and enjoyed and actually all of them stayed and we also attracted faculty people which we never thought they would ever come and it's impressive that all these people actually wanted to make a change to the world.

Todd: Now, Shirley you are a wedding singer, so you actually go to people's weddings and you sing, correct?

Shirley: Yeah, that's right?

Todd: What's it like being a wedding singer?

Shirley: Well, it's an opportunity for me to get dressed up and to get to see lots of other people dress beautifully too. And I think it's an honor to be able to be at an event where someone's having a very special day, so for the bride and groom it's a memorable event and we try to add to that experience. To give them something to add to their memory of that day.

Rebecca: So, Gareth, what's your daily routine like?

Gareth: My routine is actually a little irregular. I have a different working schedule for each day of the week, but on a weekend my son usually wakes me up about half-eight, nine o'clock, and after that we go downstairs, and I get him some cereal, like he likes at the moment chocolate rice Krispies and he has a bowl of them and we watch Toy Story. He loves Buzz and Woody.

Rebecca: Every weekend the same movie?
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Todd: Hey Rachel, I heard that actually in Scotland if you don't have a job, that the government actually gives you money, like you don't have to work and you still get some money to live.

Rachel: Yeah, that's right. It's called unemployment benefits, or more casually it's just called the dole -- being on the dole. And you're only ... I think you're only entitled to it if you've actually been paying taxes for awhile and then you go on to something, a different kind of social welfare, but yeah.

Todd: So, if somebody's on the dole -- if somebody loses their job -- and then the government gives them money, how long can they be on the dole? Can they be on it indefinitely? Forever?

Rachel: I'm actually not sure. I was on the dole myself for a couple of weeks after I finished university. I know people complain about certain people in the country just never looking for work and being on the dole for years and years, but I don't think there's a lot of truth in that because when you're on the dole, you have to go to the employment office regularly for interviews and you have to show that you're looking for work, so I think maybe more of a problem is people on disability benefits. The government wants to reduce the number of people claiming disability because you can stay on that for years.

Rachel: So what about America? If you lose your job what happens?

Todd: Well, we have what you have. It's not called the dole though, it's called welfare, and basically what happens is if you lose your job, you can get money from the government, but it's really short-term. I think it's only six months or a year, but the biggest difference I think between Europe and America is the word. We call it welfare. And welfare is really negative. If you tell somebody that you're on welfare, or even on unemployment, then people really look at you negatively.

Well, actually let me clarify. There's two: There's welfare which is kind of more long-term like if you have children, and then there's unemployment which is money you get from the government if you don't have a job. If you're on unemployment, it's not as bad but people still kind of look at you like you're a loser. That you should go out and find a job., and if you're on welfare, it has a really negative connotation. People look at you like you're just lazy basically.

Rachel: Is that true if you're in a community where, like, the majority of people are on welfare? Are there any places like that in America?

Danny: So, we've been talking a lot about food. Do you have a favorite restaurant?

Alex:Yeah, I do. I haven't been there for years, but it's still my favorite. It's called The Little Snail

Danny: The Little Snail.

Alex: And it's a French restaurant, and it's in this small coastal fishing village down the coast. It's kind of funny because it's a great restaurant and you kind of expect it to be in a big city. It has really good French food, but it's in the middle of nowhere.

Silvia: Hi, my name is Silvia. I'm from Guatemala.

Diego: And I'm Diego and I'm from Mexico. And today we're going to talk about ruins in our countries.

Silvia: Actually, Guatemala is quite famous for it's Mayan ruins. We have a lot of them all over the country but especially up in the north near Mexico, and the most famous one is Tikal.

Diego: Oh, wow, have you been there?

Todd: So, Jonathan, I though we would talk a bit about your travels and this new thing called couch surfing. Can you explain what couch surfing is?

Jonathan: Couch surfing is a fairly new website, and what it does is it allows travelers from different parts of the world to meet people in the destinations they're going to. People offer a couch in their home or perhaps space on their floor, and in return you're expected in your own hometown to offer the same kind of things to people who might visit you.

Todd: So basically, people sign up, and if they find somebody that has, you know, a couch in some city, they can go and stay with that person for free?

Jonathan: Yes, it is for free, but people aren't expected to abuse it. It's not for people who are cheap and want to save money. It is for people who are like-minded and want to perhaps share their experiences and meet someone from the local culture. You're not going to have a good experience if you show up and just and expect to freeload.

Shiloh: So Adria I hear you're a Democrat, is that right?

Adria: Yeah, I'm a registered Democrat, what about yourself?

Shiloh: I'm actually a registered Republican, so we're opposites like that. I've got a question for you. I'm from New Mexico which is a very conservative state like a lot of the western US and I grew up around firearms and guns, what do you think about that? What do other Democrats think about gun control laws?

Adria: Well, I'm from Kentucky and we tend to be something called Blue Dog Democrats where you support some conservative ideology such as gun control and being very pro-gun but personally I don't like handguns and many other types of guns also and I have strong convictions about keeping guns under control personally.

Matthew: I heard that you work at an renewable energy company. Can you tell me what kind of company it is?

Kat: My company is a wind energy company but there's a lot of other options.

Matthew: What are the other options and what are the pros and cons of each option?

Kat: Well let's start off with wind. Wind energy is great. It doesn't take away a lot of space. You can have one wind turbine in a very small area but on the other hand you really need some strong wind to have a good output. Then you have solar energy. Solar energy is great but you also need a very good location and solar exposure is normally just a couple of hours a day so you need a very big solar panel so it takes away a lot of space. Then we have the option of geothermal energy which is great but once again depends on where you live. Very few areas have what it takes to have a productive geothermal system and it's very expensive. There's a lot of drilling involved. Then another option is bio-energy which is where you actually take animal waste and use that to make energy. I think it's one of the better ones but once again the set up is highly expensive. Then a last option would be hydro-energy. Hydro-energy I think is best in very large set ups, government-run or run by large electricity companies. It's very expensive to set up but once it's set up, it's a very, very productive way of making energy.

Matthew: Hey Kat, you were just telling me about all the pros and cons of different renewable energies and you just got me thinking we're going to run outof oil in the next couple of decades. There's reports that say we're going to run out of oil in the next twenty years, but I'm guessing that in fifty years or a hundred years we really will run out and we'll need some sort of other energy source. What do you think's going to happen?

Kat: I think it's going to be a combination of all the renewable energy sources we have right now, but there's a lot of development going on especially into solar energy. Solar panels are becoming more and more efficient. There's now solar panels that are flexible and you can actually bend them around objects and the newest ones are actually made by biodegradable materials and they start to be see-through so you can actually apply solar energy harvesting tools to windows and I think that might be the future of renewable energy.

Matthew: What about as far as cost performance goes and sustainability?

Kat: Well when it comes to sustainability, I think these new forms of solar panels that are made of biodegradable material, I think they are definitely going to be the future.

Warren: So Lindsay, we're both teachers and sometimes our students go off to camp over the summer break. Did you ever go to camp when you were younger?

Lindsay: I did go to camp. The camp I went to was called Pilgrim Pines.

Warren: What was that like?

Lindsay: It was great. It was one week away from my family and each person got to take care of an animal. Some people took care of horses, some people took care of sheep but I got the lucky task of taking care of Xanadoo the llama.

Todd: Most countries' lawyers have to pass a certain exam. To be a lawyer in this court system do you have to pass some special exam?

Katia: Actually, well first you have to be a lawyer from a particular country. Then after that you study human rights in an international context. For international law you do not have an exam as long as you are already a lawyer in your own country and have passed your national tests. After that you can become an international lawyer.

Todd: So when cases are brought to this international court, is it a jury, is it just one judge, is it a group of judges?

Katia: It's a group of judges. There are, I believe, seven judges from different countries of America.

Paul: So Todd, we're talking about football and recently there was the World Cup bidding process that occurred and the English campaign lost to the Russians and the American campaign lost to Qatar. How do you feel about that?

Todd: Yeah, it was a bit tough. I thought actually that the US was deserving. I think the vote was relatively close. The US actually was a really good candidate because it has the stadiums, it has the infrastructure, it has the transportation networks, it has a really large multi-cultural population so there's people from every country in the world. It has the media set-up. It really had everything so I was actually surprised it didn't get it. But then after reading about the bid that won, Qatar, I was understanding. They seemed to have a really good pitch. These were not going to be for another twelve years and the stadiums that they were proposing are going to be really high tech and just marvels of architecture and the stadiums that we have now are going to be twelve years old by the time the World Cup would come around so that makes a lot of sense. Plus I've always wondered what a World Cup would be like if you had it in one central location and Qatar is relatively small so people won't have to travel that much, so I think that's kind of a benefit I think. A lot of my friends have been to the World Cup and they say that actually having the games so spread out is kind of a hassle.

Paul: Right.

Todd: So that might be good. But actually to be honest what really surprised me was that Australia didn't get it. I thought Australia was the best choice. I thought Australia was a better choice than the US and Qatar. They've never had it in that region before, they have all the stadiums recently built for the Olympics in two thousand. They love football or soccer, they are always competitive in the World Cup, a very festive atmosphere, very multi-cultural like the US, so I thought they were the perfect candidate but they came in third. I think they were voted out first, I don't even remember.

Mike: In all of the traveling that you've done around the world, what is the best travel experience you have had? What's the most memorable travel experience you had in your adventures around the world?

Jeff: Well, that's a tough question Mike. That's like asking what's your favorite food because you love everything. Everything's delicious and to pick one is very difficult but I think it's very simple. I think it's --- I like to think of --- India is a crazy place. It's a circus of a country, in a good way. It's like a circus where have --- you never know what you're gonna see, and it's very entertaining, but the --- and it's one of the poorest
Jeff
See what Jeff is
doing now?

countries in the world, India, it's just full --- there's a billion people there, and six hundred million of them are very poor, but they're so happy and so friendly, I remember that one of my first --- my first trip to India, and one of my first days in India, there was a man, a chai wall. And a wala means like a little business man, and chai is tea, in India so this chai wall, he had his own little tea stand on the side of a busy road in Dehli, and it was a small stand, and it was noisy, and it was hot, and it was chaotic, and crazy and he sold his tea for two cents a cup, and when I sat down I started talking to this man and told him and it was like my first or second day in India, and you know, I had just come to the country for the first time, and he welcomed me to India and he said, you know, it's so good that you came to our country, and have some free tea, and he gave me my first cup of chai ever, for free, and this man, he had nothing. he lived on the street, and he slept beside his chai wala at night, and he had old ragged clothes on, and I just remembered that I'm very wealthy and he's very poor compared to him, but yet the hospitality that he showed by giving me that free cup of tea, when he really needed the money and the business. It stood out in my mind, even to this day, that the generosity even though he needs the money. He was still so generous and so nice and giving. It stands out in my mind that, you know, and I always want to try to be kind and nice like that.

Gareth: So, Rebecca, where are you from?

Rebecca: I'm from America, actually, yeah.

Gareth: I've never been to America. What's crime like in America?

Rebecca: I think it probably depends a lot, city to city. It varies a lot, depending on the city. I actually lived for a while in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Living there, I never actually thought it was unsafe or anything, but looking back, it makes me go like, - We actually lived with that? That's insane! Like there are certain areas in town you just don't drive, because if you stop your car in that area, you know, it's extremely dangerous.

Gareth: What do you think?

Rebecca: I don't know. A lot of times, I think people who commit crime might commit crime because they want attention, or they don't get the amount of attention that they feel that they need. They want to be loved, or they want people to pay attention to them to know that they existed. You know, - I'm here, hear me roar type thing.

And maybe I've heard things that sometimes, abortion might actually potentially be related to a decrease in crime rate, because instead of having this child that maybe you don't want, you won't care for, who will grow up feeling unloved and potentially commit crime, you don't have the child. So then, it becomes not an option.

Gareth: Oh, yeah, definitely. Psychologically, when you're not cared for, and you're not loved, and no one's ever said that they love you, that can have a huge impact - yeah, definitely. So to go from one foster home to another foster home to another foster home, and to have foster parents that don't really care for you; they just put food on the table, and they clothe you, and they send you off to school, and they never hug you, they never kiss you, that I'm sure will have an effect on people, and kind of maybe lead to more crime.

Mike: So Dusty, your background is in Marine Biology. Is that right?

Dusty: Yes.

Mike: You're kind of a marine biologist.

Dusty: Mm-hm.

Todd: Well, you seem like a person who's really conscious about animals. Would you have gone? If you saw the advertisements to go and be next to these tigers, would you go?

Paul: I mean, I think it's obviously like a special opportunity. It doesn't come around that often to get so close to these tigers. I mean, my main concern would be that whether the tigers are taken care of and how much we should meddle with nature, why we should just allow that kind of animal kingdom to run its course, or we should interfere in that and, you know, put these animals in captivity so that we can touch them, just for our own kind of curiosity. I wonder whether it's a price, you know, I mean, whether it's something we should do morally.

Todd: Yeah, that's true. There is another way to look at it, though, and that is, according to one of the trainers, you know. If the tiger was in the wild, you know, it would have a rough life as well, and you have encroachment, you have poachers. And by having tiger farms like this, they can guarantee the species; they can guarantee that it goes on. Obviously, they want to protect the tigers in the wild, but by having a domestic population as well, that's also beneficial for the long-term health of the species.

Paul: Hm.

Paul: One interesting thing for me is that, you know, over the recent years, we've had countless incidents where cattle and animal stock have become diseased, and they've had to be culled, you know; they've had to be killed to stop the disease. I think, you know, that's also a kind of a very important issue, why these animals are becoming so diseased. Is it a sign that we're doing something wrong? What do you think about that?

Todd: Yeah. I mean, that's a scary one. I've lived in quite a few countries over the years, and every country that I've lived in has always been paranoid about the - mad cow disease. So, even in England, I lived in your country in England about seventeen years ago, and there were concerns about that first propping up. And then, you know, in Asia now, the Asian countries are worried about it.

Paul: Hm.

Todd: To be honest, I don't even give it any thought, you know. I mean, I hear about there's high levels of mercury in salmon. You shouldn't eat too much salmon. You have to worry about mad cow disease if you eat beef. I think you have to worry about other diseases with the chicken. You know, they had the bird flu a while ago. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to think, really.

Todd: So, Shifani, what is your current job?

Shifani: Well, I work as a transport planner for a consultancy, an international consultancy based in New Zealand.

Todd: Okay. So, transport planner - is that like you plan things being transported like across the ocean?

Shifani: No. You're talking about logistics there. So, no, that's not logistics. Transport planning stems from town planning, town or city planning. If you think about it, a city is a network of buildings and of transport infrastructures. So you've got your roads, you've got your trains, you've got your buses, and you've got place for your cars. So basically, transport planning involves planning of things that you can use to move people around.

Alex: So how do you feel about long distance relationships?

Maria: Not that good. I had two relationships by now and both of them ended after me going somewhere. First time I was in Denmark but like I lived on a school in another city and while I was there for four months like I think two months after I went home to him and broke up and then came back to the school and just didn't really care. And then the second time I went traveling and I missed him so much and I came back and realized that there was nothing left. I'd lost everything while I was away so I don't, after one month, after two months, I think it just doesn't work for me if it's not really special.

Alex: Yeah, I guess you're kind of like me. I have to see the person.

Maria: Exactly.

Alex: So Maria, you've seen a lot of the stuff that's been happening recently in Europe and you know that things have not exactly gone very well. What do you think are the, what's the outlook for Denmark in the future? Do you think you guys will do well or...?

Maria: I don't think we'll do that well because I'm from a generation where we, like my generation, we had it very well. We had a very good, we could choose whatever job we wanted, we could still choose whatever education we wanted if we're smart enough at least. We get paid from the Government to study. I get a lot of money every month. I still do even though I am on exchange just to study so compared to other countries where it is a privilege to study, we just, if we feel like it we'll study and we might wait a little but now they're saying that we're this luxury generation, that we're not used to working hard and I can recognize that because I'm not used to working for anything.

So when we begin to struggle finding jobs because we have like a high rate of unemployment, especially for young people, people who graduate usually they wait. If you don't have a very specific education, doctors I think are OK, people like that, but if you have a humanistic education, you might have to wait more than a year to find a job. My sister's graduating now and she is like dying because she has a fear for that. When she graduates with her social European studies, she will have a very hard time finding anything. So I think the biggest problem is the personality of the Danish youth because we are not used to having to do anything and now we have to because the environment has changed in Europe.

I don't know economically because we still have a lot of like huge enterprises and we have a lot of, the way we're placed we have pretty good connections with America and we're in Europe. We have like the whole of Europe around us and of course we, as a part of Scandinavia, we have good connections with like we have some more than just connections with Sweden and Norway, we are like, I don't know, closer than we would have been for example Germany which actually Denmark is situated on Germany so we have the link to Germany but we're still closer to Sweden. So we will probably manage but we will have to change economically and this might be a problem that we're getting a socialist government at the moment. I think it's great because I love it that we have it this way but we might get in economic trouble, difficulties, so I am probably going to have a harder time than my parents. It's got to work, it's going to help that I'm studying business though because I can always just work in another country, Australia for example, but yeah I don't know, the future is vague.

Jules: Hey Nathan, do you go to the gym?

Nathan: Yes, Jules. I do try to but I'm a bit, I don't know what the word is.

Jules: Lazy?

Nathan: Inconsistent. No, thanks very much.

Nathan: So we're talking about gyms and exercises and stuff, Jules, and I want to ask you a question. It may be a bit of advice.

Jules: OK.

Nathan: You know Madonna?

Jules: Not personally but.

Peter: So we're both teaching at university and I was curious, Jana, what do you think about giving students homework?

Jana: Ah, that's a tricky one isn't it? Students usually don't like homework.

Peter: Yeah. Did you used to like homework as a student?

Jana: I can't remember but these days I kind of like homework as a student because it motivates me to study. I'm terrible at studying on my own so having homework helps me, makes me do something.

Jana: So we have homework, tests, what about attendance? Should we require students to attend classes or? Sometimes people argue at university level it shouldn't be compulsory.

Peter: I think you should attend some classes at least. You're going to university, you're paying for your education so you should attend some classes but it doesn't mean if you're not attending a class that you can still get the information and study by yourself too. That's why I like internet so much because I think people can get so much information from academic institutions via the internet, they don't have to attend a physical class.

Jana: That's right and on the other hand you might attend physically but you're not really paying attention.

Peter:Exactly. You might as well sleep in class sometimes. It doesn't prove that you're learning if you're there. It depends on the person again I think.

Olga: Hey, Daniel, how are you?

Daniel: Hey Olga, I'm fine thanks. How are you?

Olga: Fine. Actually I have a favor to ask you.

Daniel: Yes, sure.

Maria: So talking about social media, is your parents on any social sites like Facebook, Twitter, et cetera.

Alex: My mum and dad are on Facebook. My mum doesn't use hers, she uses hers only to kind of see what I'm doing.

Maria: Stalk you?

Alex: Kind of yeah. My dad, he's on Facebook every once in a while. Again, he does kind of stalk me as well because he, he's very paranoid about Facebook, about social media sites so every once in a while I get an email from him and it will be like just so you know this was on your profile and you need to change it or this, or one of your friends commented or put a video on and I don't think that's appropriate if a job seeker looking for you. And I keep telling him I'm unsearchable, you know, like you can't find me but so he only uses it to make himself more paranoid. My mum got Twitter before I did.

Alex: Hi, Katia, how are you?

Katia: I'm doing good and you Alex?

Alex: I'm doing good thank you. I have a question for you. Are you on Facebook?

Katia: Yes, I am in Facebook but I really do not check very often.

Todd: So Julia, I was looking at your website and I noticed that you did a bike trip in Cambodia.

Julia: Yes, that's right. I joined an organization called Pepi and we did a ride from Siem Reap to Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City.

Todd: Wow, that's pretty cool.

Julia: Thank you.

Julia: So Nathan, I got a ride here with you today and I noticed in the car that you were a little bit angry.

Nathan: You know that was me toned down.

Julia: Oh my goodness.

Nathan: I can seriously get mega road rage.

Alex: So Maria, what are your future plans?

Maria: Future plans, that's a big question. I would like to have an nice career. I'm not really sure what it would be. I would love to be a CEO of some place, some place big but I don't need to. I just want to have a prestigious job because I'm that kind of person and I want to have a nice pay and I want, I think it's more important to me to have, it keep on being interesting. I'm very afraid of just ending up with a job that just bores me to death or something. I do want a family. I hope I'm about to find the guy I will have a family with in the next couple of years because otherwise I'll have to start looking and I'd rather have the love at first sight thing or just like having it be normal instead of just having to look for it like those desperate women you see in the TV. Have a nice house maybe in Denmark I'm not sure. I love big cities and Copenhagen is awesome but I'm not sure if it's big enough for me. I might go to Tokyo, a place I studied Japanese and I might go to or I might go to another European country. I have something with Holland. I keep getting friends from Holland or connections and I get attracted to Dutch people for some reason so Amsterdam is a choice. My parents wouldn't mind me going to Amsterdam. They want me close. I just, I don't know, I would like my future to be kind of unclear.

Alex: OK.

Maria: Because I have friends who've known they wouldn't want to be a doctor or a nurse or a teacher since they were five and that's just I need to be able to change whenever I can.

Maria: So Alex, now we talked about what I would like to do in the future, what about you? Career wise, let's start with that.
Alex: I actually have absolutely no idea what I want to do as a career. I know I want to do something interesting and I want to do something fun. I've certainly, I think that I as a person am most suited to a service style industry or a hospitality something like that where I would be, I've had sort of dalliances or ideas about cafes, cafe chains, certainly I'd always wanted to I think maybe rival Starbucks would be lovely. I looked at restaurants. Restaurants didn't really appeal to me because you've got weird hours and when everyone is having fun you're not. What else? For me it's, I just like to be able to have something that was constantly enjoyable. I think, you know, what you said, dynamic you know.

Maria: Exactly.

