While I was working at a French school, I was often preparing my work in the staff room. Sometimes I would hear the school secretary talking. At first I thought she was talking to me, as there was no one else in the room except me, so I tried to respond to her. However, I soon realized that in fact, she was talking to herself. I noticed a lot of people do this in France. In the UK, people might think you’re a bit strange if you talk to yourself at work, but there it seemed quite normal. It really did confuse me at times, because I was not sure whether people were talking to me or just talking to themselves.

Another area of confusion involved the French language. In French, there are two ways to say “you”: “tu” is the informal form while “vous” is the formal form. This is an aspect of French which, even now, I do not really understand. When I learnt French, I was taught to call everyone vous unless they were my family or friends. So I was surprised that virtually everyone in France used the informal tu all the time. School children used tu when they stayed with their teachers and all the staff called the head teacher tu. But I continued to use vous because I didn’t want people to think I was impolite.

As you might know, school children in the UK traditionally wear school uniforms but in France pupils do not wear a uniform. It was a culture shock for me to see children wear Spiderman T-shirts and baggy (宽松的) blue jeans in the classroom.

I found the differences puzzling at times, but I couldn’t deny what a great opportunity it was to live and work in another country. The UK and France are only separated by a small channel of the sea, but there are many differences between the two countries.

When Stephen Mills spotted a dusty old safe (保险箱) in a museum in Canada, he thought he'd try to crack the code (破解密码),"just like in the movies". But when he began turning the dial, he wasn't expecting a Hollywood ending.

For years, anyone who visited the Vermillion Heritage Museum in Alberta would have passed by a large, black metal box. Staff knew it had come from the long—gone Brunswick hotel and was donated to the museum in the 1990s,but its code and contents remained a mystery for decades- until Mills unexpectedly cracked the code.

Mills,who lived in Fort McMurray, Alberta, was visiting the museum with his family last month over a holiday weekend. As they wandered around the exhibits with the museum guide, Tom Kibblewhite,they spotted the safe.

Kibblewhite told the family what he told all other guests: the 900kg black box with a silver dial had remained closed for generations. For years, the safe has confused volunteers at the museum. The manufacturer was unable to provide advice on how to open its thick door.

A locksmith (锁匠) once suggested that years of inactivity might have slowed down the gears, making it inoperable. But Mills, who is a“mechanically-minded person”, asked whether he could give it a try.“Kibblewhite kept saying no one had opened it and that it was a mystery what was inside,”Mills said.“I thought this would be a great thing to do for a laugh for the kids. Maybe they can find some interesting historical things in it—like a time capsule.”

After pressing his ear against the cool metal, he began spinning the dial. With numbers ranging from zero to 60,he turned clockwise (顺时针方向地) three times to 20，counter-clockwise two times to 40 ,and then clockwise one time to 60. He was astonished to hear a click.“I jumped up and told everyone I' m buying a lottery ticket (彩票),”he said.

Tom walked into a shop . It is a sign outside: "Second-hand (旧的) clothes bought and sold ." He was carrying an old pair of trousers and asked the owner（店主）of the shop, "How much will you give me for these?" The man looked at them and then said: "Two dollars."

" What !" said Tom. "I had guessed they were worth(值) at least five dollars."

"No," said the man, "they aren't worth a cent more than two dollars."

"Well," said Tom, taking two dollars out of his pocket. "Here's your money. These trousers were hanging outside your shop. The list price (标价)of them was six dollars and a half. But I thought that was too much money, so I wanted to find out how much they were really worth."

Then he walked out of the shop with the pair of trousers and disappeared before the shop owner could think of anything to say .