You may have your favorite family spots on Long Island where you frequently take the kids. But there may be unexpected places you haven't explored yet.
Animal Exhibit
Not only will you see fish, reptiles and amphibians here, but you'll also see baby alligators and other rescued animals. Kids can also learn about science and participate in programs and workshops throughout the year. The Animal Exhibit is also a hotspot for science-themed birthday parties.
The Mattituck Strawberry Festival
The Mattituck Strawberry Festival kicks off the summer season with sweet treats and more. Long Island is known for numerous and extremely popular fairs and festivals that take place throughout the year. Other summer festivals include the Sayville SummerFest, St. Rocco's Feast, Brookhaven Fair and more. The fall season offers the largest abundance of fairs and festivals, such as the Pickle Festival, Oyster Festival, Long Island Fall Festival and many Hallo ween-themed festivals in Nassau and Suffolk.
Home Depot Kids Workshop
Does your kid enjoy making things by hand? You may want to take a trip to Home Depot Kids Workshop. Offered on the first Saturday morning of each month, workshops allow little ones to build and craft items, such as a skateboard pencil box that they can decorate and keep.
Chuck E. Cheesed
As soon as you. Walk through the doors you're instantly greeted by the sounds of other kids laughing as they play arcade games to win prizes and enjoy an animatronic show. After hours of play, check out their restaurant with kid-friendly options.
Rather than continue living a comfortable urban life, this British family has sold their London home in favor of launching the world's smallest nature reserve to save a nation's coral reef system. Karolina and Barry Seath— along with their two young daughters—are preparing to move to an island in the Seychelles（非洲塞舌尔群岛） measuring just 1,300 feet long by 980 feet wide（400 by 300 meters）.
They've launched a charity and teamed up with（与.....合作）local biologists in an effort to bring the coral reefs back to life in the smallest African country, which have been almost wiped out by rising sea temperatures. Their land-based coral farm will be only the second of its kind in the world, the other being on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, to specialize in regrowing coral to restore the reefs.
47-year-old Barry, who is a former policeman, said, “We are just a normal husband, wife and two kids, living the sort of life that most others do, but we felt the need to make a positive change for ourselves, our children, and the world we had largely taken for granted.”
Over the course of several vacations to the Seychelles, the Seaths witnessed the gradual deterioration（恶化） of the reefs. "Every time we visited, we noticed the coral was getting worse and worse," said Barry. "All the tourists say the same thing. They love the beaches but are really disappointed with the coral. "
Barry felt it was time to make a change and show his daughters an alternative way of eco-friendly living. He then teamed up with experts at the Marine Conservation Society Seychelles in order to develop the facility. Once it is complete, it will be the first large-scale, land-based coral farm in the Indian Ocean. The eco-warriors hope to use the facility to grow around 10,000 corals per year. Barry said, "Our long-term goal is to show everyone that—with just a relatively small investment—you can have a big positive influence on the marine （海的） environment."
The old Chinese saying "as happy as spending the New Year" might be outdated now in the busy modern world. The Spring Festival is regarded as the most important festival for Chinese people and an occasion for all family members to get together, like Christmas in the West. But many traditional customs accompanying the Spring Festival, however, have weakened in practice.
Setting off fireworks was once the most typical custom of the Spring Festival. People thought the sputtering(爆裂) sound could help drive away evil spirits. However, the activity has been completely or partially forbidden in big cities for years as the government has taken security, noise and pollution factors into consideration.
"In recent years, some cities have begun to allow people to light fireworks during limited hours at the Spring Festival, surrendering to(屈从于) public demand. Respecting folk traditions is a gesture of respect toward public opinion," said Zhou Xing, a folklore researcher.
"As people gain more income and it becomes easier to buy daily goods, the New Year holiday is just like any other. After long workdays, many people use the New Year holiday to take a rest, rather than visiting friends and neighbors. The process of making and enjoying the family dinner on Spring Festival Eve is the most important thing. However, many families would like to eat out to save time and energy," said Li Shunzhi, a resident of Harbin, Heilongjiang.
"I enjoy the holidays very much in the countryside. My family has been preparing for the Spring Festival more than two weeks before the holiday, cleaning the house, buying holiday goods and decorating the house with paper cuttings. On New Year's Eve, the whole family stays up to see the New Year in, and in the days to follow, a series of activities such as lion dancing, dragon lantern dancing, lantern festivals and temple fairs will be held. Without the ancient traditions, the holiday is nothing to us," said Zhang Hui, from Hebei.