Alex: You can have something that will be enjoyable and you can change it up every day and so on and so forth but as to what I specifically would do, I can't put a name to it. I'm not the only one in my family. My father has a CV that's four, sorry ten pages long. It's ten pages long. He's changed jobs I think twenty six times, twenty seven now, and he's just so I don't know. For me I'd like to travel but I'd certainly want to have a home base. I can't go too far away from home.

Maria: When you say home, would it be your present home like Australia or would you...?

Daniel: Hi Olga, how are you?

Olga: Fine, Daniel, how are you?

Daniel: Good, thanks. I wanted to ask you something. I'm really interested about Mexican holidays.

Olga: What?

Katia: Felipe, you have been to the Galapagos?

Felipe: No.

Katia: But you lived in Ecuador right?

Felipe: Yes, well you know the problem is that going on travel into the Galapagos is really expensive for us.

Alex: So Maria, I thought we'd just talk about things like what would you like to change about yourself? What would you like to change about your appearance?

Maria: Well, I don't like to think about changing myself. I like how people look from the birth, if you can say that, but if I should choose I would like to change my height because I'm very tall and it does cause a problem when I'm looking for a guy especially since in the past I happen to fall for shorter guys and I got issues because they were always being intimidated by my height especially when I wore heels so I would like to be, like have my body because I do like my long legs but just be shorter and not be taller than everybody as I am at the moment, all of my friends.

Alex: I guess that would also lead to you having problems finding shoes and clothes and stuff like that?

Maria: Indeed, yes. I have to watch out. Well in my country it's not a problem to find shoe sizes because we are a very tall people normally so shoes are big and clothes are big but when I travel, I went to China to visit a friend and I wanted to go shopping and it's impossible to find shoes and long pants and fitting bras too, if you can imagine. So I would like to change my height but otherwise I might change like my weight for example or I have changed my hair color several times. I went from black to blonde to black to red to blonde so otherwise I think I'm fine with me.

Alex: What about your personality or your characteristics?

Maria: I would like to be more studious for school because I am not that much of a stay-at-home-all-nigh- to-study person. I look at my textbook and I really try but then I realize I could be doing something else so I just go out and do something else and I don't do my homework and I don't fail because I am at least smart enough to pass but sometimes it's a struggle to get through. So yes, I would like to be more studious and more maybe hesitant in my answers because I talk before I think at some point sometimes. I do like my open personality though, like being for example when we went out partying yesterday, I was talking to everybody which was very nice and people seemed to like that open-attitude and as long as you're not being open and arrogant because I try not to.

Alex: Yeah.

Maria: If you're being open because you're interested in the person you're talking to then you get more positive responses so I do like that.

Daniel: Hey, Vale, how are you?

Valeria: Fine, and you, Daniel, how are you?

Daniel: Very well thanks. I have a question for you.

Valeria: OK, tell me.

Valeria: So how about in tournament time?

Daniel: How?

Valeria: How do you live that?

Daniel: Well if it's an important tournament, like World Cup or Copa America, we would watch the matches like normally watch and...

Valeria: How are the emotions? How do you live soccer from an emotional point of view?

Daniel: Wow, that's, if it's an important match you will really get into it even if you're not in the stadium you're watching it like on tele you will shout at the screen and you will shout...

Valeria: Really?

Daniel: Yeah.

Valeria: How about women? How do they live football, soccer?

Daniel: Well recently they are getting more and more into football and if you go to the stadium you can see more and more women come in and once they get into football it's really common to see them at the stadium for example. So and it's really nice because it used to be a kind of activity just for men, like supporting teams, knowing about football, going to the stadium but now it's more like you get a lot of couples there and you get a lot of families so I think it's a good point that women are getting more and more involved. So are you involved in football, are you into football?

Valeria: Actually, I'm kind of a weird case for my country because I'm not very interested in soccer but still I know when there is a match, about the result and I have my favorite team as well but I don't watch the match but I'm very, very weird. I'm not the rule at all. I'm kind of the exception.

Daniel: So basically in Argentina women would be interested in football?

Jana: So we're talking about learning English. Has that worked for you in any other languages too?

Peter: Actually I thought about that question before and I started studying Japanese a few years ago. I shouldn't say studying because I haven't studied so much but for some reason my Japanese learning is very different to my English learning.

Jana: How is it different?

Peter: I've learned, the little bit of Japanese that I've learned, I've learned through listening mostly and having to speak or, you know, helping myself in daily situations. I haven't been able to master enough kanji and Japanese symbols to be able to read it well or to write it well at all. So I couldn't, like before I studied English, a lot of English came to me because I read so much but now I can't read in Japanese so I'm having to rely on listening mostly and how about you?

Todd: Hey Julia.

Julia: Hey Todd, how are you doing?

Todd: Good, good. Now Julia, you are really fit and also you are a yoga instructor and a runner so you are the perfect person to talk about extreme exercise.

Julia: Extreme. I wouldn't say I'm an extremist, but go on.

Todd: Have you heard about planking?

Julia: Planking?

Todd: Yeah, planking.

Julia: No, I haven't heard of planking.

Todd: Well actually speaking of extreme sports, we're talking about extreme sports, have you heard about ultra marathon?

Julia: I'm reading a book right now that's about a tribe of ultra runners in Mexico and I thing it's gonna come on to the subject of ultra marathons.

Todd: Yeah, I mean what has the book talked about?

Julia: The book talks about this very old tribe who can run for days.

Olga: How is Chilean Indepdence Day?

Daniel: Well, Chilean Independence Day, it's in September.

Olga: Yeah.

Daniel: September the eighteenth but we have another holiday on the nineteenth so we take those two days plus probably Saturday and Sunday of the same week.

Erina: I have a brother so I can relate this. You know, my brother when he started to, you know, join karate team, my parents were super worried about, you know, head injuries and any kinds of injuries.

Mike: Right.

Erina: So what did your family say about that? Were they supportive?

Mike: Well, when I first got into karate, they were supportive of me mostly because karate is not so much used as a, it's not a martial art used so much for fighting but I used it for a really good experience and discipline and because I started when I was twelve, it was very strict and it taught me really good discipline and it actually, surprisingly enough, it teaches you not to use violence in conflicts and so my family really liked that aspect. The fact that it taught me discipline and it taught me about, you know, how violence is not usually the way to solve problems and it doesn't work well. So of course the aspect of getting injured and doing damage to your body was always there and I think especially my mum was always pretty worried and when I showed her videos of my fights or sparring, she would give a lot of scared reactions and commentary, ooh, ah, that looks like it hurts, are you OK? But all in all, I clearly explained to them the benefits of martial arts and how they discipline not only your body but your mind so my parents were pretty understanding with that.

Erina: Hi, Mike. I was wondering the difference between MMA and boxing? What are the differences?

Mike: Well, there's a lot of differences actually. MMA stands for mixed martial arts so I guess by the name you can tell that there are a lot of different variations of MMA. It's usually a combination of stand up fighting and ground fighting. So in contrast with boxing, boxing is only stand up, you never fight on the ground and with MMA there are many different styles and different tournaments, different kinds of rules. There's fighting standing up and there's fighting going to the ground which would also include submission and so right off the bat that's quite a big difference there.

Erina: Oh, I see. Do you like MMA better or kick boxing better because I know you used to box, right?

Mike: Yeah, I mean kick boxing is definitely, you know, heading towards MMA whereas boxing is quite a strict discipline and the rules are a lot more basic whereas MMA has different variations and stuff. It's very difficult to choose which one I like better. I really enjoy watching both and I don't compare them as if one is better than the other but they're just very different sports.

Jana: Peter, you're from South Africa, right?

Peter: That's right, yeah.

Jana: I heard there's a lot of beautiful mountains that are famous for hikes. Is that true?

Peter: That's true, yeah. Actually, I've been hiking since I was in elementary school really because there's so much, there are so many hikes to go on. The area that I grew up is actually quite close to the Drakensberg which is a famous mountain range in South Africa and it runs almost the whole length of the country and there are so many hikes, camping spots, places that you could go to and the hikes that you can go on for like a day, or two days, a week, ten days, a month if you want to. Really so much so I used to go most, I guess most holidays, or twice or three times a year even go hiking.

Jana: So you mentioned hiking. I think South Africa must have a lot of outdoor activities, right?

Peter: Hmm.

Jane: Some extreme sports?

Peter: Right, right. Yeah, it's, actually for a dry country it's interesting that it has so many water sports, people that really love water sports too especially on the eastern side of the country because it's tropical warm climate year round. The sea temperature is quite warm and at the same time it has a lot of really big waves so I think two of the world's biggest surfing events are held in South Africa yearly. The one is near Jeffreys Bay and the other one is near Durban and that's where all the world's surf champions come to surf and test their skills. But if you're not into surfing you can go wind surfing which actually on the eastern coast is really famous because of the strong winds over there and the relatively, not calm seas, but actually there's a lot of open plains to do wind surfing on so it's really famous for that. And then like skiing and water skiing of course really famous too. People really enjoy the water sports.

Julia: Hi, my name's Julia and I am talking to Nathan about his wedding experience. Nathan, tell me how was your wedding day.

Nathan: My wedding day was, I guess, mixed. I think the build up to my wedding was quite funny. I didn't feel in control of my wedding so we went to several different, I don't know what to call them, wedding shops or wedding planning companies and they asked us how much money we could spend first and the first thing that comes out is how much money do you think you're going to spend on your wedding and I felt that was kind of like a real personal, a kind of an embarrassing question as well because...

Julia: You're British.

Nathan: We didn't really have much money. Well, yeah, cos I'm British maybe.

Erina: So Mike, do you have any bad habits?

Mike: Of course not. I'm perfect, I've no habits that are bad. Yes, I do have some bad habits. One of my bad habits is fidgeting and I think I'm a very high energy person so, especially when I'm on the phone, mixed with my slightly obsessive compulsive tendencies, I tend to arrange all the things on a desk so if there are pens and books and different things on the desk, I would be turning them and arranging them in order and pretty much always using my hands and keeping them busy and although this might not be such a bad habit, perhaps for people who are with me or next to me they might be a little bit uncomfortable because it seems like, you know, I'm a bit nervous or, you know, have something on my mind so...

Erina: Not in confidence for your speech, yeah.

Mike: Right, in fact that's not the case but what happens is I start playing with things.

Mike: So Erina, I wanted to ask you what kind of bad habits do you have?

Erina: Well it's pretty tough to know what your bad habits are, you know, because it's ususally something that other people see.

Mike: Right.

Erina: And I hear a lot and I go to Starbucks a lot and I have to admit that I do go to Starbucks a lot every time I find time.

Todd: So, Julia, we're both teachers.

Julia: That's right.

Todd: And are you familier with the different learner types?

Julia: A little bit, yes, I encounter different kinds of learners in my classrooms.

Vella: So Daniel, we're talking about emotions and let's talk about emotions in men. Do you think it's OK for men to cry?

Daniel: Well, I do think it's all right. There's nothing wrong about it. If you want to cry, if you're sad, if you are angry, if you are disappointed, I think it's normal. The normal reaction would be to cry but unfortunately there is a huge stigma attached to men crying. For some people it is a big issue. For me, personally, it isn't.

Vella: I agree a hundred per cent with you. For me personally, I think it's totally OK for guys to cry.

Daniel: Hm, hm.

Jana: So, Peter, I've been asking you about hunting for treasure. Can I ask you a few more questions?

Peter: Sure.

Jana: So why are there so many sunken ships in South Africa?

Peter: Well I guess around the southern tip of Africa because of the really bad weather. It really changes really quickly in those parts and with the ancient ships I guess they weren't really prepared for that kind of weather, it's unexpected, so I think that's probably one reason. And I think one of the other reasons is probably piracy, people that were after them, the loot I guess if you want to put it that way, yeah.

Todd: So, Julia, now you are a parent.

Julia: That's right.

Todd: And have you heard of all these terms that we have in the US for different types of parents? I wonder if you have them in the UK?

Julia: You mean like soccer mum, stuff like that?

Chugi: Hi, Mike, how are you doing?

Mike: Hey, Chugi, I'm good.

Chugi: I'm so done we're with classes.

Mike: Yeah, me too.

Peter: So, Jana, we were talking about academic life in different countries but how about daily life for students? Did students also have part time jobs and where did they eat? Did they eat at home or in dorms or did they go out?

Jana: Right. So my life in Prague was quite different because I was living with my parents but obviously I would go to university for the lectures or seminars and yeah, I think most of my classmates had part time jobs or even full time jobs and they would study sort of in their free time and in the Czech Republic usually students go to university in their city so they stay at home with their parents but if they choose to go to a different city then they would stay at dormitory. So some of my classmates who were staying, who were living in dormitory, I felt like they had more social life than I do because that's where all their social events happen.

Peter: Right.

Jana: I have actually never lived in a dormitory so I don't know what it's like.

Katia: Hello Felipe, how are you?

Felipe: Fine thank you and you?

Katia: Good, good. Listen, I heard that you know a lot about Ecuadorean food. Can you tell me a little bit about it? What is your favorite or what is it that you don't like? Can you just enlighten me a little bit?

Felipe: Well, in Ecuador, well pretty much all the food in Ecuador is delicious. For example, we have frita which is some fried meat, pork meat, and also potatoes and corn because I love corn and we have also many different kinds of fruits and we make juices and many different kind of desserts with these fruits. There's also some typical dish called ceviche. Ceviche is a coastal traditional food and it's made out of shrimps and lemon and tomato. I think it's quite unique and nowhere else in the world you can find something like that. It's quite delicious. And there's also a really spicy food so maybe that's the kind of food that I don't like too much because it's too spicy and it makes you sweat.

Vella: OK, Daniel, I know you're still really young but I know you must be thinking about what you're going to do in the future so my question would be what do you want to achieve in your life?

Daniel: Well, there are definitely three things I want to do. For example, I want to do before I die, at least three things. The first one is I want to visit every continent in the earth. I'm still young but I want to do it in the next couple of years. I've never been to Africa, for example, that's a continent, that's a part of the world I'm very interested in.

The second one is that I want to see things from a different perspective. For example, I want to climb a really, really high mountain. I don't know, Everest would be amazing but I know like you need the special training and stuff like that. Or do paragliding, I would love to have the feeling that I'm flying. That's something that really, really calls my attention to see, you know, to see something from a different perspective. It can give you not only the experience but also it can help you think in a very different way for, I don't know, many things in the future.

And the third one is definitely to raise my children. I don't have any yet but, I don't know, I would love to have that feeling that I've done my job and I've finished it so, I don't know, to have my children, to raise them properly and to see that they succeed in what they do. Those are the three things I would love to do, I don't know, before I die.

Jana: You mentioned snow. I had no idea it snows in South Africa.

Peter: Yeah, maybe I should qualify that. The central part of South Africa actually there's a range of mountains that run straight through from the northern part of South Africa right through almost to the southern tip of Africa called the Drakensberg and around these mountains and obviously on top of these mountains, you can find snow during wintertime. Actually it doesn't compare with snow in the Northern Hemisphere where you really have deep snow and things like that but it gets really cold during winter and temperatures would be far below zero for most of the time up in these mountainous areas. So, yeah, it's not enough snow to ski in but it's pretty cold.

Jana: Hmm, that's sounds interesting. I always thought South Africa is really wild and rugged and hot. Are there any such areas?

Peter: Oh, yeah, right. Actually South Africa is very diverse when it comes to areas. Like there are many different climate zones, different landscapes and actually if you travel around the country, you'd be really struck by how the vegetation can be so different within a morning's drive or an afternoon's drive. You could be in a completely different landscape and different vegetation, animals around you, different plant life. On the western side of the country, it can be really hot. It's almost got a desert type of, well it does have a desert type of landscape, very sparse vegetation, very little rainfall, not many people, not many animals, very beautiful. It's really a place I recommend people to visit because you can hear silence and it'd be quiet around you and yeah it's really beautiful but almost a bit strange, strange to be confronted by so much raw nature, I guess, if you can put it that way.

Katia: Hello Felipe, how are you?

Felipe: Hello, I'm fine.

Katia: Listen, I was thinking you know a lot about Ecuador and Colombia right?

Felipe: Yeah.

Julia: OK, so we've talked about freelancing your skills and living and working abroad. Have you ever done that? Have you ever lived and worked in a...

Todd: Like digitally, just like a kind of nomad?

Julia: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah, I did. I did it for a year. I was actually a nomad. I lived in five different countries and I did all my work online. I mainly was just doing web stuff but it was an interesting experience. I mean I had never, I thought it would be the perfect life and when I told people what I was going to do, everybody said that's amazing. You know, I mean basically I said that I was gonna just travel the world and I would just work from whatever city I was in. I would choose my own itinerary and my own destination and I would work when I wanted to and, yeah, I did it for ten months.

Julia: What about meeting people? What about like a social life or just basic human interaction? How does that work?

Todd: Usually you meet lots of people but there's a couple of things you need to do. One is I usually stay away from anything touristy or where the tourists are because people just assume you're a tourist and nobody will bother to meet you. The best place to meet people though is a gym. So in every city, I would go to, I would sign up for a gym for two weeks or one month and you always meet people there. So gyms are great, you meet people right after work. You kind of feel like you're in a normal work flow. Parks, you meet a lot of people in parks. You go to where the local people are, maybe a food court or libraries, stuff like that, so usually places where people are actually trying to do something productive, either study or exercise or whatever, you meet people.

Julia: That was going to be my next question. What about your health? How do you maintain a health when you're living that kind of...

Todd: Well, yeah, you gotta eat well and you gotta exercise. I did go to the hospital in Chiang Mai because a dog bit me. Yeah.

Vella: So Daniel, let's talk about childhood memories. Do you have any fond memory?

Daniel: Well, yeah, I do. I had a great time when I was a kid but definitely my best memory is, well, holidays. When I was a kid in Chile, we used to have a three month summer holiday and it was brilliant because I used to go to the countryside to my great-grandma's house and she had kind of a hostel at that time and it was brilliant because you had people coming in and out all the time, new people. The town was like really, really small and everything was so natural so I got to spend three months every summer in a really nice place doing nothing but playing with my friends all the time, going to the beach every day and like having amazing food. It was too good to be true, seriously. Unfortunately like then I grew older and I couldn't have the three months so I was going like, I don't know, two weeks and stuff like that. And then lately I couldn't go any more so it's shame but at the same time it's a great, it's really good that I got the chance to do it and I got the chance to experience it and I think that's one of my great memories of my childhood.

Vella: So you go there every summer?

Daniel: Well, not any more but I used to go there when I was a kid every, pretty much every summer, yeah.

Todd: So Abidemi, you're from Nigeria, right?

Abidemi: Yes, I am, that’s correct.

Todd: So, can you talk a little bit about food from your country?

Abidemi: Yes, gladly. I love eating, so food is one of my favorite things to talk about. In Nigeria, we eat a lot of food that’s made of potatoes or yam so one of my favorite foods from Nigeria is called Inyan. Inyan is pounded yam. And what we do is we boil yam in a pot and then we put it into like what we call a pounder. I

Todd: So Abidemi, you're talking about food in Nigeria, are there any other dishes you can talk about?

Abidemi: Yes, I could talk all day about food but I'll mention one more that I know that a lot of children in Nigeria really love. It’s called dodo. In my region of Nigeria, I’m Yoruba we call it dodo but it’s basically fried plantains. So when plantains are really ripe fried, actually, plantains are like bananas but they are bigger and starchier. So when they get really ripe, we fry them in oil over the stove, deep fry it and it just comes out really sweet and a bit caramelized, just a little bit and little kids just really love it. And we have this at home or even school and if you tell a little kid, when I was growing up if you told us that, “Okay, if you don’t do your homework, you’re not going to have dodo." It would freak us out because we just wanted to have it so we always listened then because that’s what we wanted to have. So yeah, I have really good memories of eating it.

Todd: So is this a dish like that you just make at home or is it something you buy on a street stall, or can you buy it in a supermarket?

Abidemi: Actually, both. When I was growing up we didn’t have it so much outside but now you can buy it just about anywhere. They have little kind of like plantain chips but it’s made from, yeah, it’s sweeter and you could buy it anywhere on the streets or you can make it at home. I make it definitely at home when I get my hands on plantains. So, it’s very accessible, yeah.

Chris: So Adelina, I guess it's not polite to ask a girl for her age, but you must be more or less like me, 31, you're in your early 30s or maybe a bit less?

Ade: Well I just turned 34.

Chris: Wow! Well you wouldn't say that. Well, what's your profession, what do you do?

Ade: I'm a translator.

Todd: So Abidemi, you're from Nigeria. Can you talk a little bit about the music scene in your country?

Abidemi: Yes. Nigeria is just amazing now in terms of music and even in the past we’ve had and we still do have great music, great musicians. We love to party just as much as we love to eat, there's nothing that Nigerians loves more than parties. We love to have a good time. So of course, music plays an important role in that. One of the music that we have now is like fusion. A mix of old traditional Nigerian music and instruments with more Western Hip Hop, R&B kind of sound and even reggae and Jamaican music and some Spanish too mixing with it.

Todd: Oh wow, that sounds like a nice mix.

Abidemi: It is actually and because we love to dance as well, it's something that you can move your body to, you can dance to, and also some ballads as well, that makes people think. In the past, Nigerian artists were either they sang traditional songs which they sang in the languages that we had in Nigeria or they sang in English for the most part because we do have many languages. So if you want to reach a wider audience, you needed to sing in English. But these days the interesting thing is many people are mixing.

Peter: So Sarah, tell me, you're teaching right now, could you give me your opinion on computer use in the classroom, like using it in your classes, what do you think about that?

Sarah: I think it's good when there's certain activities that are related to using computers. But when you're trying to do an activity that's not on a computer in a classroom that has computers, it's very difficult to get your students' attention because they're often distracted by doing something else on the internet, they shouldn't be doing.

Peter: Oh, I totally agree, I often have that problem, it feels like I'm speaking to a crowd of ghosts. I have no idea that they're talking to me or looking at me or doing anything that they should be doing, so it's really hard. I find it really hard. But I agree also, I think computers can be so useful in the classroom, especially if you have to do a specific activity where students have to find information and listening activities where they can listen to individual listenings and things like that, you know.

