一家人的特別旅行

重慶 邵江鴻

愛爾蘭的科克有一家人通過和陌生人交換房子住來環游世界，這為他們節省了不少錢。

1Sharon Holland and her husband, Jer, are travelling around the world and saving money at the same time—by swapping houses with strangers to keep the bills low.They only have to pay for their flights, meaning they save hundreds of pounds on their holidays each year.

2The couple's occupation allows them to jet off during school holidays for long periods of time. Both work as school Deputy Principals, which allows them to take their children,Cian, 23, Miah, 13, and Faye, 11, abroad up to four times per year. On average, they pay￡1,250 per year for flights.

3Sharon, from Cork, Ireland, has exchanged her home with strangers 40 times in the last 13 years and says she's never looked back.She said,“I couldn't imagine travelling any other way now.Swapping our Irish Georgian farmhouse for another property abroad is amazing.There are home-style houses, modern city apartments and beautiful architectural period houses, too. Every holiday is different and staying in someone else's property enhances the experience as it takes us off the trail. We are able to meet more locals and understand the culture more than we would if we were to stay at a hotel resort.We bring our laptops during the summer weeks as we are both responsible for timetabling and school planning, but this can be done at a distance.”

4Sharon has visited various cities in America, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy,Spain,the Netherlands,the UK and their home country of Ireland.“But our favourite place is Italy,and we have been lucky enough to visit there six times.Over the years,every experience has been fabulous (極好的) —from taking in the architecture to the food. We have made some wonderful happy memories with less money,”added she.

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Ⅰ.Difficult sentence in the text

They only have to pay for their flights,meaning they save hundreds of pounds on their holidays each year.他們只需要支付機票費用，這意味著他們每年在度假上可以節省數百英鎊。

【點石成金】本句中，They only have to pay for their flights 為主句部分；meaning為現在分詞作結果狀語，后面的they save hundreds of pounds on their holidays each year 是省略了that的賓語從句。

Ⅱ.Text-centered chunks

at the same time 同時

swap/exchange sth with sb 和某人交換某物

jet off 乘飛機離開

on average 平均