Six hundred and thirty-two chapters Hong Tao looks at the United States
However, Hong Tao's efforts were not in vain. He finally figured out the construction model of the Pentagon. To put it simply, the Pentagon is not a pentagonal building at all, but five pentagonal buildings nested together, getting smaller and smaller as they go inward.
from the outermost
This circle of buildings, all the way to the central garden, is a total of five circles of buildings, and each building is five stories high, plus five corners, which is Sanwu. Hong Tao seems to understand the name of "Sanwu" cigarettes.
The origin, maybe it's the Pentagon's tertiary industry.
It is said that the Pentagon is also an attraction. Just looking at it will definitely not satisfy tourists' desires. So after visiting the pentagonal garden in the center, he went to a souvenir shop in the building to buy some souvenirs to take back. Hong Tao looked at it for a long time.
I didn’t see anything good, just some small models of the Pentagon, coasters, commemorative medals and the like.
But we finally came here once, and we didn’t even take a photo. We can’t go back empty-handed. After returning to China, no one will believe it if you tell them that you have entered the Pentagon. In order to prove that he has been here, Hong Tao spent 4.8 US dollars to buy
He bought four U.S. Department of Defense armbands, but within five minutes, he regretted it.
It turns out that the last stop of this tour is the press conference hall of the Ministry of National Defense. For example, when the US military attacks Iraq and sends troops to Afghanistan, the spokesperson of the Ministry of National Defense will announce orders signed by the president here. The hall is very simple.
There is a dark red velvet curtain hanging on one wall. Behind it is probably a map or a projection screen or other equipment. In front of the curtain is a small podium, where speakers usually stand to answer reporters' questions.
Only then did Hong Tao understand why the soldiers didn't take away the tourists' mobile phones and cameras. It turned out that photography was only allowed here in the entire Pentagon, including the surrounding area. But Hong Tao was smart enough to put the cameras and mobile phones in the car.
Inside, I could only watch the other visitors posing in various poses behind the podium, acting as press officers for the U.S. Department of Defense.
But there are advantages to following the rules. A military tour guide probably saw the difficulties of Hong Tao and Irene. He took the initiative to ask them why they didn't take pictures. After learning that they didn't bring their mobile phones or cameras, they immediately ran to
I borrowed a stand-up camera from the souvenir shop and helped Hong Tao and Irene pretend to be the spokesperson of the Ministry of National Defense for free. It was regarded as a friendly gift.
The whole visit took a full hour, no more, no less. When Hong Tao and Irene got back to their car, it was already 3 pm. Since the White House, the Capitol and the Pentagon were all taken, then there was no one in Washington.
There was nothing to miss, so the two of them turned around and headed north along Highway 70 to Pittsburgh, the important town in Pennsylvania and the former steel capital.
I won’t describe the rest of the trip here, place by place, because it’s suspected of being misleading. If you want to see the tourist attractions in each city, then download a set of "Traveling Across America" and take a look. Not only can you
Practice your English listening and use it as a travel guide.
Hong Tao and Irene spent a total of 21 days driving the second-hand car to Seattle. In addition to North and South Dakota, Montana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Michigan, Tennessee, and Mississippi,
Except for the 16 mainland states of Louisiana, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and Maine, and the two enclaves of Alaska and Hawaii, the remaining 32 states have basically transferred.
The total cost was less than 10,000 U.S. dollars, most of which was for food and accommodation, and only more than 900 U.S. dollars for gasoline. No wonder Americans are called a nation on wheels. A gallon of 93-proof gasoline only costs 3 U.S. dollars.
A little more, converted into liters, it is less than one dollar per liter. Comparing the wages of Americans with the Chinese, even if the currency ratio is not taken into account. If one dollar is equal to one yuan, if China's gasoline can also cost one dollar per liter,
Then Chinese people with a monthly salary of 2,000 yuan dare to live on wheels.
Of course. There are also damn highway tolls. Hong Tao and Irene traveled nearly 10,000 kilometers and only paid $1.25 in highway tolls. Once they took the wrong road near Pittsburgh and didn't know how to get to the tolled highway.
On the highway, I was charged 50 cents; another time, heading west from Texas, I encountered a toll gate and paid 75 cents.
There are some unmanned toll gates in the United States, and there are also manned toll gates, but they do not issue invoices, and I guess there is no place in the United States to reimburse them. Unmanned toll gates generally charge 50 cents, 75 cents, or one dollar.
For coins, there is an iron funnel in front of the railing. As long as the driver throws the change in, the railing will automatically lift up. If you really can't find the change, it's okay. If you wait a few dozen seconds in front of the railing, the railing will give it to you.