Sarah: Yeah. So what do you think about cell phones in the classroom, do you let your students use them? Because maybe they have an electronic dictionary of some sort on their mobile phone. So is that okay, or no cell phones, what do you do?

Karlo: So Vesna, as I understand you live in Croatia, where are you from? What do you like and dislike about your place?

Vesna: Yes, I live in Croatia, in a city named Pula. It is situated in the Istrian peninsula and it's the biggest city in Istria. It counts a population of around 60,000. What I like about Pula is the fact that it's perfectly sized, it's not too big nor too small. And it has all of the civilisation benefits as any Western European city. For example, in the area of education and culture, there is a university, a theater, a cinema, a great number of galleries, museums, libraries, there are some historical sites and so on. Then for example, in the health area, there is a hospital, a number of private clinics, dentist offices, ambulances and pharmacies and so on. There are places to go such as restaurants, bars, exhibitions, concerts, especially in the summer, during various festivals, sport, gastronomic, musical, dance and theatrical events. Also Pula is surrounded by the Adriatic sea, so you can always go to the ... you can always go to the beach or to one of the many beaches, to sunbathe or go fishing or sailing. If you prefer the land you can take a field trip to the surrounding places and discover there, natural and other attractions. Altogether I really love living here.

Karlo: Okay. You only told me about your positive sides of living in Pula, what about your dislikes?

Vesna: Well, like any other place there is no perfection. The downside is that we have a huge traffic problem I would say, especially lately due to some construction projects. So I recommend using public transportation whenever possible or simply going by foot. Some people might say that Pula doesn't exactly have a wild nightlife, but I don't consider it a downside, rather a peaceful alternative to some other tourist destinations. So that's it.

Vesna: Tell me Karlo, is Pula your home town?

Karlo: Yes, I was born in Pula, did all of my schooling here and I also work here.

Vesna: And do you like living in Pula?

Karlo: Of course. All of my memories are connected to this city. My parents live here as well as all of other loved ones. You know, the old saying, 'home is where the heart is'.

Chris: So Adelina, Ade, you just told me you’re from Spain, so let’s talk about gastronomy, food. They say a really good gastronomy in Spain, is that true?

Ade: Of course it is. We have the Mediterranean food, it’s well known for being tasty and healthy, like for example, our olive oil, our fresh fish coming from the north and the south. And we also have very good wines.

Chris: So if you’d have to name three of the really better dishes in your country, what would you say, what would be your three favorite dishes?

Ade: Paella of course.

Daniel: So Hana, I’m planning my first trip to Japan, but since I’ve never been there I’m not really sure what I should do. Is there anything you can help me with?

Hana: Well first you should definitely go to a temple or a shrine. It describes Japan. And there are many famous temples all over Japan. So you should definitely visit one.

Daniel: Okay, that sounds really interesting. Anything else that I should try? How about for example, Japanese food?

Hana: Well Japanese food is very famous, for example, fish like sushi or sashimi, Japanese people love it, and so does foreign people.

Karlo: Let's talk about Croatian cuisine, is there such a thing?

Vesna: I would roughly say yes, but traditionally, the continental and the coastal part of the country has different cooking traditions.

Karlo: Why do you think is that?

Vesna: It probably has something to do with the historical diversity between these two regions. And also with the difference in climate and also food availability. The winters are really cold in the continent and consequently the food has to be heavier.

Peter: So Sarah you told me earlier that you've been home-schooled, it sounds really interesting, I've never met somebody who's been home-schooled, so could you tell me a little bit more about your experience with it?

Sarah: Yes, absolutely. Well I'm the youngest of four children, so I was the last one to come up being home-schooled. But my father decided to home-school us as soon as it became legal in our state. And for me it was a very different experience than my older siblings. I think when they were younger my father did more of the formal teaching, like at all once, like lecture style. But by the time I came along, he didn't do that anymore. So my learning predominantly came from books. And I remember even as young as second grade, like doing all of my work by myself. One of my favorite aspects of it when I was like in second and third grade is I could do all of my work on Monday and then have the rest of the week to play, didn't have to do any work.

Peter: Wow! That sounds really nice. How come your parents decided to home school, what was important for them?

Sarah: My older sister had a lot of problems in school and they were in the principal's office like every day. And so that's initially what made them start thinking about it. And from there they made the decision and so all the rest of us were home-schooled after that.

Peter: So sthinking about your future, would you have your kids home-schooled, would you home-school themselves or do you think that it's better for them to go to a normal school, what would you do?

Sarah: I used to say that I didn't know. But then I got my undergrad degree and elementary education and I had a chance to teach in public school. And that's when I decided, yes, absolutely, I would home-school my own children.

Peter: What was the main reason coming to that decision?

Sarah: The main reason was the wasted time that I saw. And also there were so many children in one classroom. It was really hard to get them all to focus and pay attention at the same time, it's nearly impossible. So if I could provide my child with one-on-one attention, I feel like they would learn more, there'd be less wasted time.

Todd: Okay. So Josh, in another interview we were talking about foods that we don’t like, now let’s talk about activities or things we don’t like to do.

Josh: Okay.

Todd: Like for example, washing dishes, ironing clothes, mowing the lawn, things like that.

Josh: Alright.

Todd: So Julia, you are a teacher.

Julia: That's right.

Todd: So I'm going to run a theory by you.

Julia: Okay.

Todd: Yeah, but next time you teach, when you look at your students, think about it.

Julia: I will, yeah.

Todd: Who's a player, who's a pupil, who's a participant, who's a prisoner.

Julia: Who's a prisoner. And do you find that you have like an even distribution of those four types within any one class or...?

Chris: Hi, Adelina. So, let's talk about ... about life in general. Could you tell me a bit how ... how has been your life, some highlights up till now?

Adelina: Well, I don't know. I can say my life is like a roller coaster so I don't know, I think life is all about learning lessons and I completely agree when they say that when you stop learning lessons then you are ready to die. So I don't know, I think I'm learning experiences and lessons every day.

Chris: Explain me why you would say you're like a roller coaster, your life is a roller coaster. Like, you travel a lot or you ... I don't know, explain that.

Adelina: Yeah, my life is a roller coaster because I hate routine so because of that I travel a lot and I change job a lot and I change friends a lot. Well, I still keep them but I'm not with them I'm not like a girl that lives in a village and she always hangs out with the same people and everything so that's why maybe my learning experiences are much more in volume than a person that they are like robots that they do every day the same routine and the same things all over again so they will learn less lessons than me for example.

Ade: Now Chris, in our last conversation you told me you come from Belgium. And I would like to know, what kind of food do you eat in Belgium?

Chris: What kind of food, well we eat all kinds of food. I mean there’s no restrictions or anything. We have our fish, our meat, our wines, our fruits, our veggies, we eat all kinds of food.

Ade: Yeah, I know. But I mean what is popular about Belgium food?

Chris: Well if you talk about gastronomy, it’s a bit different in Belgium as I think it is in Spain. I mean in Belgium we really enjoy the tables. We don’t go out for dinner that often but when we go out we stay on a table for four hours. I mean it starts with little entrants, then it’s maybe a soup, then it’s the main dish, then it’s still an ice-cream or something. I mean it takes long so we really enjoy eating and it goes slow. For example, at Christmas, for Christmas we meet at maybe 5:30, 6 o’clock and then we start already with aperitifs and it goes all night long, I think we eat from 6 o’clock in the afternoon till 12 o’clock at night.

Hana: So, you’re from Chile?

Daniel: Yeah, that’s right.

Hana: If I ever travel to Chile, do you have any tips?

Daniel: Well yeah, there are a lot of things that you should do in Chile and also a lot of things that you shouldn’t do in Chile.

Spencer: So talking about clothes, Curtis, do you spent a lot of money on clothes?

Curtis: I don't really spend a lot of money on clothes. I think the clothes that I buy last for a long time. And I have a lot of them but I only add to them very slowly over the years. Some of my t-shirts I've had since high school. And so even dress shirts for work, every once in a while something will get worn out but not very often. So I have a lot of clothes but I don't have to spend much money on them. I would like to maybe this year or next year buy a nice three piece suit though, that might be a little bit expensive, but I've always wanted one of those.

Spencer: Yeah. I'm the same, I don't like to spend a lot of money on clothes, but every now and then it is nice to splurge on something that looks really good, yeah. No, there's some great shops like TJ Maxx and Target and yeah, they're, you know, half price and not as expensive. But you can still find some great looking things.

Curtis: Right. Yeah. And I think by adding to the collection that I already have, I can wear different styles on different days. And so I don't feel like I need to spend a lot of money to replace my whole collection because of that, like you said, you can splurge and maybe spend a little bit more on a really nice item that you want because you're able to keep recycling everything else that you have already.

Sorie: So, Mark, tell us about your experience when you lived in the wilderness.

Mark: It was for a really short time. It was part of a Master's program, and part of the master's program was to go into the wilderness, and I guess it was based on a Native American vision quest.

Sorie: Very interesting. So what's a vision quest?

Mark: I guess a vision quest is when you - it's like a rite of passage, like a ritual where you leave where you were, at that place in your life and you enter a space which is kind of fresh or allows for the next stage to manifest almost, so you enter that threshold, that vacant space between and perhaps in that time, you're gonna, you might have a vision, or you might not but when you come out the other side you're probably, most likely, going to be a little bit different than when you went into it.

Sorie: So you do have some extra money that you can put away, you would say?

Mark: I think maybe everyone has extra money because you just use less. So you just decide in advance to put a little bit aside whether it’s 5 dollars or 50.

Sorie: So, like, change your priorities and spend less money on other things and more towards your pension?

Mark: Exactly. Exactly.

Jeremy: So Abedimi, you grew up really with two homes. Can you tell us a little bit about what it’s like having two homes? Do you feel any particular loyalty more to one than the other or are they both home for you?

Abidemi: That’s a good question. I think for me, both places are home. I grew up in Nigeria and in Canada. My extended family, he’s in Nigeria. So when I go there, I instantly feel at home, like, they welcome me with open arms. It’s the food, the music, the people, the smell. It’s amazing. It’s like I almost never left, except when I open my mouth and speak in English and it's a completely different accent. That’s a different story.

But then I go to Canada, and I think my way of thinking, my mentality, is more oriented toward that way. Like, I think more like a Canadian, I find in a lot of situations. So that is home, too. A lot of my friends are in Canada. My parents are in Canada.

So, I don’t know. I don’t really feel a conflict of interest most of the time. So I think I’m just kind of enjoying having two places where I fit in more or less.

Abidemi: So Jeremy, we both work in Japan, and I was just talking about how it feels like to go home. How does it feel like for you, Jeremy?

Jeremy: Well, when I go back to Canada, really the first thing that I notice is the air. And it’s a funny thing to think but I know when I arrive in Vancouver and I walk out of the airport, I can smell West Coast Canada air. And it really gives a kind of positive feeling to me. You know, it’s a small thing but you notice how clean. I know it’s a stereotype with Canada but it really is such a clean place. And also, Vancouver, you have the smell of the ocean and you have the mountains right there. So that’s the first that I always notice.

But when I go back and I visit my parents, it takes me about 10 minutes to get used to where I am being back home. You know, it doesn’t take long at all. And I think it’s because that’s the house that I grew up in and just the feeling that I grew up with, it returns immediately. You know, it goes away when I’m away, when I’m living in Japan but as soon as I get back home, that feeling of comfort comes back within minutes. And I look forward to the same thing that everybody looks forward to when they go back home, and food is right at the top of that list.

You know, I honestly look forward to turkey dinner, maybe more than anything in the world, or prime rib or those types of things. But it’s just the small things; having mom make a snack or something like that. And just the feeling of being completely at ease and without a worry in the world is kind of what I most look forward to going back home.

Amy: How about you? Have you ever been in an accident?

Paul: Not a car accident. I was in a bicycle accident.

Amy: Yeah?

Paul: I laugh now but at the time, it was pretty bad.

Jeremy: Abidemi, so looking back at your life as a student, can you tell me a little bit about your experience with the best teacher that you had, and maybe a little bit about your worst teacher?

Abidemi: Sure. I think I’ve had many, many great teachers. I’ve been really blessed in that way. Thinking back now, I remember my teacher when I was in primary 6 in Nigeria, actually. His name was Mr. Oleaer. And this teacher was a math and science teacher. And I think the best thing about him was he really took a personal interest in all of us. We could tell that he really cared. Although, he was very much a teacher, he took that authority role but at the same time, he was like our friend. Like during the break time, we would approach him, we would talk to him. And over the summer, he tutored a few of us for the entrance examination to high school because we have that system in Nigeria.

So it was just fun. Every time we saw him, we just have a good time with him. And I remembered he talked to me. He mentored—he was like a mentor. He came to me, and he was wondering what I wanted to be in the future and he made some suggestions because of the scores I had in his class. And to this day, I still remember him. He sticks in my mind. And having taught for a little bit as well, I think for me too, he’s one of the people that I tried to model myself after. I model myself after him. Maybe not even consciously, but I liked the fact that he was a teacher and we knew it but at the same time, he was very friendly. So I really love that aspect of him.

How about you, Jeremy? Anyone comes to mind?

Paul: Hi, Amy.

Amy: Hi.

Paul: How are you?

Amy: I'm all right. Thanks. How are you?

Paul: Hi, Amy.

Amy: Hi.

Paul: So we're talking about routines and in the evening, what's your usual routine?

Amy: Get home, wash hands, usually just try and get the dinner organized. Dinner and get my daughter ready for bed, usually. Just get her sorted before I think about relaxing or doing anything else, because if I sit down, I never want to stand back up again when I get from work.

Mark: So you’re from a big family, aren’t you, Sorie.

Sorie: Yes. I have five brothers. They’re all younger than I and I’m the only girl in the house.

Mark: The only girl, all younger than you?

Sorie: Yes. I am 27 and the youngest is six years old. He’s just gone to first grade right now.

Abidemi: So Jeremy, can you tell us some of your pet peeves, things that people do that drive you crazy?

Jeremy: Well, I would say I’m, for the most part, a pretty positive person and pretty open-minded. But there are some situations that sometimes I can barely control myself when I’m in these situations. And one of these situations is riding local transit. So either a subway or a bus. I spend a long time in Vancouver, in Canada. And the bus situation there is something that can really drive people mad because it’s simple bus etiquette that can make or break your day.

And things like people talking on their phone or people clipping their toenails on the bus or people not moving to the back of the bus so that there’s no room and people don’t get on the bus because the bus driver doesn’t ask them to move back. It’s just a non-stop list of things that just get under my skin when it comes to the bus. And it seems like a small thing but I don’t have a car and I rely on the bus to get to and from work everyday. So it’s a place where I spend more than an hour of my time. And that’s an hour of my time that can either be spent in relaxation and maybe thinking or sleeping. Or it’s an hour where I can spend just sort of having these really, really, nasty thoughts go through my head about why are people oblivious, why are they ignoring common courtesy.

So for me, I know it’s a small thing but it’s something that can really either make or break my day.

Paul: So Aimee, do you always check your emails in the morning?

Aimee: Probably. Probably. Recently, I’m trying to stop using my electronic devices so much. So I think in the morning, I need to do other things but very often, I will quickly scan my phone and check because my phone is also my alarm clock, so it’s right there. It’s too handy.

Paul: Yeah. I’m always one that wake up—I don’t know, I’ve got this really bad habit where I think something major has happened during the night. And so I wake up and I’m checking different websites and checking Facebook to see if there’s any messages or any great news over the course of the night.

Yeah, it’s a really bad habit, you know. It starts to kind of dominate your life. Yeah, I think it’s quite addictive things, isn’t it?

Rory: Have you heard about Singles Day in China?

Abidemi: No, I'm not really sure. Can you explain what that is about?

Rory: So this is a new holiday that has been created for single people.

Abidemi: Wow!

Aimee: So Paul, what’s the most memorable job experience that you have?

Paul: Hmm, well, I think the most memorable one is the volunteering time that I spent in Australia. And I was up in the northeastern corner where there’s a relatively small rainforest's. And I was helping with a research station that’s located in the rainforest. So we do a range of different things, going from trying to control coconuts—coconut trees.

Aimee: Control?

Paul: Yeah, because, like, believe it or not, you imagine this kind of tropical paradises to have coconut trees but they’re actually very invasive and they’re not native to that area. And basically, if you let a population of coconut trees to go out of control, nothing else can grow.

Goron: When I want to look something like more original, I started to watch some Korean movies or Indian movies from Bollywood, which are really interesting. I was fairly surprised. Try it guys because Korean movies are great. Are great.

Michael: Korean movies are good but the ones – the typical thing about Korean movies, they always end bad.

Win: They always end with cancer.

Michael: Whereas Hollywood movies, usually there's always like it has a good ending.

Warren: So Antoinette, you’ve been living in Japan for a while now, right?

Antoinette: Yes, that's right.

Warren: Well, can you tell me, do you like to use chopsticks or forks and knives more?

Antoinette: It depends on what I’m eating really. For the most part, I enjoy using chopsticks. They are easy to use. I don’t have to worry about cutting anything. And especially if I’m eating Japanese food, which tends to be chopped in small pieces, small bite-size pieces, chopsticks are perfect.

Todd: So CleAnn, can you talk a little bit about Carnival in your country?

CleAnn: Actually, Carnival in my country started a very long time ago. After the end of slavery. And now it has kind of changed a lot into a big festival where everybody basically dances in the street wearing very little clothes. Very colorful costumes, listening to music. It lasts for two days; it's called Carnival Monday and Tuesday. And for those two days, that's when we have the big parades in the street, with big costumes, small costumes, and a lot of music.

The days leading up to carnival may actually be more important than the two days of Carnival themselves, because that's when we have a lot of concerts and competitions for Calypsonians, and Calypsonians are people who sing Calypso, which is music that's native to Trinidad and Tobago. And we have a lot of steel band festivals, and steel bands are like big musical bands who play the steel drums, which were invented in Trinidad and Tobago.

Todd: So, this is a national holiday. Everything's closed down?

Computers are an amazing thing, you know they have really improved people's lives over the past 15 or 20 years. You know you can do word processing. You can access libraries of information. You can communicate with your friends 24 hours a day across the globe. You can do art. You can watch movies. You can play music. All sorts of interesting and cool stuff, that makes life more pleasurable, or makes life easier, you know, it's really an amenity that's been a big part of most people's lives for a long time now, and they always seem to be improving and getting bigger and better. Well, actually, they're getting smaller and better, but why is it that over this time, that computers never seem to run smoothly all the time. There's always little glitches and problems. You know, computers are getting better but so are viruses. Programs are getting easier and better, but they're also getting more expensive and you always have to upgrade because what you want to get doesn't work necessarily with what you have on your computer, you know.

Internet connections are always speeding up, but there's always a slow internet connection, at least 20 or 25 percent of the time. You know, if you want to run something you always need to download this or download this. This program is incompatible with this program. When you are on the internet, there is always strange pop-up ads and things like that. E-mail! Ah, your e-mail box is full, too much memory, yeah, printers, printers are the worst of all. You know after all this time, why is it that printers always break down when you need to print something on time. Hey, there's my little ramble about computers, but all in all, they're good, cause without computers there wouldn't be such a wonderful site lke ELLLO.

Todd: Ah, so, Ruth, we are both teachers

Ruth: That's right

Todd: And we have students and we teach our students English, and English is not their first language, what do you do in class when students do not speak English? When they speak their own language instead?

Ruth: Firstly, I give them a stern look, although that doesn't always work, then, well, if I'm setting an activity, I always make sure that, I ask them first of all which language they are going to do the activity in, and any student who's not going to speak English has to put their hand up and generally students don't like to be the odd one out so they don't put their hand up.

Akane: Ruth, what do you think about stay-at-home parents?

Ruth: Do you mean like one parent staying at home with a child?

Akane: Yeah, one parent staying at home and the other one working?

Ruth: Ah, I think it's really bad if a child stays at home with one parent actually.

Ruth: So Akane, is there anything that you’re frightened of?

Akane: Well… I’m, I’m really scared of horror movies. I never watch them, cuz they really really frighten me.

Ruth: Horror movies wow. Have your ever seen a horror movie?

Akane: Well, um, when I was little I used to watch them with my friends, because, back in the 80’s, horror movies used to be really popular. Like ah “Jason”, and “Freddy Cruger”. (Oh yeah) and things like that yeah. But ah, they used to keep me up at night and I couldn’t sleep.

I go to church and I'm going to tell you what it looks like inside my church. Firstly, when you go in, there's normally someone at the door who greets you and they give you a hymn book. Hymns are songs and we have a book full of songs, then in the main part of the church, we sit on pews. Pews are like long wooded seats and the pews in my church are quite big. You can fit about ten, or fifteen people, on one pew. The minister, he's the man who leads the service, is at the front of the church. He stands behind the pulpit, which is a wooden box, and he puts the bible on that box.

There are lots of stained glass windows in my church. They are windows with colored glass in them, and they often have pictures in them, normally pictures of stories in the bible. We also have an organ in church, and somebody plays the organ every week. The organ pipes are at the front and it's very loud. However, we also have a piano, and a small group of people who do singing on other days. I really like my church. I like the atmosphere there and I really think it's a friendly place.

Hello, and welcome to our show.
Today, we’ll be making one of my favourite recipes.

It’s called the egg spaghetti.

First, what you will need for this recipe is:

About a hundred grams of dried spaghetti,

Todd: Hey, Ruth, Akane and I were thinking of getting a movie tonight, and watching a movie.

Ruth: Oh, that sounds good.

Todd: So, you gonad come over?

Ruth: Really, I can't, actually. I've got to fill in some forms, tonight. I'm going to law school in September,
so I've got to get some money together.

Todd: Hey, Akane, I was thinking, why don't we get everyone together tonight and rent a movie.

Akane: Sounds like a good idea.

Todd: So, I'll run down to the video store. I was thinking, because Star Wars is coming out, why don't we get the previous Star Wars, Episode II, and watch that.

Akane: Oh, man. I really don't want to watch that again.

