Postal Services

Postal Services, Writing Letters, Red Letter Days
(writing letters – formal and informal style, sending letters, Internet – usage, advantages, disadvantages, holidays in our country, in the USA, in Great Britain – origin, customs)

1) Postal services
•    sending letter, cable, parcel, buy stamps, send money, phone somebody
•    post office in every town, almost every village
•    English letters, open with “Dear”, close with “Your sincerely”, my letters in English: only e-mails
•    differences in writing address (number of the house comes before the name of the street)
•    write the letter, sign it, put it into an envelope, stick down the envelope, write address, place a stamp to right upper corner, drop to pillar-box
•    registered letters: have to go to post office, fill in a certificate of posting, pay registration fee
•    sending parcels: weight the packet parcel, fill in a form, stick a label on the parcel, pay fee
•    postal services for me: necessary only parcels and sometimes registered letters

2) Internet
•    transmitting information from one place to another via FTP
•    since 1995 world wide web via HTTP (80%)
•    multimedia documents – contains text, images, audio, video
•    useful for: looking for information, shopping, banking, travelling information, search engines
•    e-mail: easy, cheap, quick way to send messages
•    connections: dialup, ADSL, GPRS, Wi-Fi
•    real-time applications: Internet chat, web cameras and telephoning
•    disadvantages: slow speed, cost in Czech Republic, viruses and worms, hackers, privacy problems

3) Red-letter days
•    1st January, New Year’s Day (resolutions for new year)
•    14th February, St. Valentine’s Day, useless romantic gifts, unsigned cards with hearts and message “Be my Valentine”
•    end of March or beginning of April, Easter, boys beat girls with Easter twigs, get colourful Easter eggs, in GB children look for presents hidden in garden
•    1st April, All Fool’s Day
•    1st May, festival of working people May Day, 8th Liberation
•    1st June, international festival of children
•    4th July, independence day in the USA, 5th Cyril and Methodius, 6th John Huss burning
•    28th October, foundation of Czech Republic, 31st Halloween
•    1st November, All Saint’s Day and All Souls, 6th Guy Fawkes Day (commemorates the failed attempt, by a group of Catholic revolutionaries in the 17th century to blow up the Houses of Parliament), 17th Velvet Revolution, Student’s day, fourth Thursday Thanksgiving Day in USA
•    December, Christmas, in Europe presents on the evening of the 24th (Christmas Eve), in English-speaking countries on the morning of 25th (Christmas Day), 31st New Year’s Eve (celebrations, important in Scotland – Hogmanay)