Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 635, Arranging Airport Transfer.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 635.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Download a learning guide for this episode from our website that will help you improve your English even faster faster than the speed of light.
That's pretty fast.
This episode is called Arranging Airport Transfer.
Let's get started.
My wife and I bought a vacation package and we thought that it included everything.
We should have double-checked that it included airport transfer to our hotel as well.
Hindsight is 20-20, they say.
My wife wanted to take a taxi, but I nixed that idea.
It would cost an arm and a leg.
I wanted a cheaper option.
So we went to ask about it at the airport information desk.
Hello, my wife and I need to get to our hotel downtown.
What are our options?
We're hoping to find a cheaper option.
Okay, in that case, a limo service would be out too.
There are private shuttle services, but since you're so far from downtown, you'll be making a lot of stops and it will take a long time to get there.
You could also take public transportation, the bus or the subway, but that'll take even longer.
Doesn't your hotel have a courtesy shuttle?
I never thought of that.
Many downtown hotels do.
Call your hotel and they'll be able to tell you.
They'll probably have the best suggestion on how to get there too, if they don't have their own shuttle.
If you decide on a private shuttle service or to take public transportation, Come back and I'll give you more information.
Thanks a lot.
I'll give the hotel a call right now.
Lucky for us, the hotel had a courtesy shuttle and it was on its way.
Good thing, too, since I didn't relish spending any more time at the airport after a long red-eye.
Our story begins.
My wife and I bought a vacation package and we thought that it included everything.
A vacation package is when a company sells you airplane tickets, your hotel transportation, often your meals.
All of this is part of one price.
He says we should have double-checked that it included airport transfer to our hotel as well.
To double-check means to make sure that something is correct.
To go back again to check something is to make sure it's correct, or to inspect to look at something.
They should have double-checked that their vacation package included airport transfer.
The airport is where the planes fly in and out of.
Transfer is taking someone from one place to another.
So airport transfer is transporting or taking you in a car or a bus from your airport to the hotel.
Many hotels that are near the airport have free what are called shuttles, which are small buses or vans that pick you up from the airport and take you back to the hotel, so you don't have to pay for a taxi.
That's true in a lot of big cities in the U.S.
Hindsight is 2020, he says.
This is an old expression.
Hindsight means looking back at what has happened in the past, considering what has already taken place.
2020 refers to the system that we use to determine how good your eyesight or your seeing ability is.
2020 is what we call perfect vision.
You can see perfectly.
You don't need glasses.
I am definitely not 2020.
But hindsight is always 20-20, meaning it's always easy to understand something that has already happened.
The difficult part is seeing what is going to happen in the future.
The story continues, my wife wanted to take a taxi, a taxi cab, but I nixed the idea.
A taxi or a cab, or a taxi cab, they're all the same is when you have a driver that you pay, usually based on how long you are in the car or how far the car travels, or both.
The taxi idea however, was nixed by this man, Don we later learn his name is To nix N-I-X.
Something means to say no to it, to refuse to do it, to make sure it does not happen.
He says it would cost an arm and a leg.
Taking a taxi, that is, would cost an arm and a leg.
This expression means very expensive, something that costs a lot of money, too much money.
He says I wanted a cheaper option, a cheaper choice, so I went to ask about it at the airport information desk.
Many airports have information desks.
I'm not sure if they would give you information about this, but maybe.
Don says, He's talking to the woman who works at the information desk in the airport.
What are our options?
The clerk says, well, you could take a taxi.
Don says, we're hoping to find a cheaper, less expensive option.
The clerk says okay, in that case meaning, if that's what you are looking for a limo service would be out too.
Limo is short for limousine.
It's a very large, usually black car that is very long.
You often see limousines at expensive parties when there are awards shows here in Los Angeles, and there are lots of them.
There are always limousines that take the stars, the celebrities, to the event.
There are also limos or limousines that are not long, that are more like a regular car, but very nice and comfortable.
A limo service is a company that will send a car to you a nice car, not a taxi but And you pay typically one price.
They charge you a certain amount, and you know what that is in advance.
With a taxi.
You may not know, because it depends on how long or how far it is that you ride in the taxi cab.
Anyway, the clerk says a limo service would be out.
To be out is a two-word phrasal verb meaning not to be a possibility, to be impossible, to be eliminated as a choice.
She says there are private shuttle services, but since you're so far from downtown, you'll be making a lot of stops and it will take a long time to get there.
A shuttle service is a company that arranges to drive groups of people from one place to another, normally in a large car, a large van.
What happens here in Los Angeles and in some other cities is you can call up one of the shuttle services and say they will come by and pick you up at your house, just like a taxi cab would, but they'll also, on their way to the airport, stop and pick up other people.