Todd: Hey, so Ruth, how do you get your news?

Ruth: Oh, I buy a newspaper.

Todd: Oh, really, what paper do you read?

Ruth: I always read the Guardian.

Todd: So, Ruthie, what did you do today?

Ruth: Well, I got up quite early this morning, actually, to go shopping.

Todd: Oh, yeah! (Yeah) Ooh, shopping.

Ruth: I really like shopping.

Todd: So, Akane, what did you do today?

Akane: Ah, today I cleaned my apartment.

Todd: Sounds fun!

Akane: It was actually. I really like cleaning cause I only get one day a week to do it, and my apartment gets clean.

Todd: So, Steven, you're from Europe, you're from England. (Yep) Have you travelled much in England? I'm sorry, have you travelled much in Europe?

Steven: Ah, yes I have, yeah. Um, when I was 18 and 20 I travelled all around Europe by train.

Todd: Oh, wow, sounds fun.

Steven: Ah, it's great, so basically backpacking, but going between countries by train with some friends. I travelled with some friends, so you can buy one ticket. It's called an interrail ticket and you can visit any country in Europe using this one ticket. They last, well, the ticket I had lasted one month.

Todd: So, Steven, I thought we would have a friendly debate. What do you think is the best sport in the world?

Steve: The best sport in the world is unquestionably what is know in America as soccer, what is know in my country as football.

Todd: Yeah, well, we'll call it football. I think football's good. I think football's good. It's a good sport, but I'm sorry, it's just not as good as baseball.

Steve: Really, I'm quite surprised to hear you say that because you did mention, I believe the question was "the best sport in the world" (Yes) whereas baseball isn't as nearly as widely appreciated worldwide as football is.

Todd: So, Mark, um, you mentioned that your wife is Japanese.

Mark: That’s right.

Todd: Ok, and how long have you been married?

Mark: We finally got married in April of 1998 but it took us a while to get to that stage.

Todd: So, Mark, I see you have beautiful pictures of your child up here. I didn’t know you had a baby!

Mark: Yeah, baby Roy is about 1 year and 4 months old now.

Todd: Oh wow, that’s exciting!

Mark: Yeah I mean everyone said there would be lots of changes in your life, but it’s probably changed my wife’s life more than mine. But I still enjoy giving him his bath and helping put him to bed and playing with him in the mornings and at the weekend.

Akane: Hey, Ruth.

Ruth: Hi, Akane

Akane: So we've been talking about your family a little bit. Um, I'd like to know a little bit more about the specific people in your family.

Ruth: Sure

Ruth: Akane, you've got a new skirt!

Akane: I do. Thanks for noticing.

Ruth: Oh, that's OK. So are you quite into fashion?

Akane: Well, I do like to buy stuff now and then.

Todd: Hey Ruth, how’s it going?

Ruth: Fine, thank you. I’m fine. How are you?

Todd: Good. Now Ruth, I was noticing that you are eating raisins.

Ruth: That’s right yes.

Waitress: Hi, welcome to our restaurant.

Customer: Thank you very much.

Waitress: How many people are there?

Customer: Just the one.

Todd: Carla, you said you have a chameleon story?

Carla: Yeah.

Todd: Actually first of all, just for the listeners, what is a chameleon.

Carla: I was going to tell you what that is. A chameleon is an animal that can change its' colour depending on where it is. So if you put it on a black book, for example, it'll turn very dark. If you put it in a light place, it'll go bright bright green. It could go spotty yellow and green. And the other thing that's interesting about it is that it's eyes can move in two different directions. So it's right eye can look forwards and it's left eye can look backwards. So if you stand on one side of it and wiggle your hand around, one eye will look towards the back and the other eye will look towards the front. And it also has a long long tongue so it zaps its tongue out to catch a fly. Anyway, we found this chameleon, and we took it into our house. And we had it for about, I think maybe two weeks. And we had an electrical chord, that went from our refrigerator, up the wall, into the ceiling above up to the electrical box in the roof space. And this chameleon spent two weeks crawling up the chord getting to the ceiling and dropping off. And crawling up the chord and getting to the ceiling and dropping off. But every once in a while we would, I took it into the classroom sometimes and we would kind of play with it because we liked to, it was a good biology experiment …

Todd: Now Kate, you said that you actually had exchange students live with you…

Kate: I did.

Todd: …in New Zealand.

Kate: I’ve had 3 exchange students.

Todd: Kate, you said you were an exchange student when you were younger?

Kate: That’s right. When I was 15 I went to Tokyo, Japan for just 2 weeks on a high school exchange.

Todd: So were you alone or with your school?

Kate: Erm I was…Well you could say I was alone. I went with a group of about 7 people around about the same age and they were from the same city.

Todd: So Tres, can you introduce yourself. Where are you from?

Tres: Hello everyone, my name is Tres Goodman. I’m from Tulsa Oklahoma. I was originally born in St. Louis Missouri, but I spent most of my life in Tulsa Oklahoma and in Japan.

Todd: Wow. What’s your city like back home Tulsa?

Tres: Tulsa’s an amazing city. We have about a half a million people, I think. Don’t hold me to it. There’s a lot of culture. Many people from various parts of the world, who either immigrated to Oklahoma, or their parents immigrated there. And therefore, they’re first generation. So we have lots of foods from all over the world. Oklahoma used to be a part of a Mexican state. So we have a very strong Mexican heritage that still exists. Going into food, of course we have food that’s similar to Northern Mexico, but we also have ribs which are probably the best you’ll ever find in the United States.

Todd: Eucharia, you have a new house!

Eucharia: Yes I just moved last week and I have a new house. It’s on the side of a mountain. At the back of my house there are rice fields. There’s one house immediately next door to mine and it has a crazy barking dog but luckily I like dogs and the dog likes me so when she sees me she gets really hyper now and welcomes me home.

Todd: That’s a nice feeling, it’s got to be nice having a dog welcoming you home! So how big is your house?

Eucharia: Well it’s like a small bungalow. It’s one storey. When you go in the door there is a japanese style porch for taking off your shoes. Then you are in a hallway and there’s an extremely large kitchen which goes from one side of the house to the other on the right hand side.

Akane: Hey, Ruth, let's play a game?

Ruth: Oh, great idea.

Akane: So, you think of one person in your head and I'll ask you questions and I'll try to guess who you're thinking of.

Ruth: So does it need to be a famous person?

Ruth: Now Akane!

Akane: Yeah.

Ruth: I've noticed that you fall asleep everywhere.

Akane: Oh, you've noticed. Oh, no, it's actually a problem that I have.

Todd: Jeanie, you are from Philadelphia, correct?

Jeanie: Yep.

Todd: Now is Philadelphia a safe city? Do you have lots of crime?

Jeanie: Yeah, we've got lots of crime. Depending on the area where you are. Um, where I grew up, I lived in a black ghetto where there was like gun shooting at least three times a week. Usually it was, it had to do with conflicts between African Americans and Jamacians, um, pretty territorial. Basically, the African Americans were there first and when the Jamacians moved in they decided that they wanted to take over so lots of wars going on along with that.

Todd: So, Mark, I heard that you are going to be leaving Tokyo pretty soon.

Mark: I am. I'm getting out of the city.

Todd: Ah, man, so when you go back to America are you going to live in a big city like Atlanta or Birmingham?

Mark: Well, I from Birmingham, which is a kind of medium sized city, but there's a lot of access to the countryside, cause Birmingham is a medium sized city but Alabama is very rural, so lots of mountains, lots of countryside and I'm actually looking forward to getting into that setting again.

Brett: Hi, Senum, how are you?

Senum: Good, thank you Brett. How are you?

Brett: Very good. So let's talk about family today.

Senum: Alrighty then.

Mark: Hey, Todd, when you look back on your high school experience, do you, in general, do you see it as a positive or a negative experience?

Todd: Oh, definitely positive. It was one of the best times of my life.

Mark: Yeah.

Todd: Oh, it was awesome. I mean, it was being with your friends,and you know, driving for the first time and having your first part-time job and playing sports and going to dances. It was great.

Todd: So Jeff, you're going back to Canada. What are you gonna do, just sit on the couch and watch TV?

Jeff: No, I'm going to go on a trip with my father.

Todd: Really, just your dad?

Jeff: Just me and my dad. We are going to go back to the island, the small island in Eastern Canada, that I was born on, and that my dad lived on for about 12 years.

Todd: So, Rina, you were saying Lebanon, or Beirut, has really good night clubs. (Mm-hm) Ah, what's a really cool night club in Beirut?

Rina: My favorite night club was rated 5th in Maxim magazine, and it's called B. O. 18, and what it used to be was a Palestinian burial ground and,

Todd: Wait a minute! (Yeah) It, there's no longer dead people there?

Rina: No, no, no. It used to be. (OK) Just during the civil war, cause there was a 17 year war, and what it is, you walk up, you don't see anything, it's just a big open space, but you see these, like, almost like subway stairs going down, and you go down these stairs and the theme inside this place is death, and it's like a big coffin, so you have red velvet walls and all the tables are little coffins with Palestinian soldier pictures on it and single rows and it's just a really good, it's a really neat club. And I went to a lot of theme clubs, too, I went to one that's called The Music Hall and it's like just, like a big theater, it was just amazing.

Todd: So, Rina, now you are Lebanese (Mm-hm) and you grew up in a very small Canadian town.

Rina: Oh, yes.

Todd: So you really have two cultures. What's it like growing up with two cultures?

Rina: In the beginning it was very hard. My dad was very strict. I wasn't allowed to work. I had to fight to have my first job at 19.

Todd: OK so, here we go, now Terry you were saying that you went from Vancouver to San Diego. How many days did that take?

Terry: Um, the total trip took 42 days but that included one day on the bus up and then one day on the bus back so 40 days on the road, of which 36 days were riding days and 4 days off.

Todd: That is so cool. So first you have your bike in your hometown and you put your bike on the bus and you took the bus to Vancouver?

Terry: Right. Yeah, you have to put your bike in a bicycle box as it's know. It requires a little disassembling of the bicycle but, it's not difficult.

tine on the road. (Part 3)

Todd: OK, Terry, now when you take your bike trips, when you bicycle across America or down the West Coast, what is a typical day? Like how would you start your day and how would you finish your day on the bicycle?

Terry: Well, a typical day, I'm camping usually, so I usually get up at or near sunrise, sometimes I get up slightly before sunrise, and I have to pack up all of my camping gear, stuff the sleeping bag in a stuffed sack, roll up my air mattress, pack up the tent, and then eat breakfast and then I usually try and, you know, do the daily essentials and then hit the road. I usually try to be on the road on the road sometime around 7, 7:30 in the morning, depending on when the sun comes up. But I like to go cycling early in the morning because it's cooler and there's, you tend to see more wildlife and I just think it's a nicer time of day, especially if you're riding in the summer, it tends to get warmer, as the day goes on, so, and then I usually try and hit, find a campground sometime in the afternoon and then the process starts again in setting up camp, setting up a tent and what not. Um, during the day, I'm usually cycling, actually cycling for 5 to 6 hours a day and then taking two or three hours off, various breaks, and eating lunch and what not, and then usually in the afternoon, I stop and buy some food, that I can cook, so I can cook dinner in camp and have breakfast the next morning. Oh, that's pretty cool.

Todd: So you just pay for everything with a credit card, or you bring cash, or?

Todd: Now, Terry, when you bicycle on these long trips, across America, what do you do on a really bad day, when it's foggy or rainy or windy do you just keep on peddling?

Terry: Usually, yes. The philosophy kind of goes that if you're going to take a day off, and you need to take a day off every eight days or once a week, whatever, just to give your body a chance to recover and recuperate, um, if you want to take a day off, if you want to enjoy the day, so ideally you want a day off when the sun is shining so if it's, if you wake up in the morning and you're scheduled to ride that day and it's raining, you just pack up and you ride in the rain. As far as the fog goes, I just, the main thing I try and be aware of is increasing my visibility just to make sure that the drivers have a chance to see me. So I have ***** covers that are a high visibility yellow and I tend to wear a high visibility yellow jersey and put a strobe on the back of my light, anything I can do to increase my visibility.

Todd: Mm, man, OK. Are there any other problems that you face when you're traveling, like do you get sick or do you get fatigued or things like that?

Terry: Oh, sure. I definitely get fatigued on trips and yeah, you sometimes you have, you don't feel well or whatever but it's part of the trip I guess is just pushing on. I think, you know for me, part of it's just the, I'm fairly competitive anyway and it's a challenge to try and do a trip like that and, unless you're really ill, or you've had an accident or something, most days you can persevere and struggle through. Fortunately most days are in enjoyable, I mean that doesn't happen that often, but as far as riding in the rain, some trips you have rain and some you don't. Amazingly on this trip, I had no rain. This is the first trip I've ever done in my life with no rainy days. Had a lot of fog, but no rain.

Todd: So Marion, you've lived in Italy. (Yes) Italy has many favorite cities. Can you talk a little bit about them?

Marion: Sure, well the first city I lived in was Genoa. And Genoa is on the Riviera, so it's a very beautiful place. It's a port city, so my apartment was actually looking out over the port, so I had a great apartment. It was a great view. Genoa has a very old center, so the buildings are hundreds and hundreds of years old obviously but it's quite dirty, well I don't really want to say dirty, but it's not very well looked after, the historical center, which is a pity but it does have really a lot of character. I really liked it.

Todd: So what other cities have you been to?

Marion: Well, I've been to Rome of course. I've been to Rome a few times. I think it's one of my favorite cities actually. I love the fact that in Rome, you walk out of your hotel, or wherever you're staying and you're just surrounded by history, by this amazing, you know, the Coliseum for example. Actually the first time I ever arrived in Italy, I came from the airport directly to the Coliseum station and I walked out the door of that metro station and there was the Coliseum in front of me. It was one of those moments. It was "Ah, my God!" and there was a full moon up to the left of the coliseum. It was like, almost too perfect, too good to be true.

Todd: Nitya, in the U.S. we have many different parts of the country and people are very different. What about India? Are the people very different in different regions?

Nitya: Yeah, I like, I think that in India the different parts, they have totally different languages, that's sometimes it's a problem because somebody who comes for a travel, for traveling or something in the northern part of India, from South, it's really difficult for them to manage the language, because though are national language is Hindi, and also like, the constitutional national language is English, but still, I mean, India is really huge, people coming from South, there are some people like who do, who do understand Hindi to some extent, but there are many people who don't understand at all.

Todd: Really, they don't speak Hindi?

Nitya: Yeah, because we have 33 national languages. (Wow) so,

Todd: Nitya, now in India, the Ganges river is very famous. Why is the river so famous in India?

Nitya: I guess most reason because, the Ganges River's origin is from Himalayas and it's considered very pure because it's basically by the melting of the ice by the Himalayas, and it's, the whole 12 months and 24 hours flowing river, I mean, it's, there's no time in the whole year that it dries up and people say the Ganges River dries up, it's like throughout the year, the river is there, and water is there, the water level is maintained and it's considered wholly because of the religious reasons I guess because they say in Himalayas, there was a Shiva there and this Ganges river origins from his head, (Oh, I see) Yeah, so this is...

Todd: And Shiva is a very famous God.

Nitya: Yeah, exactly.

Todd: Michael, what time did you get up this morning?

Mike: About 7, no 6.

Todd: Really, is that like your normal schedule?

Mike: I usually get up around 6. (Yeah) Yeah. Go to bed around 11. Get up at 6. On a good day, sometimes go to bed later.

Todd: Michael, this is a beautiful home.

Mike: Yeah, we've lived here for about twelve years and it's too big for us now.

Todd: Really. It's pretty big.

Mike: Well, yeah, I mean, it's got four bedrooms and it's got this big living room area and dining room area, and I've got two kids and both of them are in college now, so they don't live here anymore. (Oh) So my wife and I are thinking about, you know, moving to a smaller house.

Joel: Hey, Tom, when you were in Thailand, did you, were you good at bargaining? You know how you have to haggle to get the price lower.

Tom: Once I got started it was OK, but, oh, getting started was so difficult.

Joel: What do you mean?

Tom: I just knew that when I walked up to a market stall, that I'd pick up something, and if it was something that I wanted, to get it, I'd have to start fighting. I'd have to get through his argument it felt like, and I was really uncomfortable about doing that.

Joel: So, I know a lot of things are cheaper in Thailand, but like electronics, are they cheaper in Thailand or cheaper in Japan?

Tom: That's a difficult question. I think electrical accessories are cheaper in Thailand. Do you know what I mean by that? I mean, the plug-ins, like if you want a computer mouse or programs or.

Joel: Like a memory stick.

Tom: Memory sticks, yeah. They're always cheaper.

Tom: Joel, you speak Thai.

Joel: Yeah, a little bit.

Tom: Your wife speaks English.

Joel: Yep, yep.

Todd: So, greg you were saying you had brothers and they always picked on you like all older brothers do. Do you have any stories about your brothers used to do to you?

Greg: Ah, yes, you know I think back on some of the crazy fights we had and it is absolutely amazing that we are all still alive. (Yeah) One time, I was closing the garage door and I didn't see my brother, my oldest brother walking behind me and I pulled the door down and it hit him in the head.

Todd: Right, ooh, ow!

Greg: A complete accident. (Yeah) but he just got so angry. He had a pair of shoes that he was holding in his hand, and I think he was going to polish them or something, and he just took the shoe and he smacked me as hard as he could right in the stomach.

Todd: You know, Greg, we were both talking about how we have part-time job, you know, I think there's a lot of benefit but looking back, sometimes I wonder if it's not so good if children work.

Greg: Why?

Todd: You know, I just think, basically, that kids get in this trap, they start working, they start getting a little money, they kind of get into buying things, consumerism, and they really don't focus on studying or being in clubs or just doing extra-curricular activities when they're young.

Greg: But sometimes if people work, they learn that they have to work in order to get something and then they transfer that to school and say, OK, I have to work at school in order to get good grades, or to get into the high school I want, or into the college I want.

Todd: So, Shuan, where are you from?

Shuan: I'm actually, well, I was actually originally born in Hong Kong and I lived in Hong Kong for around six years and then I moved to Canada which is where I am from now.

Todd: Wow, so do you remember Hong Kong?

Shuan: I do. I loved Hong Kong. I still do love Hong Kong. It's always been the city that I was born in, and the city I grew up in.

Todd: So Shuan, you're a student at the university, and you will be graduating soon. What are your future plans? What kind of jon do you want?

Shuan: Right now actually, I'm trying to get into Japan Airlines and an international pilot.

Todd: Oh, you want to be a pilot.

Shuan: Yeah, actually, I've already got a private pilot's license and, well...

Joel: So, Mitchell, I only surfed for about a year and I never got very good at it. I wonder if you could explain how a beginner goes about learning how to surf.

Mitchell: Well, that's a tough question because I was surfing ever since I was small so it came natural to me, surfing, but since I know I surf. The beginning is put your board in the sand, lay on your board on the sand, pretend that you are paddling and then push yourself up like a push-up and then stand. You repeat that over-and-over again and eventually you enter the water and you get a friend to hold the board for you and then you stand up in the water while your friend pushed the board to gain balance.

Joel: The part I had the hardest time with was when there were big waves, it was so hard to get out far enough so that you could actually catch a wave. What do you call it, "duck diving"?

Mitchell: Duck diving, yeah, it's key to surfing. If you see a wave, the thing is that you have to see the wave before it comes. That's the secret, like where's it crashing and when it's crashing. We call it "crashing" when it's coming down. Duck diving, you put your knees on the board if it's a big wave...

Todd: So, Lucinda you were saying that your boyfriend Kwame really likes New Zealand, so are you guys going to move back to New Zealand.

Lucinda: Yes, we're actually leaving at the end of this month on the 30th of November.

Todd: Oh, really, you're moving. He's moving for good?

Lucinda: Yes, yes, we're both moving there to work.

Todd: So, Tres, can I ask you some questions about your hair?

Tres: Sure, go ahead.

Todd: So you have dreadlocks. How long have you had dreadlocks?

Tres: I've had dreadlocks ever since I was in high school, so I would say over ten years.

Todd: Hey, Simon, we're talking about the Olympics. Do you think the olympics still have their core meaning, or do you think the Olympics now are two commericalized and two much big money?

Simon: Well, I, you know, I would hate to sit on the fence on this one cause I am sitting on the fence but I think both. Yeah, it's far too corporate. It's way too corporate, too much media attention, too many sponsors, too much corruption, but I mean, I think you know, when you look at the athletes during the opening ceremony and you see the actual sports, that they're doing the same thing that they were many years ago and you can see the joy on their faces and even people who are not famous, you know having their time in the sun or in the snow in this case, you know, really enjoying it and being the best at what they do, so yeah. The answer is both.

Todd: OK, if you could change on thing to improve the olympics, what would you change?

Simon: What would I change if I could improve the olympics? Well, I think, yeah, I would just change the influence that governments and sponsorship have and I'd probably give the olympics a more organic feel, rather than, cause you know, the United States would get it every second or third time just because of all the corporate sponsorship and all the TV money.

Tom: Do you have computers in your classroom?

Martin: No and I wish we did I think it would help out a lot of the teachers and a lot of the students to have more of an interactive experience and be able to research things as teachers are talking. What do you think Tom?

Tom: I'm surprised that you want them. I think they're a terrible idea. I think they distract students they mean that the point of the lesson is lost that the teacher loses their control over where the class should go. I think it's ridiculous this drive to get computers absolutely everywhere.

Martin: Oh but don't you think it adds to giving a hands-on-experience especially with accounting or other business related applications that if the teacher is expressing it, if you don't have a computer you can't really have a hands-on experience and a lot of the lesson might be lost without actually doing it in the classroom and being able to check your work.

Joel: So, you're from a smaller island. What kind of concerns do people on your island have or what kind of concerns do you have?

Patricia: For the world you mean?

Joel: Right. Right.

