Hello, lovely people of the world!
I'm Maria.
And my name is Rory.
And we're launching a new series of episodes called Stories with Rory.
These episodes focus on storytelling and the ability to talk about different topics at length.
We know from our own experience that it might be quite difficult to formulate a coherent story about a trip you made, your birthday party or all sorts of things that happened to us.
You start off good, but by the fourth sentence you get lost in all these tenses, forget the topic-related vocabulary and you just can't hold it all together really.
So in these episodes, we'll be trying to help you fix that.
We'll be showing you how to be natural, express your thoughts clearly and use good language in your everyday English.
The topics we'll be discussing all come from the second part of the IELTS speaking test.
We won't explain any vocabulary here, so your task is to listen carefully and know down everything you find useful.
We'll also be sharing episode transcripts so you can make the most out of Rory's stories.
But that's not all.
To make it even more interesting for everyone, we've added a twist to these new episodes.
And we'll be playing a truth or lie game.
Rory tells a story, I ask him questions about it, and then I decide if it is true or a lie.
Our topic today is as follows.
Rory is gonna describe an occasion when he lost something and then he got it back.
So, Rory, are you all ready?
Bring it on!
What have you got for us today?
Well, I'm not usually a forgetful person.
In fact, I actually like everything in its place.
But there was this really bad time when I was on holiday in Israel. about four or five years ago.
I'd gone there to celebrate just being promoted to a managerial role.
The plan was to go to Israel and then after that to come back to Russia, after being in the UK for the summer.
So I thought I would just take a small holiday and celebrate.
Um, we were.
It was the second day and i was sitting on the terrace partying and talking to people, and then i suddenly realized that i didn't have my passport.
I usually kept it in my back pocket, but when i checked for it wasn't there, So I panicked.
It was awful.
It was a terrible feeling.
And we spent the next hour looking around trying to find it but we couldn't find it there.
It was one of the worst feelings ever.
Obviously, when you're in a foreign country, your passport is quite important, because you needed it to move around places and I needed mine to go to Russia after I was finished in Israel, but it just wasn't there, so it was almost a complete disaster.
In addition to that, I'd also got all the stamps in there from all the places that I'd been to beforehand, so it had a lot of memories attached to it.
Anyway, I did get it back but only after I'd cancelled the passport.
I got it back under really embarrassing circumstances actually.
The cleaner found it a couple of days later when she was Well, just cleaning, I suppose.
And she came up to me and she was so happy that she'd found it.
But I groaned and moaned because it was completely useless now.
I couldn't use it to keep traveling onward to Russia because I'd canceled it and I had to go back to get a new one.
Even though I got it back, there were still problems as a result.
However, it wasn't a complete loss.
I still got my passport back and I still had all my memories in it, but it was quite a bad experience.
Wow, that's a story.
Okay.
Alright, so you said that you were on holiday in Israel, right?
Yes.
How long was it?
How long was the holiday?
I think it was about a week, five days.
It wasn't a very long holiday, but it was the most stressful holiday I've ever had.
And when exactly did you lose your passport?
On the first day?
No, no.
It was the second night.
I remember it very clearly.
I know it was the second night.
Because I'd had a great time on the first night.
What were you wearing that night?
To be honest, the same things I always wear when I'm on holiday in a hot country, just like a t-shirt and shorts and sandals.
So your shorts had a back pocket?
Shorts?
Yes, they're like cargo shorts.
Okay, so before you actually realized that there was no passport in your pocket, what had you been doing before that?
Well, the thing is, I was just speaking to people because I wasn't, I didn't really like drink any alcohol on holiday at all.
So it wasn't like I got drunk or something.
I was just clumsy and misplaced the damn thing.
Okay.
So you were walking on the beach or you were in a cafe when you did realize that oh, where is my passport.
We were sitting on the terrace.
There were a lot of people.
A terrace is like an open area, or at least in this case it was an open area on the top floor of the hostel.
Mm-hmm.
Do you always carry your passports in your freaking pocket?
Well, I used to, but now every time I go on holiday I make sure I put it in a safe or something like that, where it's safe even from me.
Okay, so when you realized that there was no passport what exactly did you do?
Well panicked, basically because it was the middle of the night, so there was nothing that could be done really.
