Lewis 在走廊上遇到同事 Jay.
Lewis: Hi, Jay!
J: Hi, Lewis. Are you ready for your big trip to Chicago?
L: Oh, yeah! I’m gonna nail the presentation.
J: I’m sure you will. Hey, I thought I remembered from an earlier conversation that you have relatives in the states, right? Any chance you’ll get to see them?
L: I’d like to, but they’re not in Chicago. My uncle moved to LA five years ago. I was thinking about going over to visit him but I don’t have a lot of time…maybe I could just hop on a bullet train from Chicago.
Lewis要到美国芝加哥出差，对完成任务信心满满，说自己一定会 nail the presentation 出色完成演示任务。在英语里，to nail something 意思是出色完成某事。比如，父母问你考试考得好不好，你就可以回答说，I nailed it. 我考得好极了。Jay问Lewis是否准备顺便去看望一下自己在美国的亲戚。Lewis说，叔叔五年前搬去洛杉矶，离芝加哥很远，他时间有限，准备 hop on a bullet train from Chicago. bullet train 子弹头列车，相当于高铁。 Jay说,
J: That’s not going to be possible.
L: Why not? It’s probably only a few hours ride.
J: America doesn’t have any bullet trains.
L: Really? You’re kidding me!
J: No, actually I’m quite serious. The fastest train we have is called the Amtrak Acela Express. It goes from Boston to Washington DC, via Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City. But it’s not really a bullet train….The Acela Express generally runs at not much more than 130 kilometers an hour.
L: One hundred and 30 kilometers an hour? That’s not a high-speed train.
Jay说，美国没有高铁，最快的列车是 Amtrak Acela Express, 从波士顿到华盛顿特区，途经过巴尔迪摩，费城和纽约。可即便是这趟列车，一般时速也就是130多公里。Lewis说，Really? You’re kidding me! 表示难以置信。
J: Sometimes the Amtrak train can push speeds up to over 240 kilometers per hour, but most of the time it cruises at only around 130.
L: Wow! I thought America was more advanced than that. We have trains that can easily run at 300 kilometers an hour! Japanese bullet trains run at about 260 and the Europe super fast trains travel at almost 300 kilometers an hour!
J: Yeah I know. Even Taiwan has a high-speed rail that goes at least 200 kilometers an hour. But America is a very large country, and for the last several decades flying has been cheap and easy.
Amtrak虽然最快也能飙到时速240公里，但一般情况下，只保持在130公里左右匀速行驶，这里用的动词 cruise, cruise is spelled c-r-u-i-s-e, cruise 意思是不紧不慢地匀速前进。Jay说，美国地域辽阔，坐飞机方便便宜，这也许是铁路不发达的原因之一。