Patricia: Well recently, when I was in high school I had a friend's aunt who died from AIDS and she was probably the first victim of AIDS, the first AIDS victim in our country and from then on I've had a concern about AIDS. I think it's a very sad issue that should be--people should be concerned with at present and being at a university that is in Asia at the moment I think that the country that I'm living at now (which is Japan). They have this issue but the thing is their cultural understanding is a bit limited to a certain degree whereby they're not allowed to accept the fact that there are AIDS victims. So I think that like other countries Japan should be one of the countries that should be concerned with AIDS, should have projects and should have workshops and lectures to discuss certain things.

Todd: So, Ruth, you're from Ireland.

Ruth: Yes, that's right.

Todd: And could you talk a little bit about the government in Ireland, like do you have a president or a prime minister?

Ruth: In fact, we have both. We have a president, Mary McAleese, and then there's another set, another ruling body, where the head is called the Taoiseach, which is Irish for Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister at the moment is a man called Bertie Ahern.

Ruth: So, Tres, you read a lot of comics. Don't you find them really violent in Japan?

Tres: Yeah, there are violent comic books. There are sexy comic books. There are comic books I wouldn't show to mygrandmother.

Ruth: But compared to the comic books in America?

Tres: Yeah, I think in the United States, first of all, the idea of reading a comic book is a bit different. Adults don't read comic books as much as they do here in Japan, so if I really wanted to find a violent, or a comic book that had explicit content, then I'd have to find a special shop, most likely I would have to be 21 or over, just to get into that shop, whereas here in Japan, just go to your local supermarket and there you are.

Joel: So, anyway, you talked about city hunter. That's a Japanese comic? OK, tell me about that?

Tres: I really don't remember much. It was some guy that was wanted, I guess for murder, I don't think he really did it. I think. I'm not sure. But, yeah, the issues I treked through, this guy was searching for a little elementary school girl, and eventually he found her, but right before they could reunite, the cop came in and they started fighting and the cop beat him really bad and shot him a few times but the guy still escaped.

Joel: So this is just one comic book or it's a whole series?

Tres: It was, what do you call, BJ Jump from like 1992.

Todd: So, Simon, how old is your son now?

Simon: He's just over three months now.

Todd: OK, so it should be pretty fresh in your memory. Do you remember what it was like the day he was born?

Simon: Yeah, sure. I was in the operating room.

Todd: Now, Keiko, maybe you can help me. I teach at university. My students are university students and they are so devoted to their circle, their clubs. Why? Why are they so - ? To them, it's more important than class.

Keiko: Well, I think it's because, in a way they have been like a prisoner, you know, a prisoner of, you know, the cram schols. They couldn't have much social life until they get into university, and finally they have this freedom after they got into university and now is there, actually, the first and the last chance to have fun with their friends because after four years they have to start working, and before the school years and university, they have to study everyday, so I think they are trying to get the most out of their school years.

Todd: So, when you were at university, was your circle or club more important to you than your actual studies?

Keiko: No, actually, I was a bit different, cause I always heard about how Japanese students don't study hard in university, so I said to myself, OK, I won't be like that.

Todd: So Aaron, in Canada you're a bouncer.

Aaron: Yeah, that's right. I'm a bouncer.

Todd: A lot of people might not know, what is a bouncer? What is a bouncer's job?

Aaron: A bouncer! The bouncer is actually a name that, I guess it's called a colloquialism. Bouncer is not our actual job description. We're security. But a bouncer comes from the fact that we bounce people out of the bar. So we check around and make sure that the liquor laws are being enforced in the bar and that if people are being rough or rowdy or too drunk, we ask them to leave, and if they don't leave voluntarily, then we physically remove them.

Wendi: Alright, so I want to talk a little bit about what people's impressions of you are when they see you're tattoos, either strangers or people that actually know you.

Rina: Some people it can be negative. Some people are interested and I have no problems with that if people are interested, and the negative feedback I get from it, it's OK. I know that these people were raised differently or they have different beliefs or ideas and I understand where they're coming from but, no, it's hard when people judge you just by face value but it's not my issue it's theirs so I'm OK with that.

Pause 1

Wendi: Right. Can you talk a little bit about a negative or really positive experience has been since you've had tattoos from other people. Do you have any situations that you can think of?

Wendi: So you were saying that your sister looked really beautiful?

James: Yeah.

Wendi: Can you tell me a little about what she was wearing?

James: Yeah, she was wearing my mother's original wedding dress that my mum made in like the 1960's so it was a real, English 60's-style lace and silk dress, a long train that went about two meters back. She had all her hair pinned up. She spent about an hour at the hair dressers before, a couple of hours before the wedding, and then an hour doing the make-up and then the last thing to go on was the wedding dress and then she came down the stairs and she just looked absolutely stunning.

Wendi: So I want you to tell me about your favorite movie ever, and why it's your favorite movie?

Ken: My favorite movie ever? OOh!

Wendi: Titanic.

Ken: Titanic. Yeah, no. No, it's not.

Wendi: OK, so the next thing was when I was young, I used to watch this TV program. It was called the "Wonder Years". And I had such a crush on that kid Fred.

Ken: Fred Savage was it?

Wendi: Yeah, yeah, Fred Savage. What was his name in that show?

Ken: I actually never really watched that show. No, I've seen a couple of reruns.

Todd: OK, now Jeff, you were saying that you made a movie. Could you talk about what was the best best thing, or the highlight of making a movie?

Jeff: Todd, documentary. We made a documentary, television documentary. The best thing about making the television documentary, it was independent, so we had total control. We shot what we wanted, when we liked and I think that was the best thing. We were our own bosses so I think when you're working for someone else you lose creativity so we could do anything we liked so that was the best thing.

Todd: Sorry, documentary. So, then what was the worst thing. Like what are some troubles that you had that really drove you nuts?

Jeff: Well, because it was independent, we had nobody helping us, which meant all the technical, the artistic decisions were made by us and we had no idea what were doing, so when you have no idea what you are doing and you're working by yourself it can be very, very difficult, very frustrating, just the lack of knowledge, not knowing what you're doing so yeah, that was the hardest thing.

Todd: OK, now Jeff, I've know you for along time. You are a very resourceful person. You always have these crazy jobs, and recently you had at a hospital, but you weren't a doctor. Could you please describe your job?

Jeff: Todd, it was a pharmaceutical company clinic that I was working at and it was, I was a guinea pig, a medical guinea pig which means that a new drug that is being introduced into a foreign country must be tested on an individual before it can be sold on the open market so I'm a guinea pig. It's tested on me, and once the results come back and everything is OK then it is sold to the public.

Todd: So when you say you were a guinea pig, like what did they do to you everyday, or what was your routine?

Jeff: Well let me qualify that it's not good work. You can't really make a living at it and bring up children but it pays very well,..., very very well. It's very lucrative so that's one of the enticements for doing this kind of work but it's just, your day is you get up are administered the drug, for example a flu medicine and then you remain in the clinic all day long and you read and write. You have the freedom to do whatever you like, but it's very monitored so you can't leave the clinic but you can do whatever you like to do in the clinic.

Todd: So, Jeff, we're talking about odd jobs. What's a job that you would like to have? What's a job that you think would be one of the coolest jobs to have?

Jeff: Difficult question, Todd. I guess the job that I would like to do, it might not be the coolest job, but I think it would be a fun job and I think it would pay OK, would be running a small tour company, so taking small groups of people to exotic locations like India and having a sort of very intimate tour so that you don't stand out in the country you're in and the people you're taking on the tour get to sort of blend in and see some of the real views of the country.

Todd: Now, that actually surprises me a little bit because you're a very worldly person Jeff and you're very conscious about culture and things like that. Don't you worry that if you have a job where you're bringing people into another culture that you maybe ruin it or spoil the culture a little bit?

Jeff: Yeah, Todd, that's a good point, but I think it's inevitable that they're going to go anyway, so you can take them and take them on a very low impact tour, where it doesn't disturb the country so much or you can let them go with a big organization that sort of takes them through a country so it's like a zoo, where there's no interaction and they're sort of looking, looking through a window so I think if I take them it will be less destructive to the culture.

Todd: Adrienne you have such interesting jewelry. I mean, it's just amazing. Where did you get all this stuff?

Adrienne: Well, all over actually. I like to travel. I tend to travel a lot as does most of my family, so whenever I travel somewhere I like to pick up something to remind me of the place that I visited, and the easiest thing to do is to pick up a small piece of jewelry instead of getting a poster or a t-shirt that won't last. I like the idea of having something small and also, I find whenever I wear jewelry that I bought somewhere interesting, it's a good conversation piece. Usually people ask you, " Where did you get this?" and I then have a story to tell and it's a good way to meet and talk to people. It's just interesting, so I have jewelry that I picked up when I travelled to Greece and when I travelled to Thailand and when I travelled to Africa and when I've travelled in Europe. Everywhere I've gone I picked up some small piece, a ring, a bracelet, a pendant, something and sometimes I even just pick up a bead or something that I make a necklace out of later.

Todd: So you said that you picked something up in Thailand. What did you buy in Thailand?

Adrienne: Oh, in Thailand it's really cool. There's... I went to some of the islands in Thailand that are actually well-known for having this interesting white shell, and I can't remember the name of it, but they call it, Shiva, something Shiva-eye, I think, but anyway it's white on one side with a spiral, and then on the other side it's a beautiful, usually green, brown or orange kind of mix of color, and so you can wear it either as the dark green shell or you can wear it as the white, with the spiral or the Shiva ..eye?... I can't think if that's right, anyway, so I bought a pendant that has this and then I made a bead necklace to hang it off of.

Todd: Hello, Adrienne.

Adrienne: Hi, Todd.

Todd: You know Adrienne I must compliment you. You always have the nicest jewelry.

Adrienne: Oh, thank you. That's a nice thing to say.

Todd: So, Adrienne, you are really into jewelry. You fix jewelry. Do you know a lot about gems and stones and things like that?

Adrienne: No, I don't know a lot, but I know what I like.

Todd: So what kind of stuff do you like?

Adrienne: Well, I'm actually not a big fan of precious stones like diamonds, rubies, emeralds. I think they are very beautiful but for everyday wear I prefer, I think they are called semi-precious stones, but I'm not even sure if I'm right about that either.

Adrienne: So, Lisa, what is that you're drinking?

Lisa: Oolong tea. Iced oolong tea.

Adrienne: Is it your favorite drink?

Lisa: It's not really my favorite drink. My favorite drink is Diet Coke. I love Diet Coke, but a couple of years ago, I was drinking only Diet Coke and started to realize that that probably was not the healthiest thing for me to be drinking, so I switched to oolong tea.

Todd: Now, Barbara, it's really good to see you. I heard that you were in the hospital.

Barbara: Yes, I was. I got sick in august last year and luckily I was with my students and the lady was a nurse. She and her husband drove me to the hospital. I was doubled over. I was clutching my stomach. I had so much pain, a burning sensation in my chest. I didn't know what was happening. They took me to the hospital and they did some tests and they said, “ Well, you have gallstones.”

Todd: Gallstones. What exactly are gallstones?

Barbara: Well, next to your stomach, there is an organ called the gallbladder and the job of this organ is to hold some liquid which comes out of your liver and this liquid stays in your gallbladder and is saved for when it' needed, and when you eat something that contains fat or oil, the bile from the gallbladder is squirted out and goes into, perhaps your stomach or your intestine. I'm not sure which, and there it does something to help you to cope with the oil. Perhaps it binds with the oil or makes it easier for your body to get rid of it – to eliminate it.

Todd: So, Barbara, we're talking about your time in the hospital. You were in the hospital for sometime. First of all, how long were you actually in the hospital?

Barbara: Well, I was in two hospitals actually. At first, I was in a big hospital for three and a half weeks and I was on a drip for all of that time, and they didn't let me eat anything, and the first couple of days, they also didn't let me drink anything.

Todd: Whoa!

Barbara: Yeah.

Todd: So, back to the hospital, so you were there all day, what do you do? Do you watch TV? I mean, do you play cards?

Barbara: Well, at first I was in too much pain to do anything, and, well, after awhile friends came to see me. They brought me books. I read a lot of books. I had my portable CD player and listened to music and I guess the most important part of the hospital routine is when they bring the food around – the meal times, but I couldn't eat.

Todd: Oh, no.

Barbara: So I could just watch from the sidelines as the other people in my room, were, you know, getting ready for meals, and they would get out their chopsticks and they would be discussing what was on today's menu and, yeah, they really got into it, and I was left out, you know.

Adrienne: What was it like to take her to the vet?

Lisa: Taking her to the vet was incredibly scary because it was obvious that there was something wrong, and it was probably six or seven o'clock in the morning so it was very early. I didn't know where there was an emergency vet, so I called a couple of friends, woke them up, and made them help me, made them help me find an emergency vet that would service us and finally we found one. Took her there, and it happened to be the most expensive vet in the city, so we went into the vet, and they took x-rays and after about two or three hours they said that they were going to hold her for observation, but they said her condition was quite serious and that she would probably need to have an operation. After two days of her staying in the vet, the doctor confirmed that she was going to need and operation, and the operation was going to cost three thousand dollars.

Adrienne: Oh, my goodness.

Lisa: Not only that, those two days in the vet cost fifteen hundred dollars, so at that time I had just moved out. I didn't have a lot of cash, so I went to... I took Rocky to a vet where her friend takes her animals to and he kept her there for observation and said that if the cat is able to eventually go to the bathroom on her own, the cat will recover and heal herself, and there won't be a need for an operation, so I was very concerned that, first of all, she wouldn't be able to go to the bathroom, and if she couldn't then I would have to put her to sleep, so after ten days, she recovered incredibly well, she was trying to start and walk again. It was obvious that she was going to survive and a year later she is a very energetic, slightly crazy, like you can never tell she fell off a balcony four stories.

Todd: Now, Phil, you mentioned that you actually studied automotive engineering.

Phil: Yeah, that's correct.

Todd: OK, can you explain what automotive engineering is?

Phil: It's basically car design and basically technology involved in cars in all aspects: the engine, the performance, the aerodynamics, so it's basically an overview of all kind of car aspects for the future.

Todd: Now, Phil, you're from England and you're a big football fan.

Phil: Yeah, very much. Definitely. Football's one of my main passions in life.

Todd: OK, I'm a huge American football fan, and I know American football there's a certain process when you go the game that happens on game day. Can you talk about what happens when you go watch a British match, like a Premiere League match? Like what's the routine from morning to night? Like if you're a fan?

Phil: If it's a home game then I guess I leave about two hours before the game. I arrive at the stadium and go the bar and have like a drink of beer before the game, and then I'll always wear my football kit: my shirt and my scarf; and then I'll go the game. I'll find my normal place in the stand, cause I always stand or sit in the same place. It's kind of tradition. It's like my routine, and then for about half-an-hour before the game, the stadium starts to fill up, the supporters start to make a lot of noise and they start to get behind the team and everyone... the adrenaline's flowing, and there's a few opposition supporters and it's generally kind of banter between the supporters whilst the players are warming up on the pitch.

Lisa: Montreal in the summer is beautiful temperature. It's about 25 to 32 degrees. Not very humid. The days are warm. The nights are cooler and it is a wonderful place. You can go to Old Montreal which is very European. You can go to downtown Montreal, tons of shopping. You can go to the canals where you can go whitewater rafting if you want, all in the city of Montreal. With the distance, because Montreal is quite a small city, you can walk, or it's a fifteen, twenty minute car ride wherever you want to go.

Adrienne: Oh, that sounds cool. What about nighttime? What is there to do at night in Montreal?

Lisa: The nightlife in Montreal is sometimes even better than the day life. Montreal, because of the French and English influences, there are different areas where you can go and get different aspects of Montreal culture, so during the evening in old Montreal it is filled with Jazz clubs or very Quebec, French folk songs and folk performances. Cafe life in Montreal is very, very important, so you can sit outside in cafe's as well as there are many bars. Huge party scene. Great DJ's. Then you can also go to Cresent Street, which is a popular street with beautiful bars. The famous auto racer, Jacques Villeneuve has a bar there, and that's really where a lot of the, a lot of the tourists as well as well as people visiting from Hollywood, a lot of the stars hang out around Cresent Street. Also, the restaurants in Montreal are fabulous because Montreal is so diverse culturally, you have great greek food, great Jewish food, great Italian food, great Chinese food, great french food of course.

Adrienne: So, what's your favorite day. Sorry. What is a perfect day in Montreal? What would you do?

Lisa: That's a great question. The perfect day would start on Sunday. Wake up in the morning. Go to St. Viateur's Bagels for fresh bagels with cream cheese, then walk over, probably a twenty minute walk over to the Mount Royal which is a big mountain in the middle of the city where tons of people come. They have a tam-tam, it's called tam-tams in the park where people from all over Montreal have drums and do a big drum circle, turned into a bit of a flea market, you can bring the family, you know, lay your blanket down on the mountain and just relax and listen to the drums. You go for lunch at Arahova, which is actually right across the street from St. Viateur's Bagels and have delicous s Souvlaki Pita in Souvlaki Pita , fantastic, and then you just finish off your day strolling around Prince Arthor Street where they have clowns and outdoor comedians and outdoor musicians and then you go have a cup of coffee somewhere on, around Prince Author street area, outside of course because the weather is beautiful and you finish it off with a nice drink somewhere like Angel or Tokyo bar.

Adrienne: Sounds great.
Lisa: It is.

Adrienne: So how do you eat the sushi? What's the best way to eat it?

Hiroshi: I usually use chopsticks but some people, they definitely prefer just using hands.

Adrienne: You can eat with your hands at the restaurant?

Hiroshi: The restaurant if it's more an upscale restaurant, that it has a little art deco that you feel that it is not like old school, but really upscale restaurant. I would recommend to use chopsticks but if it's an old school sushi restaurant and in downtown area, yeah, it's totally acceptable to use your hands.

Todd: Rebecca, you are from Australia. Can you talk about Sydney and Melbourne? Most people know Sydney and Melbourne and if somebody was going to Australia and could chose one city, what city would you recommend?

Rebecca: I would recommend Sydney, of course, because I'm from Sydney. I think Sydney is very beautiful and has a lovely deep blue harbor, lots of national park around the outside, famous landmarks, like of course the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Everybody wants to take photos of those, and it has a lot of different cultures too. It's a very interesting place to be.

Todd: OK, so what about Melbourne? What are the good points or the highlights if somebody does decide to go to Melbourne?

Rebecca: Well, I'm probably the wrong person to ask, but Melbourne is famous for it's good shopping and it has lots of entertainment, so good concerts. It has a big casino of course, and some people say the restaurants are better in Melbourne. There's certainly lots of different kinds.

Todd: Rebecca, I'm a huge animal lover. I love animals and Australia has lots of wildlife and animals. I was wondering, could you talk about them and starting with, what's the deal with the camels? Why do you have camels?

Rebecca: Camels are not really Australian animals but Australia's really big. It has a lot of desert in the center part of Australia so when white people first arrived in Australia, they decided to explore inland and because it's so dry, there's no water, the couldn't use horses so they brought camels over, but some got away and they went wild and they started breeding and now there's hundreds, maybe thousands, of camels running around wild in the desert.

Todd: No, way, really. So these camels are just free to do whatever, like, do people try to catch them or just let them be or what's the deal?

Rebecca: As far as I know they have no jobs, no obligations. I think they can just do what they want. No, but in the northern part of Australia, actually they have a famous camel race every year, and it's like a horse race but with camels. That's pretty funny.

Todd: So, Rebecca, now you were saying that were a chef, or you worked in a kitchen in your previous job. Can you talk about that? Like where did you work and what was it like?

Rebecca: OK, I worked in a few different restaurants over several years, sometimes full-time, sometimes part-time. Sometimes I worked in busy city restaurants, and other times just small cafes doing breakfast, that kind of thing.

Todd: OK, so, you must have had a very busy routine. Can you describe what's the typical workday when you are a chef?

Rebecca: Well, usually you start preparing in the afternoon and that's the quiet part of the day. You don't have any customers. You just come in and you chop up all the vegetables and the things you need to do like that. You cook any food that can be cooked before and organize all the ingredients for the dishes. Then service starts at about six o'clock and that's when it gets really crazy. It's really busy from then on and you have to be very organized and cook everything as fast as possible.

Todd: So, you know, you have a very small school. Have you ever worked for a large school before?

Conrad: Yes, I've worked basically every different type of school possible to work here in Japan, starting with the kindergarden, junior high, senmongakko. I was at a university for four years and I also did a little bit of intensive English camps just a couple of years ago.

Todd: So you said senmongakko. What's that?

Conrad: That's a kind of technical or vocational college. It's a two year school.

Todd: Peter, your English is amazing. It's really good and people from Sweden, your country, also often speak really good English. Could you talk about your secret? Why is your English so good?

Peter: First, I would like to thank you for your comment. That's really nice. It's a difficult question and it's a difficult answer but all I can say is that, especially in Sweden, I'm not sure about our neighbor countries, but especially in Sweden, when you're raised, you start to learn English from like when you are three, four years old by watching television because we have a lot of programs that are usually from England or from America and so we tend to watch a lot, those kinds of programs. The same with me. I remember when I was four years old I started to watch horror movies on American TV shows that was actually broadcast in Sweden and my mother, she always like, she actually cursed me not to watch those because it was so scary but I never thought is was scary, but more and more actually I learned English by using English words, and, but nothing happened until when you start to learn English in school, when you really go into grammar and that is when you start to learn 'Yes', 'No', 'Car', Apple', 'I have an apple', 'I have a car' and also back then I found it really interesting to learn something new, not only mathematics, and draw with a crayon on paper, but also to learn a new language that some other people in other countries also speak, that I someday would be able to speak with them as well, so I was really enthusiastic in school by learning English and during this time, cause in Sweden we study from second grade up to high school, and during all this years I've actually watched a lot of American movies, a lot of English movies, and also it doesn't always have to be from those countries, as long as the language that you is used within the movie, as long as it is English then it's perfectly fine and also we have a lot of people in Sweden that are from other countries, foreign countries, and so many times it actually happens that you have to ask them something or they come up to you and ask where they are supposed to go and where they can grab the bus they are trying to take and usually it's in English so it's really fascinating how you actually learn English in Sweden.

