Bassim
VIP Member
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2008
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Bosnian
- Home Country
- Bosnia Herzegovina
- Current Location
- Sweden
Would you please correct my mistakes in the fourth part of my text?
The bus drifted through the spotlessly clean streets passing by the impressive buildings, and drew sighs from the excited passengers. The flat voice of the woman guide, who sat near the driver, was informing them of the names of the buildings and their history, and they responded almost in unison, “Fascinating! Excellent! Brilliant!”
“Look at that gorgeous leggy blond! “The winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, a pinched man in his eighties, shouted and pointed with his finger outside the window at an attractive woman whose wavy blond hair blew in the wind. His eyes twinkled and he perked up.
“Pity, I’m not 60 years younger,” his colleague physicist said.
“What a stallion, over there!” The winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, a woman in her sixties with a bohemian look, jerked her thumb at the tall blond man with a ponytail. “I feel I’ll be back in Stockholm soon. I want to ride.” Her remarks caused amusement among her male colleagues while the women gave her a few icy looks.
After some time the driver winked at the guide and turned the bus onto the busy road. The landscape changed. Instead of the old, graceful buildings, which filled their hearts with the sublime, the passengers now stared at the cheap mass-produced architecture of the 20th century. Dull high rises and block of flats seemed to have expelled humanity from their concrete kingdom and did not want it to return. The mood in the bus changed. The guide was silent and the passengers were quiet too. Something was apparently wrong, but they did not dare to ask questions. They did not want to tempt the fate. The shaggy immigrant with his bushy eyebrows could not be trusted. These were dangerous times when terrorists could strike anytime and everywhere.
After about half an hour, the bus pulled up at a nondescript square. “Would you please get off,” the guide told them. They were undecided at first, but when the driver shot at them an angry look, they filed off the bus in silence. A few shops stood opposite them: Pizzeria Beirut, Sunrise Falafel, Kebab, Post Office...The odour of grilled meat, burnt oil and greasy smoke hit their tender sense of smell. A group of old Arabs in thawbs sat on the benches and talked quietly drinking tea. Two women covered in burqas shuffled hastily across the square and disappeared behind the shabby block of flats. African youths stood gathered in a ring chatting and laughing. A boy about thirteen years of age buzzed around with his moped, narrowly missing the passersby. An overweight, bearded Muslim man, carrying prayer beads in one hand and a rolled-up prayer mat in the other, gave the distinguished guests a scornful stare as he strode by. From an internet cafe, the voice of Bob Marley was urging people to fight and never give up. A strange smell wafted out of its door, which the chemistry professor immediately categorized as marijuana.
The distinguished guests were relieved when they saw a blue and white police car, but when they came closer they were horrified to see that it had all four tyres slashed and the windscreen smashed. There was no trace of the policemen.
“Where are we, who are all these people?” someone asked the guide.
“This district is the pride of our government. These people are the New Swedes. They are going to build the New Sweden, the bigger and better than the previous one,” she answered.
They stared around in disbelief. For the majority of them this was the first encounter with immigrants. They did not know what to say or how to behave. They were speechless and disoriented. The locals ignored them at first. Many politicians had visited them in the past and promised radical changes, which unfortunately never materialised. After years of disappointments, they mistrusted any well-dressed men and women who paid them a visit. But this group of people were different. There were better dressed than any politicians they had seen before, and they were foreigners.
Idle youths took pictures of them on their iPhones, and the inhabitants started to gather around them, eying them and commenting on their exclusive clothes, shoes and bags. A Somali woman in a jilbab came up to Barbara, the wife of the American economist, the Nobel laureate. Barbara was woman in her fifties but had body of a young woman. She was small and had a slender neck. Her face twitched as the woman came so close to her that she breathed in her strange scent. Her hands were tattooed with henna and she put them on the red bag, which hung from Barbara’s shoulder. Her bony fingers traced across the leather and stopped at the logo. “Prada,” she enunciated, her eyes twinkling. She took Barbara’s hand and peered at her sapphire ring and gold bracelets. As she fingered her pearl necklaces, Barbara’s body started to shake. She glanced at her husband, but Tom was rooted to the spot staring at the dozens of pairs of dark eyes, which looked at him inquisitively. The Somali woman withdrew her hand, gave Barbara a bright smile, and shuffled away. “Take me out of here,” she whispered, still shaking, but Tom seemed not to hear her. “Take me out of here,” she yelled, then turned around and started to run. Someone called after her, “Madam, madam!” But she did not bother to turn around. If she had, she would have seen an old Arab proffering her a glass of red tea, which glistened in the sun.
