Whether you call Germany home or are just visiting, going to festivals is a great way to experience the country's culture. Here are the best events to attend.
Karneval, Cologne
Karneval is a 40-day party season which takes place between February and March. The largest and most well-known one of these celebrations in Germany takes place in Cologne. The period sees street parties pop up all across the city. The tradition dates back to medieval (中世纪的) times when people lived under strict rules. However, the Germans are certainly making up for it now.
Frankfurt Book Fair
Held for five days at the Frankfurt Trade Fair grounds in Frankfurt, the event dates back to the 15th century. Today, it is the world's largest trade fair for books and is considered to be the most important one for international deals and trading. While the first three days are restricted (限制) only to professional visitors, the general public can attend on the weekend.
Thuringer Bachwochen: Thuringia Bach Festival
Taking place during the Easter period, this is the largest music festival in Thuringia and has more than 60 concerts in the historic Bach sites. These show the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Each year, the festival opens with a long night of house music. For one evening, more than a hundred public house concerts take place in private living rooms across the state.
Long Night of the Museums, Berlin
The evening sees between 70 and 80 of the city's museums open late for the public to visit. Visitors are given an entrance pass to all the exhibits (展览品) within the area. They can meet interesting guests, and dance the night away to live music, and more. With foods and drinks on offer in many places, it's no wonder this is one of the most popular German festivals.
On February 20, 2021, Jasmine Harrison, who's from England, without lots of experience in rowing long distances, became the youngest woman to row alone across the Atlantic Ocean. It took her 70 days, 3 hours and 48 minutes to reach the end of the journey.
Every year, rowers taking part in the Atlantic Campaign set off from the Canary Islands and row about 3,000 miles across the Atlantic. Some do the rowing in teams of two, three, or four. Others, like Ms. Harrison, row by themselves. Every day, Harrison would row for about 12 hours, pushing her 550-pound boat across the ocean. On her journey, Ms. Harrison said she survived just on cookies and chocolate. When asked what she was looking forward to the most, she said, "Food. Definitely food."
Harrison had a satellite phone that allowed her to talk with her family and friends every day. But the journey still left her with a lot of time all by herself, which she said she enjoyed. But things got a little harder after her speaker fell in the water and she could no longer listen to her music.
She had other company along the way. She saw several whales. For several days, she was followed by a small group of dolphins. "It's just amazing," she said. But there was danger, too. Twice, her boat turned over in the night by large waves, and she hurt her arm quite badly. Another time, she nearly ran into a ship. Somehow, she kept going. Finally, she was taking her first steps on land in over two months.
Ms.Harrison's trip didn't just set a record; it also raised over 18,500 pound for two charities (慈善机构): Blue Marine Foundation, which works to control overfishing, and ShelterBox, which helps people who have suffered from natural disasters.
Who is smarter? A human being or artificial intelligence?
The question swept the world last week when a Google-developed program called AlphaGo defeated the world top player, South Korean Lee Se-del, 4-1.
So, what comes next?
Some people have been arguing that artificial intelligence, or AI in short, will be a bad thing for humans. In an interview with the BBC in 2014, UK scientist Stephen Hawking warned that "the development of full artificial intelligence could mean the end of the human race."
So are we really about to live in the world shown in the Terminator movies?
"Not quite," answered The Economist. After all, it's not hard to get a computer program to remember and produce facts. What is hard is getting computers to use their knowledge in everyday situations.
"We think that, for the human being, things like sight and balance（视觉平衡）, are natural and ordinary in our life." Thomas Edison, founder of Motion Figures, a company that is bringing AI to boys, told the newspaper. "But for a robot, to walk up and down just like human beings requires various decisions to be made every second, and it's really difficult to do."
As The Economist put it, "We have a long way to go before AI can truly begin to be similar to the human brain, even though the technology can be great."
Meanwhile, John Markoff of The New York Times said that researchers should build artificial intelligence to make people more effective.
"Our fate is in our own hands," he wrote. "Since technology depends on the values of its creators, we can make human choices that use technology to improve the world."
One morning a few years ago, Harvard President Neil Rudenstine overslept. For this busy man, it was a sort of alarm: after years of non-stop hard work, he might wear himself out and die an early death.
Only after a week's leave—during which he read novels, listened to music and walked with his wife on a beach—was Rudenstine able to return to work.
In our modern life, we have lost the rhythm between action and rest. Amazingly, within this world there is a universal but silly saying: "I am so busy."
We say this to one another as if our tireless efforts were a talent by nature and an ability to successfully deal with stress. The busier we are, the more important we seem to ourselves and, we imagine, to others. To be unavailable to our friends and family, and to be unable to find time to relax—this has become the model of a successful life.
Because we do not rest, we lose our way. We miss the guide telling us where to go, the food providing us with strength, the quiet giving us wisdom.
How have we allowed this to happen? I believe it is this: we have forgotten the Sabbath, the day of the week—for followers of some religions—for rest and praying. It is a day when we are not supposed to work, a time when we devote ourselves to enjoying and celebrating what is beautiful. It is a good time to bless our children and loved ones, give thanks, share meals, walk and sleep. It is a time for us to take a rest, to put our work aside, trusting that there are larger forces at work taking care of the world.