Todd: Keren, you have talked about places you have been. Now. why don't you talk about places you want to go. Where would you like to visit?

Keren: Whoa! There are so many places. I'd love to go to Cuba.

Todd: Why Cuba?

Keren: I imagine it's such a unique place and it probably won't be so unique for much longer, and I'd love to see what life is like there.

Todd: Could you talk about, when you travel, do you prefer to travel with somebody to travel alone?

Keren: I prefer to travel with someone but on my next trip I'm actually traveling alone so I'm looking forward to seeing whether I enjoy myself. Yeah.

Todd: So this will be the first time you've travelled alone?

Keren: It will be the first trip where I actually plan the whole trip by myself. Yeah.

Todd: So, Matt, we're talking about adjectives this week and, or qualities about people, so let's talk about what makes people good at what they do. First of all, what do you think makes a good student? We're both teachers so in your mind what's a good student?

Matt: I think somebody who is motivated, self-motivated and somebody who takes an interest in what they are doing and works at it, and I mean, as a teacher I always enjoy people who are outgoing and have a personality, but I know reality is that not every student can be like that so you just try to... as a student I think that the most important thing is to show interest and participate and work outside of class.

Todd: Right, I totally agree. OK, so now how about work. What makes a good boss?

Matt: I've had so many different jobs and so many different bosses. I think a good boss is somebody who knows his... the people who work for him, and he knows the strengths and he can communicate or she can communicate what they really want for each worker and somebody who can delegate responsibility, but that shows that they know and that they care about what their minions are doing for them.

Todd: OK, Keren, we're talking about health. And, first of all, do you do anything to stay in shape? Like do you exercise or belong to a gym or anything?

Keren: At the moment, I don't belong to a gym but I go jogging. Usually I go jogging four times a week, and I always go in the morning because for me it's the best time to exercise because it keeps me awake all day, but at the moment I don't do any other exercise.

Todd: Wow, just the running.

Keren: Just the running.

Todd: OK, now Keren, we're talking about staying healthy, and you live overseas,, and we both know it's quite hard to actually sometimes stay healthy overseas.

Keren: Yeah.

Todd: First of all, can you talk about Spain? When you lived in Spain was it easy to stay healthy in Spain?

Keren: Actually, it's reasonably easy to stay healthy in Spain. The weather's always good and I like jogging so I always had the opportunity to go jogging outside and there's lots of beautiful areas to go jogging along the river or along the beach so it was relatively easy there.

Todd: OK, Keren, I thought we'd talk about health.

Keren: OK.

Todd: And you look very healthy.

Keren: Yes.

Todd: So, Matt, what's it like working on a TV set or a movie set?

Matt: Well, of course it's different for every movie and every television show. Movies, most of the time, are going to be on location. When they're not, they're in the studio and you're waiting inside in a big studio. Usually Paramount, of Fox or one of those studio lots and you're behind the scenes waiting basically for your scene to be called.

When you get to the movie set in the morning, you give them your role. You check in with wardrobe. Wardrobe gives you your outfit for the day or several outfits depending on the day shoot schedule is like and then you go to make-up, where you get anything: alterations, mustaches, sideburns, wigs, haircuts at some point, sometimes, excuse me.

So you have to do all that preparation the first hour and go quickly. Usually the call times - the time you have to meet - is fairly early in the mornings, six, six-thirty, and they like to start filming anywhere between eight and ten o'clock in the morning. There's an hour for lunch. Usually you film and then you get an hour for lunch and depending on how the day goes, you are there until they finish that scene, or those scenes and usually they can run anytime, anywhere from twelve to sixteen hours.

Jeff: So where are you from?

Tim: I'm from Oregon.

Jeff: Oregon.

Tim: Yeah. It's on the West Coast of America, above California and below Washington. It has the coast. It has the mountains and a lot of different regions really.

Jeff: So where are you from?

Tim: I'm from Oregon. It's right above California. It's on the West Coast of America.

Jeff: So the State of Oregon.

Tim: It's on the West Coast between California and Washington.

Jeff: So, Tim, you live in a nice natural spot.

Tim: Yeah, that's true.

Jeff: Lots of nature around where you live?

Tim: Yeah, I'm from Oregon. There's lots of nature. There's not a lot of towns really.

Tim: So, Jeff, you asked me about what kind of job I'd like. Well, what about a job you definitely you wouldn't want to do. There's lots of jobs out there and some of them aren't so good, so what would you not want to do?

Jeff: That's a difficult question. I don't like working period, really.

Tim: Yeah, but who does?

Jeff: Yes, that's right, but I think a type of job I wouldn't like to do would be an office job, a straight desk job, where it is just task work, where you get paper - maybe sort of like an accountant - where you are doing nothing but sitting at your desk sort of by yourself all day, crunching numbers or putting things into the computer. I think it's very anti-social, a little bit boring, not so healthy, and even if the pay was good, I still wouldn't want to do it because you're compromising your life, which is short, to something that's not so fun so maybe a desk job, something at a desk, I wouldn't like to do. How about you? What job would you not like to do?

Tim: So, you know, we're talking a little bit about jobs. I'm kind of curious. Do you prefer working in a group or do you prefer working alone?

Jeff: That's a tough question.

Tim: It definitely is because there is good things about both.

Jeff: That's right. That's right, so I guess I'm good at working by myself because I am self-motivated so if I am doing something I like and I can get it done quickly I like to do it by myself, but if I'm working with a good team, a fun team, people who work hard and they all want to do a good job and get the job done well, then I think a team is fun, but you need guys, you need people, men and women, who work hard to do a good job so I prefer working in a team.

Lupe: My mom is actually interested in going to Vegas. She's never been there and she knows you and I have been there quite a few times, so she was wondering maybe if we could give her some do's and don'ts about going to Vegas because she's never been there and I sort of explained to her some of the good things about Vegas and some of the things she shouldn't do, but I think I'm missing a few things. What do you think?

Kara: Well, I think the most important thing about Las Vegas is to wear comfortable shoes. You do so much walking there it's ridiculous so I think to wear flat comfortable shoes, tennis shoes, whatever you're most comfortable in. I've had many days or nights with blisters all over my feet, so that's the number one 'do': wear comfortable shoes.

Lupe: That's true. I did forget about that just because, you know, staying there either you take a cab everywhere, but most people want to do sightseeing and looking at the different hotels, it's a really beautiful place so she will be doing a lot of walking, so I'll definitely keep that in mind and let her know.

Kara: Another thing I would say is to wear comfortable clothing because when you walk into the casino, if you go in the summer, it's extremely warm there: a hundred degrees or more, and even in the middle of the night it's still that warm outside, but when you walk into the casinos, they have the air-conditioning set at seventy degrees, so outside you get really, really warm and then inside you start getting really cold, so it's good to dress in layers and to be comfortable whatever you're wearing.

Kara: So, you mentioned there's a large gap between the oldest and you being towards the youngest. What do you think the differences growing up were between your life and their life and what were the advantages and disadvantages?

Lupe: Well, I think for the most part, it was a great advantage to be one of the younger ones. I'm the second youngest, so having ten, you know, ten siblings, ten older than me definitely helped be growing up because I always had a lot of people to look up to and, you know, telling me right from wrong, which was always a great help. Financially, it was the biggest advantage because, you know, I hear stories from my older siblings about them growing up because they didn't have a lot of resources and financially my family wasn't very stable so as they got older, I started working and helping out with, you know, all the expenses. It really helped us little ones to really be, you know, grow up in a better way and have all the things that maybe they didn't. And also, one of the biggest advantages was that once the older, my older siblings started working, making enough money, you know, they raised enough money to move here to the United States, and bring the rest of us here and we had the great advantage of going to school here in the United States and being able to learn another language, educate ourselves, continue to go onto college, which is something that my older siblings didn't have, so I'm very grateful for that. I think the only disadvantage of being one of the younger ones is a lot of the traditions that were being passed in our family from generations didn't quite make it to us when we moved here to the United States. We weren't able to do many of the things my older siblings got to do when they lived in Mexico, but you know I really can't complain because we have a lot of other things that they didn't have when they were little.

Todd: So, Mark you said that you do crazy things when you travel. Can you give an example?

Mark: Yeah, one of the best things that I did was white water rafting in New Zealand. We actually rafted down the highest commercially rafted water fall in the world, I was told at that time.

Todd: What does that mean, the highest commercial waterfall?

Mark: Well, I think it's the one that's can only be taken by tour groups because it's safe. If it's any higher then that one, then it's deemed unsafe and they wouldn't be able to take tour groups rafting. You'd have to be a professional rafter.

Todd: Now, Shona, you said that you jog.

Shona: Yeah, I do.

Todd: I'm a jogger too.

Shona: Oh, are you? Fantastic. How often do you do it?

Todd: So, Shona, you are quite fit. You like to run. Do you like to do anything else?

Shona: Yeah, actually. I like quite a lot of different sports. I like to play tennis. That is like something that I like to participate in with someone else, but also I'm into more solitary sports, like I like doing yoga in the mornings. I like to do a bit of Yoga. I also like to use the gym and I also like to do climb, wall-climb, or sometimes I've odd **** climbing. It has to be with walls.

Todd: Cool, so actually let's talk about climbing. You climb at the gym?

Shona: No, my gym doesn't have a climbing wall, but there's somewhere in the city I'm from that has like a huge climbing center and you can go there and there's like all different types of walls, different abilities, and there's also a big rotating wall as well for when you are really good, and you can use that one and like climb up there.

Todd: Hey, Mike, I heard that you went back to Canada and you had surgery.

Mike: That's right. I went back to Canada and I had an eye operation.

Todd: Get out of here!

Mike: Yep. I'd had complications. I'm diabetic, and I had complications with my vision, and so...

Todd: Now, Mike, you mentioned that you were blind. You couldn't see.

Mike: Right.

Todd: So, explain what is like when you're blind?

Mike: It's pretty tough. Now for me, I was 90% sure that I would get my vision back because after the surgery, the doctors had eye surgery and the doctor told me that, you know, everything will be fine but now because of the post-operative bleeding in the eye, you wouldn't be able to see for a couple of months so I knew I'd get my vision back but during that two months of not having vision it was pretty strange.

Todd: OK, so Shona, what did you do this morning?

Shona: This morning? So far today, I went to the supermarket and bought some muesli. Had my breakfast, which was the first muesli I've had in a few weeks, so I was quite enjoying that, and then I went to Ikea of all places and done a spot of shopping and bought like really cool cushion with embroidered birds on it, and then I went for a jog like just recently, and I've been cleaning my room also.

Todd: OK, pretty busy day. So let's go back to the muesli. Now for people that don't know muesli, what is muesli?

Shona: Muesli consists of pieces of oat and dried fruits and also like flakes of corn and it's just a bit of mixture of these things.

Todd: So, Shona, you talked about shopping today. You bought some food and you bought some furniture. Are you a big shopping fan?

Shona: Not really to be honest. I'm not one of those people who go shopping every weekend or every weekday, or you know, but to be honest, like if I am around shops, and I do see something that I really like, I don't have much will power, and I will buy it, which isn't great, but yeah, I have accumulated like a few, you know, things over the years, specifically clothes, which I do enjoy buying.

Todd: So you like shopping for clothes?

Shona: I like shopping for clothes but I don't really like shopping for anything else.

Todd: OK, Shona, let's talk about shopping. What are things you don't like to go shopping for?

Shona: The two things I don't like shopping for are food and shoes. And food because I just find it incredibly boring and I just like to get in and out of the supermarket as quickly as possible and just get what I need because I find it really like scary and weird to like how there are just so many items, like, that I don't have a clue what they are and they're all like there on the shelf. They're so many of the same thing. I just find it really weird. And the lighting in supermarkets. It is just too bright for me, and I just - everyone's walking around like zombies with their trolleys and I just find it very weird.

Todd: Actually, it's funny you say that because I love shopping for food. In America, I love shopping for food because I can read the labels. In Japan, where we live now, it's not so fun because I can't read and it really drives me nuts, when I can't...

Shona: Exactly. Exactly.

Todd: Hello, Mike.

Mike: Hey.

Todd: Now, Mike, you are diabetic.

Mike: That's right.

Todd: Mike, we're talking about diabetes. Often I hear about diabetes Type 1 and diabetes Type 2. What's the difference?

Mike: That's right, Todd. There are two types of diabetes. There is. There's two types. There's Type 1 diabetes and there's Type 2. Type 1 is usually attributed to genetics and generally Type 1, it can happen at any age but it tends to happen when people are younger, and then for some reason, they still don't know why, but the pancreas, an organ in your body, it stops producing insulin, which is a hormone, and when that happens, you instantly become diabetic, and that's Type 1 diabetes. Now, Type 2 diabetes, generally speaking, is because of diet related issues. People who tend to have poor diets, or tend to be very overweight, and again I'm generalizing of course, so there's probably very healthy fit Type 2 diabetics that can still get it but generally, what I think happens with Type 2 diabetes, this is just a theory, that you put so much strain on your pancreas to produce insulin for all the sugar that you're eating that it just stops, it just runs out of insulin and slowly, slowly starts to slow down.

Todd: So basically if you have a really poor diet, and you eat a lot of sugar and you don't exercise then you increase your chances....

Mike: Definitely. Definitely. You're increasing your chances. I'm sure of that.

Todd: Hello, I'm here with Frederick. Now Frederick, you went to university in Canada?

Fred: That's right, Todd.

Todd: OK, and you have very strong views about universities in Canada. Can you please explain?

Fred: OK, well, let me just give you a general idea of how education works in Canada. We don't have private universities in Canada. They're all public. Now what that means is that the universities are owned by the government, so there is the Ministry of Education that's in charge of creating the curriculum for the universities and so there's not much room for flexibility and since it's a government operated institution, things don't move very fast. If you want something to be done then their workers do not have so much incentive to help you because he's a worker for the government, and so I think it's not very efficient, however there are certain advantages of public universities, such as the fees being free, you don't have to pay for your education and so it's open for everybody and that's also one of Canada's main idea is to provide free education to everybody, but the system is slow. It is inefficient and does not work that well.

Todd: OK, Tini, you were saying that you enjoy being a student.

Tini: Yes.

Todd: So, I'm a teacher. I have a couple of questions for you.

Tini: Sure.

Todd: Before musicians like you said used to wear ripped jeans. Jeans with big holes or rips in them.

Mariel: Oh, yeah, that was in the 80's.

Todd: OK, maybe that was my generation. So that's not popular anymore?

Mariel: Some people like to wear ripped jeans, yeah, still, but mainly the rips are quite neat, so they're usually ripped a little bit around the pockets or around the cuffs, you know the bottoms, Yeah

Todd: Hello, I'm here with Anita. Anita, where are you from?

Anita: I am from the Czech Republic.

Todd: Oh, and what city?

Anita: Ah, from the capitol city, Prague.

Anita: Well, Todd, since you've asked me about San Francisco, tell me, have you ever been to Prague?

Todd: I have been to Prague. Actually, I lived in Prague for about a week, or two weeks.

Anita: OK.

Todd: A long time ago.

Todd: So, Asako, you lived in the United States for a long time.

Asako: For six years.

Todd: That's a pretty long time.

Asako: That's right.

Todd: So, Asako, we are talking about your time in Alaska. Now you are from a major city in Japan, correct?

Asako: That's right. Nagoya.

Todd: Now, Nagoya is a very big city.

Asako: Very big. Two million people.

Todd: So, Katia and Fred, we're going to talk about your dance school.

Katia: OK.

Todd: So, first can you explain where your dance school is and what it is?

Fred: OK, Todd. Well, we have a school that's called International School of Dance, where we teach belly dance and Latin American dance, which mainly consists of Salsa, merengue, bachata, and it is located in Beppu, Japan.

Todd: So, Fred and Katia, we're talking about your dance school. Can you talk a little about your dance background? How did you learn how to dance?

Fred: Well, for myself, I can say that being Canadian, it's not in my blood or anything... to know how to dance.

Todd: The Canadian salsa.

Fred: The Canadian salsa. Right. If such a thing would exist. That would be great. But in fact, yeah, for me it was quite a challenge because I didn't know so much about salsa when I first started dancing when I was maybe 14 years old, where I got interested, and so I started to take some lessons in Canada and then I started dancing a bit and then I decided to do an exchange program in Spain for two years, where of course, in a latin country people dance more, those kind of dances, so I could take some lessons from a professional Argentinian tango teacher which taught me a lot about listening to the music, the rhythm and everything like that, so I really got into it so since then, since I'm 14 years old, so it's been close to 8, 9 years now that I've been dancing South American dances.

Todd: So, Eoin, we're talking about you playing this weekend. You're going to play in two cities. What's the set-up like? What's the routine like when you go to a club? Like how soon must you be there? You know, how long do you play, etc.?

Eoin: Yeah, there is some variance from place to place about that but generally it's pretty standard that if you're playing that evening, you'll need to be there about maybe two, one or two in the afternoon just to... especially if it's a place you haven't played before to go and greet the... or say hello to the owner of the live house and then do your rehearsal, your sound check to get... make sure all the volumes are correct and normally there's some paperwork to fill in, like list out the songs you're going to play, copy for the lighting people, and copy for the sound guy on the sound desk, and plus if there's people coming to see you and they want to reserve advance tickets, you need to write out a list and give that to the reception guy and then apart from that... yeah, that's most of the preparation done, so normally, you'd go in, greet their live house manager, rehearsal, after that have a bit of free time and the events normally start around 6:30, 7:00 in the evening, and each band plays for about half an hour normally.

Todd: That's it. Only thirty minutes.

Eoin: That's it.

Joel: So, Michele, how long have you been living in Japan?

Michele: Well, in total it's been almost four years now.

Joel: Four years. OK. That's about the same for me too.

Michele: Oh, yeah.

Todd: Now, I thought we would talk a little bit about your country. First of all, about shopping, what is shopping like in Sri Lanka?

Mini: The basic difference of shopping in Sri Lanka is that you can bargain, like most of the places you can bargain, so if you and talk to the seller like very friendly and saying that you don't have that much money, you only have this much money, and then he will of course reduce the price for you.

Todd: That's pretty cool. So, does this only apply to shopping for food or shopping for clothing or is it for everything?

Mini: I think it's for everything, even for jewelry, furniture, everything you can bargain.

Todd: So, we're here... first of all, how about everybody introduce themselves.

Fred: OK. I'm Fred from Canada and it's a pleasure to be here.

Katia: Hello. I am Katerina. I'm from Mexico and I'm also very glad to be here.

Todd: Thanks guys. And then, I'm Todd. I'm from the U.S. Now for the listeners, we all live really close to each other and we live in a neighborhood, where I guess, all of our houses are probably within two or three minutes of each other.

(This conversation is continued from #825.

Katia, Fred, and Todd are talking about stray cats in their neighborhood and whether something should be done about them.)

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Todd: So, then the question is, do you think something should be done about the cats? Should they be taken away? Should they be just left?

Katia: The first thing I would ask, what can be done? I don't think it would be fair to feed them and then just take them somewhere else. I think maybe, so they would not have more kittens, that would be something to help the problem, if there is a problem, but that's something that would be good to do.

Todd: I thought we would talk about insects. So, I warned you when you guys came over to this place that my apartment has cockroaches, spiders, and centipedes.

Katia: Centipedes. It's my only problem.

Todd: Really! Centipedes. Why? Because they look scary?

Katia: No, I just... all the hundred legs that they have. It's a little bit scary. Snakes are OK. Spiders is OK.

Todd: Well, what is something unique that friends like to do for fun in Japan?

Tini: Well, of course, they also like to have parties but parties.... after parties, they usually go to karaokes.

Todd: Karaoke.

Tini: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Kara: So, Lupe, I've been taking Spanish classes for a long time, and I'm actually planning on taking a trip to Mexico this summer to help further my Spanish speaking skills. What's some advice you can give me on me learning Spanish?

Lupe: Well, are you traveling by yourself to Mexico?

Kara: Yes, I am.

Lupe: OK. I think to start off that is great idea because I know when we took our trip to Mexico, it's a little bit different when you have someone else with you who speaks your primary language. It's so easy to just ask for help or ask that person to just say something for you, so I think you going and being there by yourself and not being around people that speak your primary language which is English is really going to help you with practicing your Spanish because I do believe that practice does make perfect, and it doesn't matter how many classes you take or how many books you read, you really have to practice, so for you to be around other people who speak Spanish is really going to get you involved and really going to get you to speak the language.

Lupe: So, I've noticed you tend to be a little afraid to speak the language, especially around other people who speak both languages and maybe you're afraid that somebody is gonna correct you, which is actually a good thing, so you have to be able to let yourself speak it in front of other people who can make those corrections for you so the next time you say those things you'll say them correctly or maybe a little better.

Kara: And that's exactly what it is. I am much more comfortable to speak Spanish to an only Spanish speaker than I am so somebody who speaks both languages, maybe because I am afraid of that person correcting me or teasing me about the mistakes that I make, so.

Lupe: It's also great that you're going down there not only for vacation but you are actually gonna be enrolled in school because it's always good to practice a language but it's great to be able to also sit in a class room studying and learn all the grammar and make sure that you are also reading and writing it and you understand it that way also. It's really important.

Kara: And I'll be living with a family so I get lot of practice at the house also.

Fred: What do you do in Christmas with gifts? You know, I'm thinking about like how much money do you spend on gifts. When do you go shopping for them? Who do you give them to?

Anja: Oh, yeah, you know Fred, I think it depends on the person, right? But usually in Switzerland people like to give gifts that have, like, some personal meaning, you know? It doesn't really matter how much they cost, you know, maybe if you buy a really expensive present, you feel a little bit like, "Ah, this is too expensive," you know? So it's really nice to give maybe a picture in a frame or something like that. Mothers like that a lot.

Fred: Yeah, I think gifts to mothers are really important. So, how much money would you say you spend on your gifts in general for Christmas?

Anja: Oh, I'm sure it's maybe like 200 Swiss Francs. It's maybe like a 100 US dollars.

Anja: So, Fred, tell me, how is it on Christmas? Who do you give gifts to in Canada?