THE END
The bus drifted through the spotlessly clean streets passing by the impressive buildings, and drew sighs from the excited passengers. The flat voice of the woman guide, who sat near the driver, was informing them of the names of the buildings and their history, and they responded almost in unison, “Fascinating! Excellent! Brilliant!”
“Look at that gorgeous leggy blond! “The winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, a pinched man in his eighties, shouted and pointed with his finger outside the window at an attractive woman whose wavy blond hair blew in the wind. His eyes twinkled and he perked up.
“Pity, I’m not 60 years younger,” his colleague physicist said.
“What a stallion, over there!” The winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, a woman in her sixties with a bohemian look, jerked her thumb at the tall blond man with a ponytail. “I feel I’ll be back in Stockholm soon. I want to ride.” Her remarks caused amusement among her male colleagues while the women gave her a few icy looks.
After some time the driver winked at the guide and turned the bus onto the busy road. The landscape changed. Instead of the old, graceful buildings, which filled their hearts with the sublime, the passengers now stared at the cheap mass-produced architecture of the 20th century. Dull high rises and block of flats seemed to have expelled humanity from their concrete kingdom and did not want it to return. The mood in the bus changed. The guide was silent and the passengers were quiet too. Something was apparently wrong, but they did not dare to ask questions. They did not want to tempt the fate. The shaggy immigrant with his bushy eyebrows could not be trusted. These were dangerous times when terrorists could strike anytime and everywhere.
After about half an hour, the bus pulled up at a nondescript square. “Would you please get off,” the guide told them. They were undecided at first, but when the driver shot at them an angry look, they filed off the bus in silence. A few shops stood opposite them: Pizzeria Beirut, Sunrise Falafel, Kebab, Post Office...The odour of grilled meat, burnt oil and greasy smoke hit their tender sense of smell. A group of old Arabs in thawbs sat on the benches and talked quietly drinking tea. Two women covered in burqas shuffled hastily across the square and disappeared behind the shabby block of flats. African youths stood gathered in a ring chatting and laughing. A boy about thirteen years of age buzzed around with his moped, narrowly missing the passersby. An overweight, bearded Muslim man, carrying prayer beads in one hand and a rolled-up prayer mat in the other, gave the distinguished guests a scornful stare as he strode by. From an internet cafe, the voice of Bob Marley was urging people to fight and never give up. A strange smell wafted out of its door, which the chemistry professor immediately categorized as marijuana.
The distinguished guests were relieved when they saw a blue and white police car, but when they came closer they were horrified to see that it had all four tyres slashed and the windscreen smashed. There was no trace of the policemen.
“Where are we, who are all these people?” someone asked the guide.
“This district is the pride of our government. These people are the New Swedes. They are going to build the New Sweden, the bigger and better than the previous one,” she answered.
They stared around in disbelief. For the majority of them this was the first encounter with immigrants. They did not know what to say or how to behave. They were speechless and disoriented. The locals ignored them at first. Many politicians had visited them in the past and promised radical changes, which unfortunately never materialised. After years of disappointments, they mistrusted any well-dressed men and women who paid them a visit. But this group of people were different. There were better dressed than any politicians they had seen before, and they were foreigners.
Idle youths took pictures of them on their iPhones, and the inhabitants started to gather around them, eying them and commenting on their exclusive clothes, shoes and bags. A Somali woman in a jilbab came up to Barbara, the wife of the American economist, the Nobel laureate. Barbara was woman in her fifties but had body of a young woman. She was small and had a slender neck. Her face twitched as the woman came so close to her that she breathed in her strange scent. Her hands were tattooed with henna and she put them on the red bag, which hung from Barbara’s shoulder. Her bony fingers traced across the leather and stopped at the logo. “Prada,” she enunciated, her eyes twinkling. She took Barbara’s hand and peered at her sapphire ring and gold bracelets. As she fingered her pearl necklaces, Barbara’s body started to shake. She glanced at her husband, but Tom was rooted to the spot staring at the dozens of pairs of dark eyes, which looked at him inquisitively. The Somali woman withdrew her hand, gave Barbara a bright smile, and shuffled away. “Take me out of here,” she whispered, still shaking, but Tom seemed not to hear her. “Take me out of here,” she yelled, then turned around and started to run. Someone called after her, “Madam, madam!” But she did not bother to turn around. If she had, she would have seen an old Arab proffering her a glass of red tea, which glistened in the sun.
THE END