And so all of you go together.
It takes a longer time then to go from your house or your hotel to the airport, because the shuttle may be stopping at three or four more places to pick up more people.
However, a shuttle is cheaper than a taxi, for sure, but you'll be making a lot of stops if you take it.
A stop is one of the places where the vehicle, the van, stops to pick up someone or to leave someone at their hotel or house.
I should mention also that the word shuttle and the expression be out have additional meanings which can be found only in our learning guide.
Well, you can find them other places too, but most especially in our learning guide.
The clerk says you could also take public transportation.
Public transportation is... something that the government provides.
Usually buses, subways, some trains are part of what we call public transportation.
She mentions two of these, the bus and the subway.
The subway, of course, is a type of train that goes typically underground, although sometimes it may be an elevated train.
What is called in cities that have elevated trains, an L short for elevated, meaning up above the ground.
Subways however, such as the ones in New York, at least in the main part the downtown Manhattan, are underground.
Even Los Angeles now has a subway.
Unfortunately it doesn't go very far from downtown and isn't really very useful to you, but we have one.
The clerk says, doesn't your hotel have a courtesy shuttle station?
We talked earlier about how the hotels have their own shuttles, their own cars or vans that go and pick people up from the airport and bring them back to the hotel.
That's called a courtesy shuttle.
Courtesy means, in this case, free.
It doesn't cost you any money.
Don, who's not exactly an intelligent man, says, I never thought of that.
Hmm, Don, wake up.
The clerk says many downtown hotels do, meaning many of them do have, courtesy shuttles.
Call your hotel and they'll be able to tell you.
They'll probably have the best suggestion on how to get there too, if they don't have their own shuttle.
If you decide on a private shuttle service or to take public transportation, come back and I'll give you more information.
So the clerk is telling Don, the idiot, to call his hotel, see if they have a free shuttle.
If they don't ask them what's the best way to get from the airport to downtown, where the hotel is located?
In Los Angeles, the downtown and the airport, the main airport, are several miles apart.
Driving it takes, with no other cars on the road, probably about 25 to 30 minutes to get downtown.
So this is a big problem if you don't have cheap transportation.
Don says, thanks a lot.
I'll give the hotel a call right now.
To give someone a call means to call them on the telephone.
Don says, something that is on its way is, something that is moving toward you, something that is coming to you but is not yet there, not yet arrived.
He says good thing too, which means it was a good thing, it was a lucky or fortunate thing, since I didn't relish spending any more time at the airport after a long red-eye.
To relish, R-E-L-I-S-H, means to enjoy, to look forward to.
Don says he did not relish.
He did not look forward to spending more time at the airport after a long red-eye.
A red hyphen eye E-Y-E, like the eye you use to see, is an airplane flight that travels during the night.
So, for example, there's a plane that leaves Los Angeles at midnight that flies to New York City.
It takes six hours to get there, roughly.
And because New York is three hours ahead of Los Angeles, the time difference is three hours.
If you leave at midnight from Los Angeles, you'll arrive in New York City at nine o'clock in the morning.
The plane flies all night, normally when you would be sleeping.
What happens if you don't get enough sleep? sometimes you will wake up and your eyes will be red.
That's why we call that kind of plane a red eye.
Strange, but true.
Now let's listen to the story and dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
My wife and I bought a vacation package and we thought that it included everything.
We should have double checked that it included airport transfer to our hotel as well.
Hindsight is 20-20, they say.
My wife wanted to take a taxi, but I nixed that idea.
It would cost an arm and a leg.
I wanted a cheaper option, so we went to ask about it at the airport information desk.
Hello, my wife and I need to get to our hotel downtown.
What are our options?
Well, you could take a taxi.
We're hoping to find a cheaper option.
Okay, in that case, a limo service would be out too.
They're private shuttle services, but since you're so far from downtown, you'll be making a lot of stops and it will take you a long time to get there.
You could also take public transportation, the bus or the subway, but that'll take even longer.
Doesn't your hotel have a courtesy shuttle?
I never thought of that.
Many downtown hotels do.
Call your hotel and they'll be able to tell you.
They'll probably have the best suggestion on how to get there too, if they don't have their own shuttle.
If you decide on a private shuttle service or to take public transportation, come back and I'll give you more information.
Thanks a lot.
I'll give the hotel a call right now.
Lucky for us, the hotel had a courtesy shuttle and it was on its way.
Good thing, too, since I didn't relish spending any more time at the airport after a long red-eye.
If you relish listening to these scripts as much as I do, you can thank our scriptwriter, Dr Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
