Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
I'm Connor from polyglossa.com and you're listening to episode 12 of the Listening Time Podcast.
If this is your first time here, welcome.
I'm happy to have you here.
This podcast is for English learners who want to improve their listening comprehension.
If you can already understand a lot of English, but you can't understand native speakers when they're speaking fast, at normal speed, then this podcast is perfect for you, because in each episode I talk about different topics and I speak naturally.
I don't have a script.
I'm not reading anything.
I'm speaking as the words come to my mind, but I'm speaking a little bit more slowly and a little bit more clearly than the average native speaker does.
So it's natural. and it's good practice for your listening.
And of course, with each episode, the transcript is available.
So if you just look in the details part of the episode, you'll find the link to the transcript there.
So that should help you understand me.
If you want to listen to the episode multiple times, maybe you can listen the first time without the transcript, and then the second time with the transcript, and then maybe one more time without the transcript again.
It should be helpful for you.
So in this episode I'm gonna talk about my recent road trip to Querétaro, which is a state here in Mexico where I live.
So I'll tell you about my trip, and about the things I saw, the places I stayed, etc.
And before we start, remember to check out our 1 listening practice seminars at polyglossacom if you need more help with your listening skills.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, so let's talk about my road trip to Querétaro.
So, I went on this trip about a week and a half ago, and it was a relatively short trip.
It was only for three nights, and we stayed in Airbnbs each night.
So I usually don't stay in hotels or places like that.
I rent an Airbnb because it's convenient and it's usually cheaper.
So I like that.
So we went on a road trip, and if you've listened to my previous podcast episode about my road trip through Baja California, you know that a road trip is a trip that you take by car.
You don't fly, you drive.
This is called a road trip.
So I took a road trip with my wife, with my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law.
So the four of us drove for a few hours to our first destination, which was actually not Querétaro.
This is a different state called Guanajuato.
So this is a very beautiful state in the country of Mexico.
And specifically, the city of Guanajuato is very nice.
This city was a mining city in the past.
The word mining refers to the practice of digging in the ground and extracting material like gold and silver and things like that.
So this city used to be a mining city and specifically people mined for silver there.
So it's very famous for that historical fact.
And if you go there, you can still see evidence of this history, because there are many roads that go through the hills and through the mountains.
So these are subterranean roads.
Subterranean just means underground.
So when you're driving in Guanajuato, you go through many roads that cut through the mountains and cut through the hills.
When we say that something cuts through something else, This means that it doesn't go around it.
It goes right through it.
It cuts through it.
So you can see that this was a city where people used to mine for silver in the past.
So that's pretty cool.
And what's also cool is that it's a really beautiful city in general.
There are many houses that line the hillside.
When something lines something, that just means that there are many of that thing in a row in that place.
So if I say many houses line the hillside, it means that there are many houses on the hillside.
And these houses are very colorful.
They all have different colors like red, yellow, blue, green.
And it looks really cool when you see them from the other side.
When you're looking at the mountain from one side, you can see all these houses with their different colors.
It's really cool.
So we just stopped there for breakfast and to walk around a little bit, because we had all already been to this city so we didn't want to stay there overnight, But we had a great breakfast there.
And we had hot chocolate.
Hot chocolate is a drink that is chocolate flavored.
And it's warm.
So it's usually milk based.
And it's very sweet.
And this place where we got hot chocolate in Guanajuato is is, in my opinion, the best place for hot chocolate in the world.
I had already been there before, so i knew i wanted to stop there this time and get that same hot chocolate.
We enjoyed it very much.
So after Guanajuato, we drove to the state of Querétaro.
And we first went to the city or town of Tequisquiapan.
This is a magic town.
In Mexico, we have a certain classification of towns called magic towns.
That just means that these places have some touristic value.
So they're usually really beautiful and have a nice plaza in the middle.
And there are nice restaurants.
And they're safe.
And the government usually takes care of these little towns.
So this is a magic town. in the state of Querétaro.
And one of the coolest things about this town is the way that the buildings look from the outside.
So there are many colorful buildings that have vines on them.
A vine is a plant that is very long like a snake and has many leaves, and it grows on surfaces such as the front of buildings and things like that.
So these buildings and houses in Tekiskiapan have a lot of vines, these green vines.
They look really beautiful and they have really cool wooden doors as well.
So the image of the front of the buildings It's really cool.
The buildings are colorful.
They have really nice wooden doors, and they're covered with vines.
It's really cool.
And they have good restaurants there.
We ate great food there.
And their central square is also really cute.
A central square just refers to the open area in the middle of a town or a city.
In Latin America, this is usually where the cathedral or church is, and you go to this central square and see many people sitting on the benches outside.
A bench is the outdoor seating that exists at parks and plazas.
You know what I'm talking about.
These long seats where people sit outside.
These are benches.
So the central square in Tekiskyapan is really cute.
We like to use the word cute when we describe areas that are nice, charming, beautiful.
We like to call these places cute in English.
