一家人的特别旅行

邵江鸿

爱尔兰的科克有一家人通过和陌生人交换房子住来环游世界，这为他们节省了不少钱。

1 Sharon Holland and her husband， Jer， are travelling around the world and saving money at the same time—by swapping houses with strangers to keep the bills low. They only have to pay for their flights， meaning they save hundreds of pounds on their holidays each year.

2 The couples occupation allows them to jet off during school holidays for long periods of time. Both work as school Deputy Principals， which allows them to take their children， Cian， 23， Miah， 13， and Faye， 11， abroad up to four times per year. On average， they pay ￡1，250 per year for flights.

3 Sharon， from Cork， Ireland， has exchanged her home with strangers 40 times in the last 13 years and says shes never looked back. She said， “I couldnt imagine travelling any other way now. Swapping our Irish Georgian farmhouse for another property abroad is amazing. There are home?style houses， modern city apartments and beautiful architectural period houses， too. Every holiday is different and staying in someone elses property enhances the experience as it takes us off the trail. We are able to meet more locals and understand the culture more than we would if we were to stay at a hotel resort. We bring our laptops during the summer weeks as we are both responsible for timetabling and school planning， but this can be done at a distance.”

4 Sharon has visited various cities in America， France， Germany， Hungary， Italy， Spain， the Netherlands， the UK and their home country of Ireland. “But our favourite place is Italy， and we have been lucky enough to visit there six times. Over the years， every experience has been fabulous （极好的） —from taking in the architecture to the food. We have made some wonderful happy memories with less money，” added she.

Detail 1. Why do the couple travel by swapping houses with strangers？

A. To avoid taking a flight.

B. To spread local culture.

C. To enrich their experience.

D. To reduce travel costs.

Detail 2. What can we know about Sharon from the text？

A. She comes from England and likes Italy.

B. She never lives in a hotel when travelling.

C. She is keen on the way of swapping houses.

D. She plans to open a school with her husband.

Inference 3. What does Sharon think of swapping houses with strangers？

A. Unacceptable. B. Fantastic.

C. Ridiculous. D. Traditional.

Inference 4. Whats the main purpose of the text？

A. To share a couples special way to travel.

B. To advise more people to travel worldwide.

C. To introduce ways of exchanging houses.

D. To teach us to save money while travelling.

Ⅰ. Difficult sentence in the text

They only have to pay for their flights， meaning they save hundreds  of pounds on their holidays each year. 他们只需要支付机票费用，这意味着他们每年在度假上可以节省数百英镑。

【点石成金】本句中，They only have to pay for their flights为主句部分；meaning为现在分词作结果状语，后面的they save hundreds of pounds on their holidays each year是省略了that的宾语从句。

Ⅱ. Text?centered chunks

at the same time 同时

swap/exchange sth with sb 和某人交换某物

jet off 乘飞机离开

on average 平均