IELTS Speaking for Success - 🧔 Lost and Found - Stories with Rory #1 (+ Transcript)

Starting point is 00:00:00 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.

Starting point is 00:00:42 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 IOT 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.

Starting point is 00:01:23 Our topic today is as follows. Rory is going to 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. It was 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. We were, it was the second day and I was sitting on the terrace,

Starting point is 00:02:12 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, 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 and 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.

Starting point is 00:02:52 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 cancelled it and I had to go back to get a new one. So even though I got it back, you know, there were still problems as a result.

Starting point is 00:03:32 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. All right, so you said that you were on holiday in Israel, right? Yes. How long was it? How long was the whole? I think it was about a week, five days.

Starting point is 00:03:57 It wasn't a very long holiday, but it was the most stressful holiday I've ever had. Mm-hmm. And when exactly did you lose your passport? It's like 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, like, on the first night.

Starting point is 00:04:14 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. Shorts? They're like cargo shorts.

Starting point is 00:04:31 Okay. Okay. And 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 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, okay. So you were walking on the beach or like you were in a cafe when you kind of, when you did realize

Starting point is 00:05:03 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?

Starting point is 00:05:20 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. Mm-hmm. Okay. So when you realize, that there was no passport, what exactly did you do?

Starting point is 00:05:37 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, kept having fun? Well, there was nothing to do. I mean, if you try and fix a problem, but you can't in the initial stages, I'm, I'm going to, 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?

Starting point is 00:06:11 What about your friends? What did they say? Oh, they were as horrified as I was. Wow. But like, 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. And, like, my stomach dropped, at 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.

Starting point is 00:06:38 It was a really terrible experience. Okay, so the next day you went to the embassy or to the kind of a 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, 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?

Starting point is 00:07:23 To get the passport. Yeah, it was a direct flight. And did they tell you that they're going to give you some paper or some like temporary? 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. So and then on your, when did you find out, when did you get your passport back from this lady? From the hostel 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

Starting point is 00:08:02 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 canceling 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, no, I had to fly back to the UK. I couldn't fly to Moscow because I'm my visa was completely invalid as well at that point. Oh, right, you lost the visa. I didn't lose the visa.

Starting point is 00:08:41 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 her chair. Oh, so you just like, it 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 as life.

Starting point is 00:09:15 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? 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?

Starting point is 00:09:45 No, I'm serious. It happened to my uncle. I think he's lost 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. any more passports? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:01 Whoa. 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,

Starting point is 00:10:10 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?

Starting point is 00:10:26 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 they are 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 I was not well organized yeah because I know like you are super well organized and you can if you write everything down and you put I'm sure you put things in the proper places

Starting point is 00:11:04 okay I'm gonna go for I think it's true it's a true story and then maybe after that you yeah as you say like you've become even more organized yes in all aspects it is true yay yes victory yes five points for Maria B.

IELTS Speaking for Success - 🧔 Lost and Found - Stories with Rory #1 (+ Transcript)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.