So this city has a very cute central square.
After that, We went to the town of Bernal the next day.
This town is also a magic town, so there's definitely touristic value in this town.
And the main reason why this is a magic town is because of the Peña, as we say in Spanish.
This refers to a monolith.
A monolith is a very big rock structure that sticks up out of the ground.
So it's not a mountain that has a range of peaks and hills.
This is just one big rock.
This is called a monolith.
So at Bernal, you can find the third biggest monolith in the world.
So it's huge.
It's enormous.
You can see it from very far away.
When you're approaching the town, you can see it from miles away.
And we actually went up and climbed like one-fourth or one-third of this monolith.
So we definitely didn't get close to the top, but we did climb up part of it.
It was a pretty difficult hike, not because it's really long, but because it's very steep.
The word steep means that the surface has a lot of inclination.
It's almost vertical.
It's not horizontal.
We use the word steep to describe mountains and hills that have a surface like this.
So we climbed up a little bit of the monolith and it was really fun.
I love climbing things outdoors.
This is a really fun activity for me.
So we did that, and then we went to our Airbnb, which was a cabin.
It was a pretty cool cabin on the side of a hill.
And at this cabin we had type of deck.
A deck is like a raised surface outside of your house where you can put chairs or tables, and It's usually Raised, as I said, so it's not at the ground level.
It's a little bit higher, and So we had this deck with chairs and tables and we were able to sit down and watch the sunset over the mountains in the west, and we had a perfect view of the monolith from this deck.
So we really enjoyed this cabin.
It was a great choice of airbnb and if i ever go there again, i'm definitely gonna stay at that same cabin, because it was really nice and the view was incredible.
And another thing about that town Bernal, is that it has a lot of traditional Mexican food.
It doesn't have a lot of really fancy high-end restaurants.
It has cheap, traditional, good Mexican food.
So we ate that when we were there, and it was very good.
So we really enjoyed that.
But for me, I usually like to go to creative not fancy, but creative creative, interesting restaurants.
So for me, I prefer to go to those types of places when I travel.
But it's always nice to eat dinner or lunch or breakfast at a traditional local restaurant and just enjoy the food that locals eat.
So that was nice.
And so the next day we left Bernal and we went to our final destination, which was Querétaro City.
This is sometimes referred to as Santiago de Querétaro.
So this is the capital city of the state.
And this city is not huge, but it's growing very fast.
In the past, it was much smaller.
But nowadays, it's constantly growing.
And many people are moving there from other cities in Mexico.
And foreigners also move there.
This city has a lot of investment, both national and foreign.
And for instance, the IT sector is very big there.
IT refers to information technology.
So this is the industry that deals with computers and programming and technology, computer science, things like that.
So the IT sector is booming there.
When we say that something is booming, that means that it's becoming very popular, it's succeeding, it's growing.
When something is doing that, we say that it's booming.
So the IT sector is booming there.
And the automotive industry is also big in this city.
So I don't know exactly which brands of cars are made there, but there are a lot of cars that are manufactured there, if I'm not mistaken.
And this city is a cool city overall.
The best part of the city is the downtown.
I think.
I might not be qualified to say that because I haven't seen the whole city.
But for tourists, the most attractive place is the downtown.
I don't know if this is the best neighborhood to live in probably not but it's the coolest part of the city to see as a tourist.
So the downtown area is really nice.
It's great for tourists because there are a lot of pedestrian walkways.
So the word pedestrian refers to people who are walking, not people who are driving.
So when you're driving, you're supposed to wait for the pedestrians to cross the street before you go.
So in downtown Querétaro, there are many pedestrian walkways and streets where there are no cars.
So you can walk through there and there are many people that sell crafts.
Crafts are things that people make with their hands, like things like bowls and plates, and jewelry and clothes that are handmade.
So you can see many crafts there and buy them from the local artisans.
So that's cool.
And in the downtown area you can see many parks and squares and nice places outdoors where you can sit down with your family and just relax and people watch.
Some of you might remember that phrase from before.
To people watch just means to sit down and observe the people walk by you.
This is called people watching.
So there are a lot of great places to do this in the downtown part of the city.
So this city is a good place to visit for a couple of days probably.
There's a lot of good food there as well.
We ate at some really good restaurants when we were there.
And we stayed at an average Airbnb in the city.
Our accommodation was close to the downtown area.
So we had easy access to all the central squares and pedestrian walkways in the center of the city.
So that was nice.
And then the next day, we drove back to Guadalajara, which is where I currently live.
So overall, it was a good trip.
It went by very fast.
When we say that something goes by fast, that means that the time passes quickly.
So the trip went by very fast, and it's over now.
So hopefully this was interesting for you and hopefully it was good practice for your listening skills.
Remember to access the transcript in the details section of this episode.
And, of course, rate this podcast, give it a like, comment on it and share it with anyone that might find it useful.
And so hopefully you'll come back for episode 13 of the Listening Time podcast.