Rest is a spiritual and biological need; however, in our strong ambition (抱负) to be successful and care for our many responsibilities, we may feel terribly guilty when we take time to rest. The Sabbath gives us permission to stop work. In fact, "Remember the Sabbath" is more than simply permission to rest; it is a rule to obey and a principle to follow.
"The calm before the storm" is a very familiar expression. It is usually used to describe a peaceful period just before a very stressful situation or a tense argument. They noted that before certain storms the seas would seem to become calm and the winds would drop.
But why is it often so calm before a storm? According to US website How Stuff Works, a calm period occurs because many storms, tornadoes and hurricanes draw in all the warm and damp air from the surrounding area. As this air rises into the storm clouds, it cools and acts as " fuel for the storm, like petrol in a car. "
Once the storm has taken all the energy it can from the air, it is pushed out from the top of the storm clouds and falls back down to ground level. So once it covers an area, it causes a calm period before the storm.
First count how many seconds there are between a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, roughly three seconds equal one kilometer. A good judgement is that if your count is below 30 seconds, you should seek shelter straight away.
However, due to the complexity of storm system, calm doesn't always go first. So, your best bet is to keep yourself updated with weather reports for any predictions regarding a coming storm in your area.
A. Science has given us the answer.
B. There is no definite answer to the question.
C. Weather reports sometimes cannot be trusted.
D. British sailors coined the phrase in the late l600s.
E. As the air declines, it becomes warm and dry, which is stable (稳定的).
F. The Weather Network has a tip for working out how far away a storm is.
G. That's the most reliable way to predict the next display of nature's temper.
Many children may be fond of animals, but few ever think of making the study of animals as their career. Even fewer will be1 by the whole world,2 the title of United Nations Messenger of Peace.
But one woman has3 all that. She has lived with chimps in the African forest for many years and made great4 . Jane Goodall's lifelong5 in animals began at an early age. By the age of 10 or 11, Jane6 going to Africa to live with animals. This was quite a strange dream in those days, as young girls didn't think of having such "wild" actions. But she was7 by her mother. She told her that if she really wanted something, she should work hard, take advantage of chances and never give up looking for a way.
When a close friend invited Jane to Kenya in 1957, she readily8 it. Within a few months of her arrival, she met the famous anthropologist (人类学家) Dr Louis Leakey, who soon decided that Jane was the 9 person he was looking for to begin a10 of wild chimps (猩猩) on the shore of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania.
In the beginning, studying the chimps was not11 for her. The animals fled from her12 . With a strong13 , she searched the forest every day, trying not to get too close to the chimps too soon. Gradually the chimps became used to her presence.
In October 1960, she observed a chimp making and using14 to fish for termites (白蚁). This discovery threw light on the popular idea at the time that man was the world's only toolmaker. The longer Jane's research continues, the more it becomes obvious that chimps are very15 to humans.
Since the mid-1980s, Jane has been lecturing around the world to raise people's sense about environmental protection. "Let's live in the new age with hope, respect for all living things, understanding and love," she said.
Wild animals are equipped with a variety of techniques to avoid becoming lunch for a much (big), toothier animal. The most well-known (method) include the classic "fight" and "flight", as well as "freeze".
A team of researchers wondered closeness to people might influence those survival strategies. (find) out, Blumstein and his workmates combined information from 173 studies of more than 100 species, (include) mammals, birds, fish and so on.
It turns out that the animals react in a similar way to life among humans: they lose their anti-predator (躲避掠食者) characteristics. That pattern is (especial) obvious for social species. This behavioral change is perhaps unsurprising when it's the result of domestication (驯化), means training or adapting an animal to live in a human environment and be (use) to humans.
Urbanization (城市化) alone leads a similar change, though much more slowly. If the urbanization process (help) animals better coexist with people, it can be to their benefit. But if it makes them weaker or easier to be hurt by their nonhuman predators, it can be a real problem.
阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。
It was summer, and my dad wanted to treat me to a vacation like never before. He decided to take me on a trip to the Wild West.
We took a plane to Albuquerque, a big city in the state of New Mexico. We reached Albuquerque in the late afternoon. Uncle Paul, my dad's friend, picked us up from the airport and drove us up to his farm in Pecos.
His wife Tina cooked us a delicious dinner and we got to know his sons Ryan and Kyle. My dad and I spent the night in the guestroom of the farm house listening to the frogs and water rolling down the river nearby. Very early in the morning. Uncle Paul woke us up to have breakfast. "The day starts at dawn on my farm," he said. After breakfast, I went to help Aunt Tina feed the chickens, while my dad went with Uncle Paul to take the sheep out to graze (吃草). I was impressed to see my dad and Uncle Paul riding horses. They looked really cool.
In the afternoon, I asked Uncle Paul if I could take a horse ride, and he said yes, as long as my dad went with me. I wasn't going to take a horse ride by myself anyway. So, my dad and I put on our new cowboy hats, got on our horses, and headed slowly towards the mountains. "Don't be late for supper," Uncle Paul cried, "and keep to the track so that you don't get lost!" "OK!" my dad cried back. After a while Uncle Paul and his farm house were out of sight. It was so peaceful and quiet and the colors of the brown rocks, the deep green pine trees, and the late afternoon sun mixed to create a magic scene. It looked like a beautiful woven (编织的) blanket spread out upon the ground just for us.
注意：1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；2. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1:
Suddenly a little rabbit jumped out in front of my horse.
Paragraph 2:
We had no idea where we were and it was getting dark.