Fred: Well, Anja, personally I prefer to receive gifts. That's always funner. Yeah, well, of course, we give gifts and we receive gifts.

Anja: Oh, yeah. So the gifts, how are they? Are they really expensive or...?

Fred: Good question. Well, I don't know. It depends on who you're giving the gift to, and it also depends on, you know, how many gifts you have to buy.

Fred: Hi, Sabriya. So tell me, in Oman do you guys have the same culture, the same traditions as we do? Do you celebrate New Year's?

Sabriya: Yes, we do. It's not one of the big events known in Oman but we do celebrate New Year and we follow the same calendar as you guys do.

Fred: Oh, is that right? So, as New Year's is almost coming soon, do you have any New Year's Resolution?

Sabriya: Well, for the past maybe three or four years I've been trying to have different resolutions but I never manage to stick to them or keep them. However, this year, I think I've made my mind up on a resolution which I plan to keep and that is to limit or actually lessen my phone bill.

Todd: So, Rebecca, talking about shopping, is shopping something you enjoy doing?

Rebecca: Yes, when I'm in the mood for it. Definitely.

Todd: So I guess when you talk about shopping, we talk about clothes shopping, mainly right, so how often do you go clothes shopping?

Rebecca: Not very often. Maybe once every three months. It depends on my money. If I have the money.

Todd: So, Rebecca, we're talking about shopping. Is there anything you don't like about shopping?

Rebecca: Yes, I don't like shopping when they're crowds of people. Usually when the sales are on, it can be a good time to shop because there's sales but it also draws a lot people and everybody's pushing and trying to get the clothes they want that are on special. Yeah, I don't like that.

Todd: Right. Right. Actually, the thing I really don't like about shopping is having - or clothes shopping - is having to try on clothes. You know, like, you go and you find your size and then you put it on and then it doesn't fit, then you have to try it on again and it's just, it takes forever. And you look at the numbers and it's so hard to find the number that fits you.

Rebecca: Yeah, it seems every year the numbers are changing sizes. You wear a size ten and then the next year it's not that size so. Yeah. That can be a real problem, too.

Todd: Ivan, we are talking about your country, Indonesia. Can you recommend three Indonesian foods for people that visit your country?

Ivan: Ooh, that can be a difficult question because we have lots of variety of foods and it depends on your taste. I mean, if you like sweet foods we have a specialty for that and if you like spicy food also there’s a specialty for that, salty, anything, anything you want. But usually people go for… OK, first is Nasi Goreng. Nasi Goreng is a fried rice and I think it’s quite popular anywhere else in the world if it goes for… if you want to promote Indonesian food. Yeah…

Todd: It’s called Nasi Goreng?

Ivan: Nasi Goreng, yeah. Nasi is rice, goreng is fry.

Todd: So for the Satay you can have beef, chicken, liver, mutton. Now, people might not know what mutton is. What is mutton?

Ivan: Mutton is a lamb’s meat.

Todd: Lamb’s meat. Or sheep’s meat.

Ivan: Sheep’s meat, yeah. And it’s… well actually, personally that is the meat that I most like.

Mari: Hey, Mike, how's it going?

Mike: Good! How are you?

Mari: I'm alright. So you're from Florida right?

Mike: Well, actually, I went to college in Florida.

Mari: This week's theme is comparing cities. Mike, you've lived in both Florida and Hawaii, and both of these places, people go there on vacation, so can you compare the weather?

Mike: Well, actually both places are warm most of the year. Well, actually Hawaii is warm all year. But I would say that Hawaii's weather is probably better than Florida because the weather in Hawaii is not as extreme as it is in Florida and... so where as the temperatures in Florida would range from fifty degree to ninety degrees, in Hawaii it would stay between seventy-five and eighty-five degrees most of the year.

Mari: Wow. That's really nice weather. How about the food?

Mike: Well the food, in both places are really good but it's quite different. Both places of course you can get good American food, like burgers and that type of thing, but in Florida you get a lot of foods such as Cuban food or Jamaican food which is really good that you can't get in Hawaii, but in Hawaii there's a lot of Asian influence so you can get really good Japanese food or Thai food, but also traditional Polynesian food as well.

Fred: So, Shibika, we've been talking about your accident and how this has changed your life and how you spent almost a month in bed, so how did that month in bed change your daily routine, like, did you experience any trouble brushing your teeth at night? Was it hard for you to eat? Was it hard for you to go to the bathroom? What? How was that?

Shibika: Right. Every bit of it. Every bit of it changed because, like you use your hands to do everthing, you know, in your daily routine, from sleeping to eating to everything, so basically, yeah, and it was initially it was really frustrating because for everything, even while getting up from bed, to going to the bathroom as you said, or eating by yourself, I needed help. I needed assistance.

But then I just tried to do it by myself because it's not like to call my mom, or call somebody for every small pain you know, to help me, so I tried to do it by myself or I used to use my left hand while doing it, so it was interesting, rather and I developed new hobbies because I had to be in bed the whole time so I couldn't really go out so I started dreading. I picked up reading.

Fred: Really, what kind of hobbies?

Fred: So, after this horrible accident, how did life your change? What are... What could you say are your after thoughts of after surviving such an experience?

Shibika: Right. Like, to be completely honest, in the beginning I was really upset and I was like, you know, "Why does this have to happen to me?" you know. That is like immediately what you feel, what anybody would feel. But then when after, you know, recovering and after... while I was going through the whole thing, I basically realized that these things, they don't happen for a reason. My friend, he did not want to bang the car, you know, he didn't have anything against me. He really regretted it.

Fred: Yeah, it wasn't his fault.

Shibika: Exactly. It's nobodies fault, so it happens. It happens to teach you something, I guess, so basically I learned that such things happen. It made me a stronger person, you know, I was like, no more scared of car accidents or stuff like that because I'm like, OK, they're a part of your life and they go on, so. Yeah, and then I was taken care of. I had all the time, these people, surrounded by people, yeah, who used to come: my relatives, my friends, they came to visit me. All of them got really worried so you feel kind of special. You feel that, OK, you know, like it really matters for other people when something happens to you.

Todd: So, Jeff, we're talking about your trip down the Amazon, and so you took a truck to the Amazon and then you got a canoe. You got on a canoe. Can you talk about your journey down the Amazon?

Jeff: The Amazon... What people think of the Amazon is a beautiful river with a nice green jungle and lots of animals, and it's not like that. It's not a beautiful place. It was... the river was muddy and dirty. It looked like coffee. The side of the river, the side of the Amazon was very overgrown and full of mosquitos and black flies. We didn't see any wild animals because the canoe was just a long, thin wooden canoe piled high with things like rice and food other materials that the villagers needed and it had an outboard motor that was very noisy, so it wasn't romantic at all, the ideas of the Amazon river, and the beauty and the adventure. It was difficult and dirty and hot and dangerous, so it wasn't romantic at all.

Todd: It doesn't sound like it. Where did you stay as you would go down? Would you sleep on the canoe?

Jeff: No. Every night they would stop at a little village, and it was just made out of little village, a little cluster of bamboo thatched houses just on the side of the river. They'd clear a little spot out of the jungle and then they'd have a, say a dozen bamboo houses there and we'd sleep say on the floor of one of their houses in our sleeping bags.

Todd: Mike, I thought we would talk about weight training. You're kind of an expert. I see you in the gym a lot. You're always, you know, lifting weights. How did you get involved in weight training?

Mike: Well, I started in high school. I've played sports since I was little and once I got to high school, we had to start weight training for our team.

Todd: OK, and so did you just start with like, you know, the basics, like free weights or did you do like the machines?

Mike: Yeah, well, we had a weight lifting coach so we did both machines and free weights and he made sure that our form was correct and we did everything properly, so.

Todd: OK, Mike, you are fit, and you got me motivated. I want to work out, so I thought I would ask you about a work out routine, so first let's talk about upper body? What should I do for my chest and shoulders?

Mike: Well, the first basic chest work-out is the bench press, where you use the straight bar, and you should probably do three sets, if you're starting out: three sets, doing ten reps each set.

Todd: OK, three sets would mean I do it three times with rest in between, correct?

Mike: Yes.

Todd: Mike, you're giving tips about weight training and we've talked about upper body. Now what about lower body and legs? I actually don't want to lift weights with my legs. I just... It is OK if I just skip it?

Mike: Well, you should do your legs because you should get a full body workout because if you just do one part of your body it affect the other parts of your body as well, so you need to be balanced.

Todd: OK, so I'm convinced. I'm gonna work on my legs. What's the most basic exercise I should do?

Mike: I think you should start off squatting. That's where you put... make sure you have a squat rack, and you put the bar behind your head on your shoulders and you just squat as if you are sitting on a bench and come back up.

Todd: So, Rebecca, how would you describe the average Australian? Like if you had to stereotype an Australian, what would you say?

Rebecca: I suppose a stereotypical Australian would be in board shorts, thongs, as in flip-flops, and outside, having a barbeque drinking a beer I suppose.

Todd: So in Australia, leisure time is very important?

Rebecca: Yes, it is. Yes. It's interesting though because we do really look for the leisure time that we have but yet the working... if you have a look at the working rates, they are quite high. The figures are quite high, so.

Todd: So, Rebecca, talking about your country, I hear that skin cancer is a serious problem in Australia?

Rebecca: Yeah, it is. I think our environment is the cause of it in a way because we do have the beautiful beaches that you always want to go out and swim and be in the sun, have the barbecue, so you're outside a lot, especially during the time of the day that it is really quite stong.

Todd: Right, so is the government doing anything, or do people do anything to try to prevent it?

Rebecca: Yeah, the government's put out the slogan, "Slip, slop, and slap" so slip on some sun screen, slap on a hat, and yeah, something along those lines.

Todd: So, hey, Rebecca, speaking of environmental stuff, I was reading about a drought in Australia. You guys have a serious drought problem with water?

Rebecca: Yeah, we do. We've had a drought for some time now and it seems to be getting worse and worse each year. At the moment, it depends on the area that you're in, but some areas are quite hard-hitted. We actually have restrictions on water now so you can't wash your car unless it's with a bucket of water. You can't water your garden at all, so my mom loves gardening, so to keep her garden, dad actually has fitted a special tube into the washing machine which filters the water out out into a bucket outside and she can use that grey water to water all her plants and that way she can keep her garden all nice.

Todd: That's fantastic. You call it grey water?

Rebecca: Mm. We call it grey water.

Jake: Hey, Lindsay, would you like to go with me to the zoo this Saturday?

Lindsay: The zoo.

Jake: Yeah, it's gonna be lot's of fun. We're going to see lions and tigers and bears.

Lindsay: Oh, my? Actually, I don't really like the zoo.

Lindsay: So, since we are talking about technology, I have a question for you. Is there any gadget or technology that you're really addicted to?

Jake: That would have to be video games. I have pretty much every video game console that was releases since the late 80's.

Lindsay: Are you serious?

Jake: Yes. Every one of them.

Rebecca: Hey, Diego.

Diego: Hey.

Rebecca: What are you going to do for summer break?

Diego: I'm thinking about going back home.

Fanny: Hey, Brian, you know, recently I heard that the Canadian dollar is very strong.

Brian: It is. It's been amazingly strong in the last few months.

Fanny: What happened? I mean, how come?

Brian: It went up. The reasons behind why the Canadian dollar is strong...

Matthew: So, MB, with Habitat For Humanity, can you kind of describe for us a normal day at one of the work-sites?

MB: Sure, so we usually get up very early in the morning, probably around 6:30 in the morning and when we were in Papua New Guinea we had to walk to the area where we were going to have breakfast so we had to walk through the village and say good morning to all the villagers and then we shared breakfast together with our team which the villagers prepared for us.

Matthew: What kind of food was that?

MB: In Papua New Guinea they eat a lot of potatoes and sweet potatoes and and some fish and some noodles but mostly their staple... and also bananas. They have a lot of plants or fruits that they grow on their property we ate a lot of that and then after breakfast we usually have a short orientation about what kind of jobs we're going to do that day and we're usually broken down into different teams and then we work for maybe two hours and then we have a short break and then we work again until lunch time. These jobs can be anything from planing wood or cutting wood or helping to lay the floor or putting up the walls or painting the walls or anything like that. And then we have lunch with the team and also with the villagers usually and after lunch we, in the past, we usually play with the children after lunch for a little while and then we go back to work for maybe about three or four hours in the afternoon. And night-time is cleaning up as well as having dinner again together with our team, or with the villagers. It really depends and then we usually have a meeting where all the team members get together and we have a reflection time about what happened that day or any problems, or we get a chance to talk to each other about the different jobs we were doing, so it's a very busy day, every day, but it's really satisfying and a lot of fun and we learn so many things, so many new things every day.

Matthew: Hi, this is Matthew White.

MB: And this is MB.

Matthew: And we are talking about our experience with Habitat For Humanity and our trip to Papua New Guinea with a group of Japanese students.

MB: Right.

Jeff: So, Jonathan, what is home for you? Where is home for you?

Jonathan: Where is home for me? Actually, I would have to say that I'm homeless.

Jeff: Homeless! What do you mean homeless?

Jonathan: Well, I don't call one particular place home. I pretty much live out of a suitcase. I don't have roots holding me to one particular place. I was born and raised in Toronto but from a very young age I was traveling for different purposes: some for the work that I was doing, some for just pleasure travel and even now when I go back to Toronto, it doesn't really feel like home. In fact people comment about my accent, and they say, "Oh, that's an interesting accent. Where you are from?" and I say, "Well, I'm from here."

Jeff: So, Jonathan, you are the... maybe the most prolific traveler I have ever met, and your home is a suitcase, so how do you live out of a suitcase like that?

Jonathan: I wouldn't really say my home is a suitcase, but I think that people really hold onto their possessions a little bit too much, and people think that they need to have their favorite books nearby when they probably will never even read it again. I really don't think it's necessary to have all of those things there, so I don't need to have a lot of nice clothes with me all the time. I don't need to carry around all of these souvenirs of days gone by. I'm perfectly comfortable having just a minimal amount of things with me. I have changes of clothes so it's not like I'm in any way suffering from a lack of personal hygiene and such things.

Jeff: So, but... so what do you do? How do you clean your clothes? What do you do when you want to buy something new?

Jonathan: Well, I find that in fact I don't often buy some many things when I travel. I buy the necessities, but I try to keep everything small in size so for example I have one small little pack that has shampoo, conditioner and body soap, and I can in fact, fill it up from a lot of hotels which offer those things to their guests. I can have a little bar of soap. I have a small towel to travel with. I can take my clothes to a coin laundry. At worst, I put on a pair of shorts while I'm washing my two pairs of jeans. If it's a cold weather country perhaps people look at me a little bit funny, but being Canadian and descended from cold weather countries, I don't have a difficulty with it.

Jeff: So were you always able to live with only a few possessions?

Jonathan: Oh, certainly not. The first trip I ever did to South America I had the most massive backpack you could imagine. I mean I had to get it from a sort of military surplus store because I needed to have the kind of volume that a World War Two soldier would have had to carry things, all of his survival gear. When I travelled to Africa in my early twenties, I brought along things like, for example, a jungle hammock, you know because I was convinced that I was going to be stringing up the ropes of this, and sleeping above the ground because I was worried about some sort of dangerous animals that might come after me. When, then later, you find out the reality is, that you're always able to find some sort of accommodation even if it's very budget type and wasn't a problem.

Jeff: Do you think... would you recommend this type of lifestyle to someone else?

Jonathan: I don't know if my lifestyles very suitable for other people because they have more roots than I do. They've settled down in some way. They have a regular job that they have to go to. Myself, usually only working perhaps four months a year, I don't have the same responsibilities that other people do and I'm not married. I don't have kids. I have no need to decorate a room in any way.

Paul: Hi, this is Paul from England and I'm here with Katia from Mexico. Today we're gonna speak about being a woman. I can't imaginewhat it's like to be a woman. It must be really difficult.

Katia: Well, I wouldn't say difficult, difficult. I think it's great, but it comes with some difficult things I guess. Maybe I can think of make-up and it takes us so long to get ready and it's something that we really need to do, so maybe that's one thing that we have to get used to it.

Paul: Come on. It can't be so difficult: make-up. Putting on make-up on every day.

Katia: Well, you get used to it, but just imagine, we need to look for the right colors, the right brand, the right price. It really gets tough.

Paul: Hi, this is Paul from England speaking with Katia from Mexico. First question is do you give money to charity?

Katia: Well, Paul, it's a difficult question because you really want to help people, but I always question myself where if the money really gets to where it's supposed to go, so personally I rarely do give money to charities. I'd rather give my time, so I know if it's actually something happening. What about you?

Paul: Yeah, I guess that makes sense. If it's a registered charity then I don't see there's a problem really with giving a donation.

Katia: Yeah, I guess so, but really I wonder. There are so many charities in the world, and you wonder really how much money do the people actually get, so it's difficult to really know.

Todd: Hello. I am here with Jade from Korea and we are going to talk about life in the military. So Jade, you were in the army correct?

Jade: Yeah, I was in the army 'til just a year ago.

Todd: Ah, so pretty recently.

Jade: Yeah, recently.

Jonathan: So, Jeff, you know, I don't know if I want go out to the pub again on Saturday. LIke the music is a little bit too loud. It's hard to meet people and so on. I don't know. I've been thinking, we should do like some online dating. You know, try to meet some women that way.

Jeff: What do you mean? We just sit at home and through the computer. Or how do you do that?

Jonathan: No, you don't have a date through the computer. That would be awful. But, you know, in the modern world people are rushed. They always don't have time to go out and meet people. If you only go to bars, to try to meet people, you're only meeting a small percentage of the population: the people who do like to go out and drink and have fun, and so on. You're cutting yourself off from a lot of people.

Jeff: So how does this work, this online dating? Do I have to pay to use this site?

Jonathan: Have you ever heard about speed dating?

Jeff: Speed dating? No. I have no idea. Fast....?

Jonathan: This is a kind of thing that started up in the last number of years, and what happens is it there's an organizer and you go to some dates in a two hour period.

Jeff: So this is an organized... it's organized and it's... what do you do? Like what do you do?

Todd: Hello, can you introduce yourself please?

Tarta: Yes. My name is Tarta, I am from Thailand. I live in the southern part, in the east coast.

Todd: So Tarta, you were in Thailand when you had the "tsunami"?

Tarta: Yes, I was right back from my Laos trip with my family on the way, because we drive car. We go by car to Laos and then on the way back, then we drive back on to the Seven. Then we saw on the news on television that like the "tsunami" hit on the west coast and first we thought like we watching the documentary, that it is somewhere else, not in Thailand but then suddenly it is getting more serious and then ... it's a really sad story ... and 26 it happened and 27, because living not really far away from Phuket and also I really want to go and help them. But then my Dad didn't allow me because they say the 27 it gonna have the aftershock, so we wait until the 28th. And then my uncle, my Dad's friend, he have a small company and he really want to help so brought two vans, with one van full of food, like lunchbox for maybe 300 packs, and then lots of necessary stuff like the medicines or water and all those kinds of stuff. So we drove to Phuket and then tried to, you know, distribute all the food as much as we can, even though we have no idea where we are. actually that time there were not many volunteers still, so we were following ... follow with the other radio staff, local radio staff who really want to help as well. So we went up into the hills, where the people move up because they are afraid of the "aftershock". So we went there and then there were, like, our villagers around 210 people who were waiting for food because they ... they were living there without any food or water for two days already. So we went there, like, try to provide as much as we can, like all the food that we had and then it was very sad because what you see, it's like nothing from T.V. you know.

Todd: So, I am here with Tarta and we are talking about the "tsunami" in Thailand and she helped people after the event. Can you talk about what it was like the few days after the "tsunami" hit?

Tarta: Yes, right away from like from the "tsunami" hit, I went on the 28th, so two days after "tsunami" hit, so everything is like damaged and, you know all waters are all over the place. There's car on top of the buildings too, like the second floor of the buildings and rotten bodies like everywhere ...

Todd: Wow, dead bodies.

Tarta: Dead bodies like really everywhere, and because that time there were not many volunteers yet ... so if we just walk through the place that we just want to find a live person to give a food or to help but then we just hit by the dead body, like without knowing because it is a huge body and you can't recognize who is that person because, you know, all the faces are just getting, I just don't want to say it but ... but it really was ...

Mari: Hi, this is Mari. I'm here with Ron. Today, we'll talk about types of entertainment and how often we do these things. Let's first start with watching TV. Ron, how often do you watch TV?

Ron: Usually I watch TV every day. I don't watch TV very long but I usually watch TV every day. Usually I watch the news.

Mari: Why just the news?

Ron: I like to know what's going on in the world, so I usually watch CNN or BBC.

Ron: Hi, I'm Ron from Hawaii. I'm here with Mari from Japan. Today we're going to be talking about entertainment, and how often we do these things. So Mari, how often do you watch TV?

Mari: I watch the news in the morning and when I come home at night I sometimes watch TV.

Ron: Do you have a favorite TV show?

Mari: I don't have a favorite TV show.

Shirley: David, so earlier, I was telling you I've always wanted to go to Africa and I'm just wondering, is that whole safari scene the cliche...

David: It's not a cliche, but it's something real you have to experience when you get there on the safari. What you see on National Geographic and this ... you know .. documentaries is true. It's nothing ... it's not anything that ... they wouldn't show you that's not true that you'll find in Kenya.

Shirley: Wow! So I could be just out there ... what driving around in my car and on my own just seeing all those animals?

David: No, you don't get to drive in your own car. They provide services for you like ... we have like for instance in Kenya we have an institute called KWS: Kenya Wildlife Service that does that and it has its own warders that are highly trained to protect you when you're in the forest.

Dai: OK so, Sharron, you’re from Wales.

Sharron: That’s right.

Dai: In a place called Pembrokeshire?

Sharron: Yes.

Dai: So, you mentioned coasteering. What is that?