At your next meeting, wait for a pause in conversation and try to measure how long it lasts.
Among English speakers, chances are that it will be a second or two at most. But while this pattern may be universal, our awareness of silence differs dramatically across cultures.
What one culture considers a confusing or awkward pause may be seen by others as a valuable moment of reflection and sign of respect for what the last speaker has said. Research in Dutch and also in English found that when a silence in conversation stretches to four seconds, people start to feel uneasy. In contrast, a separate study of business meetings found that Japanese people are happy with silences of 8.2 seconds — nearly twice as long as in Americans' meetings.
In Japan it is recognized that the best communication is when you don't speak at all. It's already a failure to understand each other by speaking because you're repairing that failure by using words.
In the US, it may originate from the history of colonial (殖民地) America as a crossroads of many different races. When you have a complex of difference, it's hard to establish common understanding unless you talk and there's understandably a kind of anxiety unless people are verbally engaged to establish a common life. This applies also to some extent to London.
In contrast, when there's more homogeneity, perhaps it's easier for some kinds of silence to appear. For example, among your closest friends and family it's easier to sit in silence than with people you're less well acquainted with.
Travelling is a great way to interact with a culture which might be completely different from your own.
Before I moved to Sicily I had travelled around the whole of Italy, the south and the north, and I absolutely fell in love with the culture and the language, so I was inspired to learn the language and also to move here. And here I am now, living in Sicily.
When you get back home you'll have lots of stories to tell your friends and family. Even if something isn't very fun, it will be funny to look back and laugh at those awkward or harsh moments. For example, I was travelling with a group of friends in Pisa and we took the wrong bus to get to the beach area, so we ended up being stuck in the rain and having to walk back.
When you travel, you expose yourself to different people. It's a great learning experience for both you and the other person because you can share and exchange your own ideas and opinions on a range of topics. For example, I met an Iranian philosopher and we talked about the nature of magic. A lot of his ideas were shaped by his Iranian background and Iranian philosophy.
Travelling is the realization of home. Since I've been away from London ， I've come to appreciate the little things that I used to take for granted, like our amazing transport- everything runs on time; everything runs well. So sometimes it takes being away from home to realize how much you absolutely love your hometown.
A. It was a really interesting discussion.
B. Travelling will make you a really good storyteller.
C. Travelling could enrich your awareness of the world.'
D. They may have a completely different outlook on life.
E. We realize how much we miss our hometown when we travel.
F. Travelling might just convince you to move to another country.
G. Being away from home, we miss our friends and our family very much.
In the seventh grade when my mother suggested that I should join the golf team, I thought she had lost her mind. But as usual, my mother1in the end. I played on the middle-school golf team in the seventh and eighth grade. The summer before high school came, I was2to join the high school team.
That summer I3almost every Sunday morning on the golf course with my4and too many afternoons with my mother. This5relationship with my parents6during my high school years.7you're walking down the freshly mowed fairway （修剪的平坦球道）, looking out across miles of nothing but golf course, and looking up at the beautiful blue sky, you will realize what is 8in life. My mom and I 9many things in the middle of a round of golf that we would never do at10 , where she is Mom and I am an annoying teenager. On the golf course, we're just two people who11golf.
During the past years golfing has become a part of my12. My friends know in the summer the place to find me is on the golf course. There is13I love more than a perfect autumn morning, riding around in a golf cart （球车） with my dad. Golf has14me and made me into the person I am today. And I have to15that all of it is thanks to my mom who made me join that middle-school golf team. In fact, she was right.
WHO chief optimistic disease will be beaten in 2022
世卫：人类将在2022年战胜新冠疫情
The head of the World Health Organization has said he is optimistic the coronavirus pandemic will (defeat) in 2022, provided countries work together (contain) its spread.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu (warn) against "narrow nationalism and vaccine hoarding"(狭隘的民族主义和疫苗囤积) in a new year's statement.
Global COVID-19 cases now stand at 287 million, while nearly 5.5 million (die).
Coronavirus remains part of (day) life: a disease has shut borders, split families and in some places made it unthinkable to leave the house without (carry) a mask.
Despite all this Tedros sounded a positive note in his speech, (note) there are now many more tools to treat the disease.
But he warned continuing (equity) in vaccine (distribute) was increasing the risk of the virus evolving.
