Postcard 2 on article 2

Dear Lonneke,
How are you experiencing your journey so far? Is eastern Europe as intriguing as you expected it to be? I sent you this postcard to give you a heads up. I saw on your itinerary posted on your blog that you are going to Romania next week. It states that you want to travel through Romania and visit all the places that are connected to ‘Dracula’. You describe all the places you want to see, such as the 13th century Poienari Citadel, the place where the real Dracula lived. You also plan to go see the black church and end the trip by visiting his final resting place. I have some advice on that last part of your trip: don’t!
After reading your blog on Romania I got curious and surfed the web to find some background information. I found some information about the places Vlad or ‘Dracula’ is connected to. There was limited information about the 13th century citadel you are planning to visit but it is there. The other site you mention is the black church, this is a common tourist attraction and there are guides who will tell you all about this church. They even know some secret passages and are willing to show them to visitors. The guides can inform you about the legend ‘Dracula’. So, no problems there.
Now let me tell you about the last place you plan to visit, Dracula’s grave. I found an article of someone who had the exact same intentions as you have and ended up being disappointed. The first two sites were alright but he was never able to visit the grave. It turned out the map he had was incorrect and he was unable to find the island. When he had finally found the lake he was not able to acquire a boat to get to the island. When he questioned some Romanians about the island the answers differed. Some were claiming there was no island and others were saying that travelling to the island would take a lot of time. He never went to the island since its existence was obscure. That is why I want to warn you not to try and visit the grave since it is probably a myth. Save yourself the trouble of getting there and enjoy Romania for its other qualities!

Love,
Rosalie

Postcard 1 'based on articles used in class'

Dear Lonneke,

I just wanted to let you know that I’m really enjoying Paris. Yesterday we took the Thalys, the high-speed train, to Paris. We had to get up really early since the train departed at six in the morning. Lucky for me my niece works on the Thalys so I didn’t have to pay any travel fees. We went straight to Euro Disney since we only had to change from the train to the underground railway. Or as the French say: the ‘métro’, sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It wasn’t very busy in the park so we were really happy about that. The queues weren’t very long but unfortunately most of the queues were in the open air. It had been raining since we arrived and it was also very cold. Can you can imagine how we felt standing there? Everything was wet and even our socks were soaked! That’s why we decided to find an indoor queue and we found one. The pirates of the Caribbean had an indoor waiting area so we went there twice. They even had a little restaurant but foolishly enough, we were unable to find the entrance. After a whole day of shivering, soaked socks, arguing with kids in French and teeth chattering we thought it would be best to go to our hotel. Our hotel was cosy, comfortable and warm! I took a long warm bath and MacDonald’s had never tasted better, must be the French cheese. At eight we called it a day and went to bed. The strangest thing happened though. In the middle of the night the phone rang and my niece answered. It was a colleague with whom she worked on the Thalys asking if we wanted to get a drink. We were shocked. What idiot would call us in the middle of the night to ask if we wanted to go get a drink? Turned out we had only been sleeping for an hour and it was nine o’clock. We declined and went back to sleep. As I’m writing you right now I‘m sitting in front of the Sacre Coeur in the sun. It is a beautiful day and Paris is absolutely gorgeous! Today we’re also going to see the Eiffel tower, Versailles and the Louvre. I’ll tell you all about it when I send you my next postcard!

Love,
Rosalie