Sharron: Right. What it is, it's organized by some groups of people. It can be quite dangerous but it's very well-run in that you all go out in wetsuits, and you'll go out for a few hours around the coast and what you basically do, is you're walking around the rocks of the coast right on the sea level, so areas that you can't actually walk around the coast on the rocks, you jump in the sea and swim, so lots of people like to do that, cause it's a little more dangerous with the sea currents and all the activities. You know, you could get stuck and ... but, you know, it's handled very well and it's quite a thrilling sport to do.

Dai: So, I guess you can like do jumping into the sea ...

Sharron: You jump in. They mainly ... you know they do it carefully, they mainly get you to jump in. Where you can't climb the rocks, you jump in and swim round to another area. You can climb up and it's just basically going from cove to cove on the sea ... on the sea level ... and around the sea rather than being up on the cliff, on the land walking around seeing the scenery you're actually down ...

Dai: So, I really don't see it. What's the allure of fishing. I mean, why ... what's the catch as it were?

Darren: Well, I can understand that. It's something that looks as if it's not very interesting but it's that thrill and expectancy of just waiting and you can wait for hours and hours and catch nothing, but once that rod starts moving and you know you've got a fish on, especially for the bass that I fish for, there're very, very powerful fish and they can just take the rod and knock it off the rod stand and you're running off at the beach after your rod, which would mean you got a decent fish and the thrill of that moment is just .... it's hard to explain and the only way that you'll ever understand it is to actually have a go yourself. It's like everything. It doesn't suit everybody, but I think a lot more people would fish if they actually had a go and experienced catching a fish.

Dai: Is it a popular sport back home?

Darren: It's the most popular sport in the U.K. as far as participants are concerned, but it's not very well publicized. It's much more football, rugby, cricket, golf.

Dai: So Darren, it’s not long now until Christmas, are you looking forward to it?

Darren: Yes and no. I do like Christmas, the spirit of Christmas, I believe it does bring people closer together, but the thing I find year upon year is becoming more and more tiresome for me is the pressure put on people, especially families with young children, to spend lots and lots of money. I think the true meaning of Christmas is lessening year upon year.

Dai: Right. What is the true meaning of Christmas then?

Darren: Well I think it like I said it’s families getting together and people showing kindness to one another. I think that should happen all the time mind, but I think at Christmas people do get together and you see people and you wish them a Merry Christmas and it’s a really lovely atmosphere to be in over a couple of weeks over the whole Christmas period. That is what I really do enjoy about Christmas, but as I said I think it’s becoming too commercialized--too much pressure to buy the latest toy. There always seems to be the in-toy to have and I think people who could afford it: great, but I think a lot of the families really struggle at Christmas and they’re probably in debt for the next twelve months until the next Christmas.

Mari: Hi, I'm Mari. I'm here with my friend Ron. Today, we're talking about food. So Ron, what's your favorite cuisine?

Ron: My favorite cuisine has to be Hawaiian food. I grew up eating Hawaiian food so every special occasion we had Hawaiian food, so now when I eat Hawaiian food, it always brings back good memories.

Mari: What exactly is Hawaiian food?

Ron: Traditional Hawaiian food is usually cooked under the ground in a hole with hot rocks and it cooks for maybe six hours or seven hours and when you take it out, it's very salty because we use a lot of salt and it tastes really good ... usually meat ... usually pork and other vegetables like taro and potato.

Todd: Hey, Greg, you got a great dog. Where did you get your dog?

Greg: Actually, my dog and I sort of found each other. I was moving from one house to another and as I was moving from the parking lot to my house, I saw this really skinny dog that looked like he really needed food and also affection. I petted him. He followed me back and forth. The next day, he was out in front of the gate to the house. The next day, he made it inside the house to the genkan, the area we leave our shoes. The next day, he made it to the top of the bed.

Todd: Wow. So wait a minute. You're saying that you didn't choose your dog. Your dog kind of chose you.

Greg: Yes. It was fate. Destiny.

Todd: So, Greg, I know that you travel a lot, so what do you do with your dog when you travel? Who takes care of your dog?

Greg: Well, we have very good friends who love to have him. In fact, sometimes my friends offer before we go. They know we're going, "Hey, can we take care of Dancer?" and they take good care of him.

Todd: So, have you ever actually traveled with your dog?

Greg: Actually, yes. Well, when we travel in Japan, he travels with us almost everywhere we go. He sits in the car and sometimes we camp and sleep in the car with him or we stay in tents and he travels with us ... but we've also traveled overseas with him.

Todd: So, Melissa, the Super Bowl is coming up. And what do you think about football?

Melissa: I think it's really interesting. This Japanese guy recently told me it was the most interesting sport to watch because of the rules, but unfortunately I don't really know the rules so I have a hard time following it.

Todd: But you're American. You don't like American football?

Melissa: I'm more of a basketball fan cause when I watch it, I can easily understand what's going on, and when I'm watching football, everyone around me just screams and they don't really tell me what's going on.

Doron: I'm a bit schizophrenic when it comes to dates actually cause ... I'll either do something really boring and cheesy like pizza and a movie.

Melissa: That's not boring.

Doron: Really?

Melissa: Yeah.

Todd: So, Marion, do you like to play sports?

Marion: I don't play sports at the moment cause I don't really have the time, or it feels like I don't have time. It's been a long time since I did sports regularly.

Todd: Yeah, me too, but I love sports. I love to watch sports on TV.

Marion: Mm-hm. But that's not really taking part in sports is it? It's not the same. That just means that you like TV.

Mike: Now Mark, you study, or you do Aikido. Is that right?

Mark: Yeah, I started studying Aikido when I was about 15 years old.

Mike: And what got you interested in Aikido?

Mark: Well, I saw a demonstration at a church one time and I immediately fell in love with it, and it works out great because I'm not that big of a guy and Aikido is a kind of martial art where small people can throw big people.

Katia: Hey, Enam, I've heard that in Bangladesh there are still arranged marriages. Is that true?

Enam: Yes, it is true. We still have arranged marriages but the number of arranged marriages are declining these days because students, or even you can say young generation, don't like this custom anymore. They want to choose their own bride or groom by themselves, but yeah, we still have this arranged marriage in our villages where the bride doesn't know the groom and the groom doesn't even know the bride. Their parents just arrange the marriage and introduce them for two days or a few weeks, they just get to know each other, maybe just little talks ... then they just get married. Everything starts after the marriage.

Katia: Wow! That is so interesting, but what about you? How do you feel about it?

Enam: Actually, I have decided not to go for arranged marriage, and I have already talked with my mom and she said, " OK, you can choose your own bride" ... but tell me Katia, what would you do if you were in Bangladesh and you had to do arranged marriage? Suppose you are in Bangladesh. You are a Bangladeshi girl and your parents are asking you to marry a guy they choose for you.

Katia: So, Enam, we're talking about arranged marriages, but what about the rate of divorce of arranged marriages? Is it high?

Enam: Well, actually, the rate is incredibly low. Actually, it's below ten percent and it's changing but still it's really low and the reason I think because the culture in Bangladesh ... in that kind of culture, boys and girls are like grown up in different ways, and they don't really see each other that closely, and that's why when you are married with a person, you start to know that person after different ... opposite gender ... quite well and that helps develop and understanding and they both ... both of them try to understand each other - their values - and in the cultural background it's normally decided that they have to be together normally without an exception for the rest of their lives, so they just try to work in that way. Do you have a higher divorce rate in your country?

Katia: Actually, unfortunately it is increasing. I really don't know the percentage but when I was young, if somebody of my friends parents would get a divorce that would be very shocking to hear. It was uncommon. But now, a lot of my friends actually are going though divorce or their parents have divorced, which it wasn't common but now it seems a little bit more common, so unfortunately things are changing in Mexico.

Enam: Why do you think that the divorce rate is going up? What could be the reason behind this?

Todd: So, Kadi, you are from Estonia. Can you talk about gender roles for the new generation compared to the older generation?

Kadi: Yes, in Estonia, we have this kind of Western type of family, a woman doesn't have to be a housewife. She can work. She can do whatever she likes. Even maybe the tendency right now is that women are becoming more masculine. Often it happens that women make more money than men do and they're the ones who bring the bread in the house. Yeah, compared to Eastern society where usually women are considered as housewives. They just have to clean and cook and raise the kids, and in my country ... no ... there's not such a thing and I think it always has been like that. I'm not quite sure but.

Todd: Who does the chores like cooking and cleaning?

Kadi: Yeah, I think we all do it. We don't have that kind of rule that women only have to clean and cook. Of course in some families, it is like that because women are better cleaning, especially, rather than men are, but yeah, men are quite good cooks.

Todd: So, Buddihini, today we're going to talk about roles and family: traditional roles or what people do. Now in Sri Lanka, is it common for usually the women to do all the cooking?

Buddhi: It was so. It was so, but still the mentality is such that they expect the daughters and the wives to do the kitchen stuff and the cleaning, the laundry and all that, but we do have a lot of working mothers now and they are many single parents as well so the culture has been changing a little bit, but still the majority is that women should do the usual household stuff and the men do the work outside and get the money. If it's like the cityside, and if the wife is also working, obviously it's not expected that the wife ends up doing everything.

Todd: So, what happens? Do you split the duties or do you hire a servant?

Buddhi: Yes, hiring some helper is quite common in Sri Lanka. I personally don't agree with that.

Todd: Well, what about clothes? Like, are you a brand name person?

Melissa: No, not at all. That's not my style.

Todd: Yeah, so what determines your style? What influences you?

Melissa: Well, what I do when I go shopping. I usually have something in mind that I want to buy, so either a certain color or just a certain item of clothing and then I look around at all the different shops and compare the best prices and things like that, and then I'll buy the one that's the best deal and I'll feel really good about it.

Hanna: So, next week I have to do a debate in my finance class.

Diego: Oh, really, what is your debate about?

Hanna: Our debate topic is about whether we should teach finance to kids, so things like investment and the stock market. Things like tax.

Diego: OK, and what do you think about the topic?

Tu: Hey, Todd, I heard you went to Vietnam. Tell me about it?

Todd: Yeah, it was a really good trip. I went during the break, and I was only there for seven days.

Tu: Oh.

Todd: Yeah, kind of too short. But I went to Ho Chi Min, and Mui Ne, and Nha Trang, so I saw three cities in seven days.

Todd: So, Anja, you are from Switzerland?

Anja: Yes, exactly.

Todd: So, I thought we would talk a little about your country.

Anja: OK.

Todd: Now, also your country is really famous for having different regions, correct? You have three main regions?

Anja: We have four.

Todd: Four?

Anja: Actually.

Tu: So, Amir, I heard ... I was really surprised to hear that Iran traffic is so bad.

Amir: Iran, yeah, Iran is actually very much famous for it's traffic. Traffic is so horrible. People have to just wait in cars for ages just to get to their places which is just by walking maybe forty minutes, thirty minutes far from the place you are.

Tu: So there are a lot of traffic jams?

Amir: Yeah, yeah. The capacitiy of the streets and the amount of car just doesn't match, so people have to wait for many hours.

Tom: Jess, you were talking before about mistakes that your Hungarian students always made, and how some students from the same country all make the same mistakes again and again and again. Well, I work here in Thailand and they have a very cute phrase, "same, same" which I think means to describe something as being the same as something else, I spend five - ten minutes talking to a student explaining that instead of using same same, she should use "the same as" and I was trying to get this phrase over to her and finally she understood what I meant and she looked at me and said, "Ah, same as same same same same".

Jess: In Spain I think the most common mistake was that in Spanish the noun people is a singular noun. You would say "le gente es" so when my Spanish speakers would use this noun they would always say, "Oh the people is very hungry" or "the people is very quiet" and I spent most of my time in Spain going "are - are -are" after these, the people even upper intermediate, advanced learners will still making that mistake.

In France, one very common mistake was the pronuciation error. The sound "Th" at the beginning words, for example, "there" or "those" that the French would pronounce with a zed sound, so "zere" or "zose" and I was very reluctant to correct it because it's such a sexy accent and it sounds so much more gorgeous with the French "ZZ" but I did have to correct it and I was always in France sticking my tongue out of my mouth to emphasize to them that there tongue needed to be forward to their teeth to make the correct sound.

You said you worked in Libya. What were the common mistakes for Libyan students?

Katia: So, Enam, let's talk about environmental problems of our countries. In Bangladesh, what is an environmental problem?

Enam: Actually, we have a lot of environmental problems in Bangladesh but mainly I'd say the soil contamination is quite bad, and also the air pollution and nowadays we also have water pollution because of tanneries in the cities.

Katia: So, tell me a little bit more about soil contamination?

Enam: Actually, we used to use a lot of polythene bags while shopping for the last ten or fifteen years, but the government has banned polythene two years ago I think but still, we still have a lot of polythene bags in our soil and the polythene bags, it doesn't go away, or it stays in the ground for more than a hundred years, and for that reason the soil loses its fertility and also even if you want to ... if you try to build buildings, you cannot build more than a certain level.

Christophe: OK, Aiste, we're going to talk about environmental issues in Europe. So, does Lithuania have environmental issues?

Aiste: Oh, actually were are facing kind of a big problem. The Baltic Sea that's besides Lithuania. You know three Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, together with Scandinavian and Denmark are close to the Baltic Sea that's very isolated and almost has no contact with the ocean and because of that it functions almost like a lake so it means the oxygen can't really get into it and there are a lot of algae growing and the eutrophication and together pollution as well as nutrients increase due to the factories that are around the place where people live are causing a lot of problems in Baltic Sea.

Christophe: Eutrophication? What does that mean?

Aiste: Eutrophication is actually a process when due to the increase nitrates and other organic materials, a lot of algae starts growing in the sea, and therefore it deprives the sea of oxygen and once it deprives the seas of oxygen, no more fish can live in the sea and they start dying out. Therefore the sea smells with kind of sulphur - strange smell - and it's a huge problem because the biodiversity and the fish and the in the sea decreases.

Tom: Jess, you were talking before about getting your hair done.

Jess: Every month, I have my hair done. Well, every four to six weeks I have my hair done. I have highlights which is one color. They take small strands of the hair and color that so overall it looks like it's more sunkissed, like it's bleached in the sun. But then I also get a low-light put through it, which is less harmful to the hair and gives more volume to the color if you have two colors, and that takes a long time to do. They wrap the hair they're going to color in foil and it takes about half an hour for it to take effect and during that time they put a big ... I don't know how to describe it really. It's like a big helmut which releases hot air onto your hair, which speed up the process of the coloring, so it's quite long and drawn out. I usually get through two or three magazines while that's happening. And then they wash out all of the color, and I have a treatment to protect the hair because the color often makes it dry, so the colors kinds of ... the treatments nourishing and moisturizing and they leave that on for about twenty minutes again so usually I fall asleep at that point, and then they'll rinse your hair and then cut it and style it so anything between two and a half and four hours, so much more complex and longer than you're half-an-hour short-back and sides.

Yeah, I have a whole monthly beauty regime. I also go and get my nails done and I have a manicure and a pedicure simultaneously to save time. And I love that. It always feels decedent to have one person working on your hands and another scrubbing away at your feet, and sometimes I'll have like a matching polish which always makes me feel good. What else do I have done every month? I try to go for a massage and a facial once a month. At the moment, I'm doing like a workout regime so I'm working out every day, so my muscles are aching a lot, especially when I stand up and sit down, so I'm going for special ... what's the word ... ayurvedic. I'm not sure what the right word is: special massage where they really push down on your muscles and then I have a facial afterwards. Yeah, I think that's about it. I think that's enough, no!

Tom: Well, I don't envy all that time you spend! But you do look great.

Jess: OK, so Tom, I've told you all about my beauty regime. You look very well groomed. Could you tell me what do you do to keep yourself looking good?

Tom: Well, thank you Jess. I mean this look is the product of many stages of evolution. When I was a teenager, I had long hair pulled back in a pony-tail, but at that time I wasn't growing a beard yet so I did get mistaken for a girl, so since then I've had short hair. There have been some periods when I've been traveling and when I'm traveling I don't like to bother too much about grooming, and my beard has started to grow, and it was a couple of years back that I went back to my job after traveling. I didn't have time to shave, and my colleagues and students saw me with a full beard, and to be honest they weren't as rude as I thought there were going to be, and I thought well maybe this looks good, so I thought I'd keep that. The beard lasted perhaps a year and then it began disappearing and appearing according to my whim and now I've settled on a goatee which is where I shave my cheeks and underneath my chin, but I keep the mustache and and beard around my mouth. I've never grown sideburns because I'm a little embarrassed to say, I've never managed to get the connection between my beard and my hair. There's a little gap just by my ears which never has quite grown hair, so that's where we got to where we are today.

Jess: And have you ever removed hair from, waxed or shaved or any other part method from any other part of your body?

Tom: Do you mean my legs? No, I have never shaved my legs. I'm not a very hairy guy, but I just don't feel comfortable with men shaving their legs. A friend at university was a cyclist and he always shaved his legs and I thought it was strange because ... I mean, seriously, is wind resistance that important that you need to shave you legs to get the extra bit of speed on a bicycle, but he explained to me, "No", it's to do with evening after cycling and you have to get a sports massage and a massage is much easier if you don't have hair on your legs. I always thought it was about wind resistance, but I was completely wrong.

Todd: So Greg, we're talking about controversial issues and one of the issues in your book is income disparity. So, what do you think about minimum wage?

Greg: Minimum wage. Minimum wage I think is very important to have otherwise employers are going to take advantage of people; pay them too little. The society, society itself must decide what is the proper minimum wage and that in itself is an issue. What should it be?

Todd: You know, actually I disagree. I am actually against a minimum wage. I think that you know, basically all markets find equilibrium and that the wage goes too low people just won't do the job, and so basically, it you don't have a minimum wage eventually the society will come to a wage where people fell comfortable doing that work. That basically things will work out.

Greg: In theory maybe you're right, but in reality you're really wrong. I mean take a look at some of these countries around the world where there are sweat shops, where you have children, cause there are no rules regulating labor, and you have children who have never been educated, spend their entire lives working almost like slaves in unhealthy conditions. That's what happens when there are no rules to protect workers.

Todd: So Greg in the last one we were talking about minimum wage, and this is one of the topics in your book and it's about income disparity. One of the chapters is about income disparity. Now the opposite would be should there the a salary cap, which would mean that basically you could only earn so much, like let's say you can only earn five million dollars, ten million dollars. Nobody could earn more than that. What do you think about that concept?

Greg: I personally agree with a salary cap. I'm not sure how much it should be, but definitely the discrepancy in wages is way to great. There's too many people who have to ... a husband and a wife work hard forty hours or more, both of them. They're barely, barely getting by, and then you got all these other people who are just buying Rolls-Royce cars and Mercedes, and country clubs and it's just not fair.

Todd: But, well, for one, though I mean, Mercedes and Rolls-Royce and those are products that provide jobs, so I would argue with that. Actually, as you can probably tell, I'm against the idea mainly because, you know, I think that hurts innovation. You know, you look at people like the CEO of a very powerful internet company or software company, and you know, take google for example, I'm sure that they make more than ten million, but they're service is used so much around the world, that they should get that money, and if people couldn't ... hang on ... if people couldn't get ... couldn't earn that salary then maybe they wouldn't have the same motivation and drive to be successful and that people would lose out as a result.

Greg: I think that there's not proof to say that these people are making these products because they're making such tremendous amounts of money. What came first: the product and then they got the money in most cases. There's ... these people could be ... society can have all sorts of wonderful products and still have a fair income system, and I have nothing against people becoming rich or making a good salary, a very good salary, but not such an incredible gap. You have executives of some major international corporations that are making more money than millions of people in the world make combined. The opposite side of not having a cap is that you have people who are making too little, and those people are also working hard. Those people deserve validation. Those people deserve a good life standard which millions of people across the world are not having.

Todd: So, Greg, you have a new book out, and you're book has lots of controversial topics, and one of the topics is organ donation. So first can you explain what organ donation is?

Greg: Sure. Organ donation is when a person living or dead allows his or her organs to be used in another person.

Todd: So for example like you donate a liver, or kidney or something like that.

Greg: That's right.

George: Hey, hey, hey!

Crystal: Hey, hey, hey! How's it going?

George: Bad!

Crystal: Why? What's up?

George: Where are you working these days?

Crystal: I'm working at the restaurant around the station.

George: What's it like working in a restaurant?

Crystal: Well, it's ... busy times are busy, but boring sometimes. It's just usual work: washing dishes, serving and then that it's pretty much. Not a big deal job. I really like it, but at the same time I'm looking for more. I think I should look for a desk job or something.

Yuri: So Shirley, you were talking about the shack. Can you tell me some more about it?

Shirley: OK, well, the shack - not as horrible as it might sound. I was actually born in the city, and yeah, grew up on the edge of the city of Glasgow, and my parents ... maybe I was about seven or eight years old ... my parents decided they would buy this little wooden house in the country side, only about forty-five minutes drive from where we lived, but right in the countryside, and it was really basic. It was huge. It looked like a barn, and my parents wanted to try and make it into something livable like a holiday house that we could go to on the weekends and summer holidays and stuff, so anyway we went there ... for the first time we went, it still looked like a barn, and had some beds in it and stuff like that, but no running water, no electricity, no toilet, no bath, no shower. It was like a barn in the middle of nowhere, so as you know, me and my brothers, we are kind of raised in the city, and although, you know we were kids way before video games and iPods and things like that, there was no TV. That was the biggest tragedy. There was no TV, and we though what on earth can we do up here? It's like we're in the middle of nowhere, how boring this summer holiday's gonna be, so we just had to you know, try and figure out how we we're gonna enjoy this holiday and what could we do with no television.

Yuri: Yes, exactly, what did you do? How did you spend you days?

Shirley: We were out in the country side. I mean, you just need to go out and look, and there's so many possibilities to have fun: making tree houses, making dens out of the woodland ferns and things like that, going on searches for frogs. We seemed to do that a lot. Poor frogs. We made like a tennis court out in the front of the ... we called it the hut. Right, I keep calling it a barn or a shack, but actually what we called it was a hut, although it was a really huge kind of wooden house, and so yeah, we made up a kind of a tennis court and when it wasn't raining we could play tennis.