After I was finished panicking, we looked around for a while, but we couldn't find it, so we just decided to forget it.
Keep having fun, and then we'll try and fix the problem the next day.
So you kept on going?
You kept having fun?
Well, there is nothing to do.
I mean, if you try and fix a problem but you can't in the initial stages and everything else you do is just repeating the same thing again and again.
You're not really doing much to help your mental state, are you?
So why bother?
What about your friends?
What did they say?
Oh, they were about as horrified as I was.
Wow.
What did you feel the instant when you realized that you'd lost your passport?
Like I say, it was like the world had ended.
My stomach dropped.
The bottom of my stomach dropped out.
The world kind of turned.
The gravity kind of shifted.
At least that's what it felt like.
It was a really terrible experience.
Okay.
So the next day you went to the embassy or to the kind of visa center in Israel and applied for a new passport.
The next day I called the passport office in the UK and they cancelled the original passport.
This means if it was stolen then it was useless.
And then the following day after that I arranged to pick up a replacement passport and go back to the UK and then I would get my new one.
So it wasn't a total disaster, but it was really annoying because it meant I had to wait another two weeks to go to Russia and start working.
So you had to go from Israel back to the UK, right?
To get the passport?
Yeah, it was a direct flight.
And did they tell you that they're gonna give you some paper or some temporary thing?
Yeah, I got a temporary passport.
It was white and it looks really different from the usual passport.
It's like very white and light and flimsy.
When did you get your passport back from this lady?
Like I say, on the second day, just after I'd not the second day of me being there, the second day of this whole crisis.
So I got it back just after I'd cancelled my old passport basically, which was?
It was so frustrating and just so ironic.
Okay, okay, and what did you do?
So you got your passport back, and what, you cancelled the cancelling of the old passport?
I tried, but once the process has started, you can't stop it.
Oh, wow.
So you did fly back to Moscow and then you flew back to the UK to get a new passport?
No, I had to fly back to the UK.
I couldn't fly to Moscow because my visa was completely invalid as well at that point.
Oh right, you lost the visa.
I didn't lose the visa, I had it cancelled because it was in my passport.
So when I got the passport back, I got the visa back, but the visa was just as useless as the passport.
And where did the lady, the hostel lady, find your passport?
Under a chair.
Oh.
So it just, like, it, what, dropped from your back pocket?
I'm guessing so.
I looked at it now and...
The back pockets of my shorts are actually quite shallow.
They have a button that should hold them closed, but if you're moving around a lot then it's easy for it to get dislodged.
Such is life.
Did you have a nice holiday in Israel?
It was a good holiday.
Like, apart from that one incident, it was actually one of the best holidays.
But it was just really that kind of cast a dark cloud over everything.
And after that story, have you ever lost any passports?
Yours or anyone else's?
No, no, you can't.
In the UK, I think you can only lose your passport two or three times, and then they just refuse to give you another one.
Are you joking?
No, I'm serious.
It happened to my uncle.
I think he's lost it one or two times and he was sent a letter by the home office, I'm sure, saying you need to stop losing your passports because we can't keep giving you new ones.
No, you mustn't lose any more passports.
Yeah.
Wow.
So now he's without any passports?
No, no.
He has one.
He just has a warning from the government saying don't lose this one.
Wow.
That's interesting because in Russia, I think you can lose as many passports as you want.
Well.
But it's just a pain in the neck to yeah to apply for a new passport, like all this waiting process.
Okay.
So, Maria, what do you think?
Is it the truth or is it a lie?
Well, you did answer all of my questions and you were pretty detailed in the story.
And actually I see this happening.
You know like you were having fun with your mates okay, at night somewhere in Israel in a hostel.
And then kind of wearing these shorts.
But usually kind of you are so well organized.
I like to think this is why I'm so well-organized, because bad things kept happening when I was not well-organized.
Yeah, because I know you're a super well-organized person and if you write everything down and I'm sure you put things in the proper places.
Okay, I'm gonna go for... I think it's true.
It's a true story.
And then maybe after that, as you say, you've become even more organized.
Yes, it is true.
It is true, yay!
It is true, of course it's true.
Victory!
Woohoo!
Yes, five points for Maria.
