Alice Thompson is a girl from Sydney, Australia. She had her first long     1     (distant) train ride at the age of 18. Together with a friend, she got     2     the famous Ghan train in Sydney and got off in Alice Springs. During the two days and nights, they ate meals     3     (cook) by experts and saw fields, desert and     4     (abandon) farms. In the daytime, Alice talked to other passengers and read some books. At night, she watched the stars in the sky     5     shone like diamonds.

Why is the train     6     (call) the Ghan? It is short for Afghanistan. A long time ago, Australians wanted to travel to the middle of their country, so they brought some     7     (train) camels from Afghanistan    8     (carry) food and other supplies, and returned with wool and other     9     (produce). They did that until     10     1920s, when the government built a new railway line and took the place of camels.

2 . When I was in my twenties, I travelled alone through the UK. In order to _______locations that the public transportation couldn’t get to, I bought a(n) _______car, drove in around for three months and sold it before I returned to Australia. The car cost most of my money, so I lived mainly on _______during that trip, it being cheap and filling In Ireland, my _______was stolen, and it was impossible to get another. So for the rest of the trip I _______out in my car, being too poor to afford bed and breakfast.

One morning, I _______in my old Skoda under a twisted tree on a remote lane in the Irish countryside, with no more than a _______house in sight. I had a terrible desire for a _______cup of tea and some hot water to make porridge with _______I would not have to eat the cold leftovers from the previous day.

My thermos (暖瓶) had gone cold overnight sol knocked on the door of the house. A woman opened it. Hot water? She ________let me get away with just that!I was invited indoors, seated at the breakfast table with the ________and given a delicious breakfast, as much as I could eat. I was ________to eat something more than porridge! I ________being friends with the whole family.

That was only one of many acts of ________strangers showed me when I was traveling alone in foreign regions. One London businessman rushing to work, seeing me ________offered to pull my ridiculously heavy suitcase ________several flights of stairs in the underground. After he’d done so, with a smile and a wave, he ________into the crowd.

Kindness gets ________. The other day, I was able to point out a rare parking spot to a young man who had been driving around the railway car park, looking ________desperate. His grateful smile was all the ________I needed as I dashed off to catch my train.

3 . How to Be a Good Tourist

We travel not only for work but also for fun and learning. Restaurants, galleries, temples and architecture...These places are like homes for people who live and work there. How would you want visitors to behave in your own home?     1     There are many ways of doing this without sacrificing our own holiday.

Do your homework.     2     Guides will help you when you get to the site, but is that the best place to go? Is it popular only because the one-day tourist can see it easily or because it is really a worthwhile place to visit？You’d better check it out.

    3     Walk around, even if in the streets closest to your hotel. Eat in local restaurants. Talk to the locals. Learn a few in the local language and use them. You will surely get a smile from the hotel staff and street sellers.

Help preserve the sites. Most of the sites you visit may be visited by millions of people a year, so care needs to be taken to allow others to enjoy them as well. Some of these monuments are so old and fragile that they are sensitive to the touch of hands or bags and shows.     4     This way, you don’t encourage the use of those plastic bags that fly all over many sites.

And here’s the big one — good manners are nearly universal.     5     If that doesn’t sound like you, then give the world a break and stay home.

9 . Driving to a friend’s house on a recent evening,I was attracted by the sight of the full moon rising just above my friend’s rooftops.I stopped to watch it for a few moments,thinking about what a pity it was that most city people,myself included,usually miss sights like this because we spend most of our lives indoors.

My friend had also seen it.He grew up living in a forest in Europe,and the moon meant a lot to him then.It had touched much of his life.

I know the feeling.Last December I took my seven-year-old daughter to the mountainous jungle of northern India with some friends.We stayed in a forest rest-house with no electricity or hot water.Our group had campfires outside every night,and indoors when it was too cold outside.The moon grew to its fullest during our trip.Between me and the high mountains lay three or four valleys.Not a light shone in them and not a sound could be heard.It was one of the quietest places I had ever known,a bottomless well of silence.And above me was the full moon,which struck me deeply.

Today our lives are filled with glass,metal,plastic and fibre-glass.We have televisions,cellphones,heaters,ovens,air-conditioners,cars and computers.

Struggling through traffic that evening at the end of a tiring day,most of it spent indoors,I thought:before long,I would like to live in a small cottage.There I will grow vegetables and read books and walk in the mountains.I may become an old man there,and wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled and measure out my life in coffee spoons.But I will be able to walk outside on a cold silent night and touch the moon.