The Great Pyramids of Egypt
Vocabulary
| cost | in front of | ride/rode/ridden |
| drop (2) | pleasure | get/got/got-gotten |
| ancient | wonder (2) | think/thought/thought (2) |
| entry | virtually | old/older/oldest |
| disaster | attraction | blew my mind |
| guard | swallow up | at that moment |
| stare | civilization | make/made/made (2) |
| honest | pound (3) | blew/blow/blown (2) |
| hesitate | in person | say/said/said |
| all right | experience | stand/stood/stood |
| walk up | depend on | great/greater/greatest |
| look at | Styrofoam | grew/grow/grown (2) |
| replica | grade (2) | make/made/made |
| for real | man-made | feel/felt/felt |
| huge | structure | build/built/built |
| Earth | shroud (2) | floodgate (2) |
| theory | countless | open the floodgates |
| marvel | mystery | conspiracy theory |
| used to | conspiracy | swallow (2) |
| empty | first time | abandoned |
| guilty | possibly | grow up (2) |
| half | innocent | see/saw/seen |
| able to | buck (2) |
Video
Transcript
All right, so it costs 80 Egyptian pounds to get into the pyramids; that’s about four bucks to see an ancient wonder of the world. Wow.
The Sphinx guards the entry to the Pyramids of Giza, which are possibly the oldest tourist attraction in the world.
Modern-day Cairo has swallowed them up, making the pyramids just a short taxi ride from the city center.
And that moment walking up and staring at them for the first time blew my mind.
Wow!
I can honestly say without any hesitation of standing here in person in front of the pyramids, it’s the greatest travel experience I’ve ever had.
Just thinking about all the pictures I grew up looking at the Styrofoam replica I made in sixth grade.
But to be here in person now, for real, they’re huge. I feel so small — Oh my god.
The great pyramid stood as the tallest man-made structure on Earth for thousands of years.
And the questions of how, when and why these pyramids were built have shrouded them in mystery, opening the floodgates to countless conspiracy theories.
Even tourists from ancient civilizations like the Greeks and the Romans used to travel here to marvel at these structures that were to them already ancient.
But today the Pyramids feel empty and abandoned: tourism has dropped by nearly half in Egypt and that’s a disaster for an economy that has depended on it for so long.
But there’s also a guilty pleasure in being able to virtually stand alone in front of one of these bad boys.
Questions
Pyramids of Giza. In the beginning of the video, a man paid four euros to enter Disneyland. True or false?
Pyramid of the Sun. Are the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx, and city of Cairo hundreds of kilometers away from each other?
Stonehenge. The Pyramids are just another, ordinary tourist attraction. Is this right or wrong?
Temple of Luxor. Is the presenter (blogger) a small person? How does he describe the Pyramids of Giza?
Stone Spheres of Costa Rica. Scientists, engineers and scholars know everything about the pyramids of Egypt. They know every detail about the pyramids. Is this correct or incorrect?
Easter Island. Have tourists begun visiting the pyramids since about 2001?
Coral Castle. In the video, the Pyramids of Giza site was full of tourists. Thousands of visitors flock had come to see the Great Pyramid on that day. Yes or no? Do you think this video was made before or after 2020?
Machu Picchu. My friends and I have visited Egypt. I have been to Egypt. Yes or no? If yes, did you see the pyramids?
Sacsayhuaman. How might the Pyramids have been built? Who built the pyramids? Why did they build the pyramids?
Nazca Lines. My friends and I would like to become Egyptologists or archaeologists. True or false?
Tiahuanaco. What might happen in the future?
Pumapunku. What could or should people, businesses and governments do?
