I always take my vacations at home．But this summer，I want to do something different．I'm going sightseeing．Next week I am leaving for Hainan．I am staying there for two weeks．Then I'm going to Tibet．Of course，I'm taking a lot of photos．I can't wait!

   I think the best place for a summer vacation is the seaside（海滨）．I'm going to Hawaii on August 1st．It has fantastic beaches and I like the sand，the sea and the sun．I'm staying there for three weeks．There are lots of exciting things to do there．

   This summer vacation，I'll be busy．I'm going to Europe to visit my grandparents in Paris and my uncle in London．I plan to go to New York，because I want to meet my pen pal Tony．

    One day when Jack was walking in the park, he saw a woman, who lived a few miles away, sitting on a bench(长凳) with a dog beside her. The dog was looking up at the woman.

    Jack walked up to the woman and said, "Hello, Sue, how are you? May I sit and talk with you for a while?" "Of course, please sit down," Sue said. Jack sat down next to Sue on the bench, and they talked quietly together. The dog continued to look up at Sue, as if waiting to be fed.

    "That's a nice dog, isn't he?" Jack said, pointing(指着) at the animal.

    "Yes, he is. He's handsome. He's a bit of a mixture(杂交品种), but that's not a bad thing. He's strong and healthy."

    "And hungry," Jack said. "He hasn't taken his eyes off you. He thinks you've got some food for him."

    "That's true," Sue said. "But I haven't."

    They both laughed and then Jack said, "Does your dog bite?"

    "No," Sue said, "He's never bitten anyone. He's always gentle and friendly."

    Hearing this, Jack decided to hold out his hand and touched the animal's head. Suddenly it jumped up and bit him.

    "Hey!" Jack shouted. "You said your dog didn't bite."

    Sue answered in surprise, "Yeah, I did. But this is not my dog. Mine's at home."

A 108-year-old Message in a Bottle

    On November 30, 1906, George Bidder dropped a bottle from a boat into the North Sea. The weighted glass bottle sank almost to the sea floor, and then it move slowly for 108 years and 138 days.

    Its journey ended when Marianne Winkler found the bottle in 2015. Winkler was then on vacation on Amrum Island. She picked up the bottle when it was washed up onto the beach. She saw a piece of paper inside, but didn't break it open. She could tell that the bottle was old. So she didn't want to damage it.

    Finally she got the piece of paper out of the bottle. She found that the paper was actually a postcard. On the back of the card there was this message: The Marine Biological Association（海洋生物学协会） would pay a shilling（先令） for the bottle. A shilling was a unit of money that was used in Great Britain before the early 1970s.

    Winkler filled out the card and posted it. The association was surprised to get a postcard addressed to George Bidder, the president of the association from 1939 to 1945. The workers of the association searched on the Internet to find a shilling. They found one and sent it to Winkler as a reward.

    The message in the bottle was the oldest ever re-discovered. For this reason Marianne Winkler got a place in  “Guinness World Records”（吉尼斯世界纪录）. She broke the record for the oldest message in a bottle.

    Winkler's bottle was not the only one Bidder sent to sea. Between 1904 and 1906, he spent away more than one thousand bottles. He placed postcards inside them. The bottles were part of a research  project to map currents（洋流） in the North Sea. This was the best method at that time. But whether the association could get the bottles back depended on the people who found them. The association reported that about 55 percent of the bottles were returned. They added that the experiment was a success as it showed the east-to-west flow of the North Sea's currents.

Gemma Burford

    Gemma was born in 1978 in a quiet village in England. Her mother worked in a library and her father worked in a hospital. When she was a student at Oxford University, she traveled (旅行) to Tanzania and met her husband (丈夫), Lesikar, for the first time. They got married (结婚) in 2003 and had their daughter, Lucia, two years later. Now Lucia studies in a small primary school, and Gemma and Lesikar also teach her at home.

 Judy Boehmer

    Adam is Judy's first child. She now has four sons, seven daughters and a pet dog, Bosco. Judy and her husband, Larry, live in Atlanta, Georgia, but they also have a motorhome (野营车). The Boehmers are a circus (马戏团) family and all the children are performers at the circus. The children don't go to school, but study at home. The family travels more than 40,000 kilometers a year for their work. The first show of the Boehmers was at a park in Lowa in 1989, and they now perform all over America.

    People all over the world don't like mice, but they like one mouse the famous Mickey Mouse. More than fifty years ago, most films were silent（无声的）. An American man called Walt Disney made a cartoon mouse. The mouse could talk in the films. He called his mouse Mickey Mouse. People were excited at Mickey Mouse.

    Soon Mickey Mouse became very successful and popular.

    Both young people and old people enjoyed Mickey Mouse. They loved to see their lovely friend because he brought joy and laughter to them. Mickey was a clean mouse from the beginning. So people hated real mice, but loved Mickey Mouse. In his early life, Mickey made some mistakes. People were very angry, and they wrote to Disney. They said they did not want Mickey to do silly things. Because Mickey could not do all of the things, Disney made a new animal called Donald Duck. He also made a dog Pluto. This dog always does stupid things and makes mistakes.

    Now Mickey is more important. He is a star of beauty and wisdom. He has friends in almost every country.

    It's Sunday. There are many people in the bus. And an old man is looking here and there. He wants to find an empty seat(座位). Then he finds one. He goes to it. A small bag is on the seat. And a young man is sitting beside it.

    "Is this seat empty？"asks the old man.

    "No, it's for a woman. She goes to buy some bananas，"says the young man.

    "Well," says the old man." Let me sit here please. When she comes back, I will(将) leave here." The bus starts(启动)." She doesn't come，but her bag is here. Let me give her the bag." Then the old man throws the bag out of the bus window.

    The young man jumps up and shouts，"Don't throw! It's my bag!"