If the fight starts, someone is probably monitoring it.
Since he has traveled so many places, Hong Tao must have gained something, right? But let's not talk about it as a common street guy. Let's just talk about some details that no one usually pays attention to. It's just a drunken chat.
Let’s talk about newspapers first. Yes, newspapers! Although the United States is a country with highly developed technology, Americans are still very conservative. Whether it is a big city or a small town, there are always various newspapers. If you
If you want to understand an American city, you'd better find one first
Take a look at the newspapers here. You can see everything from world peace and international events to information about rent-seeking and ant fights. And the price of the newspaper is very cheap. The weekday edition of an average daily newspaper is 50 RMB.
cents a copy, weekend edition $1.50 a copy.
Let’s talk about heavy-duty trucks, which are the kind of big trucks that pull long containers. Since we have to run on the highway every day, the most common ones are cars. Among them, what impressed Hong Tao the most were those big trucks. No matter what they were loaded with
All of them have a special personality, and this personality is reflected in the decoration of the front and body of the car by the drivers.
Some trucks are decorated very cartoonishly, some are very muscular, some are very sci-fi, and some are very obscene. Anyway, just take a look. None of them look like they did when they left the factory. Even the firetrucks have special markings made by the driver.
From this point of view, it can be seen that those big truck drivers are very happy, at least not frowning, otherwise they would not be in the mood to spend time and money decorating their partners.
So why are they happy? Hong Tao couldn't help but sum it up, and the result is still the damn oil price and highway tolls! Americans' gasoline is cheap and highways are free, so they don't have to worry about gasoline money and tolls when transporting anything, so the United States
Many of the prices of goods are lower than those in China, so these drivers can make money regardless of hard work or not! So they are happy! So they drive on the highway while singing, rarely speeding, let alone overloading, and will not
Go bully those cars.
In addition, these truck drivers also have a powerful organization to help them fight for the benefits they deserve, and that is the National Truck Drivers Union. In the eyes of American politicians, various unions are their bread and butter, and they must not
Offended. Because these unions influence the direct votes of tens of millions of American workers, and their families, relatives, friends and neighbors, the number of votes is even larger, so neither the state government nor the federal government dares to bully them casually.
These truck drivers, let alone being fined casually, would go on strike if they were not fined casually.
By the way, I would like to mention the labor unions in the United States. According to Hong Tao’s understanding, this is a combination of underworld and political parties. The more famous labor unions in the United States include the Truck Drivers Union, the National Rifle Association, the Service Employees Union, and the Screen Actors Union.
Wait, they organized workers to compete with the government, both in cooperation and confrontation. While improving the strength and reputation of their own organizations, they also secured some benefits for their members.
From this aspect, China's trade unions are a little too simple. They used to distribute labor protection supplies and organize employee sports games, but later they changed to distributing movie tickets and drink tickets, and later organized trips for veteran cadres.
Okay, let’s get back to the subject. After talking about newspapers and big trucks, let’s talk about something more humanistic. For example, let’s talk about Americans. Specifically, Americans’ bodies. As the saying goes, you can only know a lot when you see more. Hong Tao almost covered them all this time.
The United States has been visited all over the world. Even if you eat, drink, and play silly all day long, as long as you are not blind, you will definitely see a lot of fat Americans.
American fat people are not specific to a certain race, a certain region, or a certain part of the body. They are fat across all people, all races, and all aspects of fat. There are black fat people, yellow fat people, white fat people, and various hybrid fat people.
;There are both little fat people, medium fat people and old fat people.
The proportions of fat men and fat women are almost the same. And they are very well-proportioned. Some have a beer belly, some have a big belly, some have thicker arms than Hong Tao’s legs, and some have thicker legs than Hong Tao’s waist. Basically, their bodies are
Except for the hair, there is fat in all parts of my body.
What is different from those in China is that these fat people are all energetic and arrogant. It is not clear that they have any ideological burden at all, and they will not drool over the snacks and dare not eat them. The fatter the people are, the more delicious they are and the more they can eat.
Hong Tao once saw a fat driver weighing more than 200 pounds at the sales window of a car hot dog shop. He bought 3 hot dogs and 2 drinks by himself.
You must know that hot dogs in the United States are generally large, especially in the central region. The bun is longer than Hong Tao's size 44 shoe. The sausage inside is as thick as a rolling pin and must be exposed at both ends. It must also be filled with various vegetables and a lot of sauce.
Material. Normally, Hong Tao and Irene can eat one hot dog for half a day, but this fat uncle can do three of them by himself, and God won’t allow him unless he is fat! (To be continued...)
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