2. Read and translate the text.

If you are starting your tour from New York City, you may go straight to Niagara Falls (380 miles, or, 612 km, one day trip in terms of automobile travel). Not far from New York you get to Tarrytown, a small village on the Hudson River. Here you can see the restored home of Washington Irving, a well-known American writer, creator of "Rip Van Winkle" and the "Legend of the Sleepy Hollow". You remember, of course, the Dutchman Rip Van Winkle by name, a "ne'er-do-well", who sleeps 20 years and upon waking is startled to find how much the world has changed. The whole area near Tarrytown is often called Washington Irving's Country.

North-east of the Mohawk Valley is the Emerson and Thoreau Country. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was a well known U.S. essayist and poet and Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was a naturalist and writer. They both wrote about nature and scenic beauty of the north-eastern part of the U.S.

Rochester, N.Y, is a manufacturing city, dominated by the Eastman Kodak Company and containing the home, now a museum of photography, of the company's founder, George Eastman.

Buffalo is a grimy steelmaking and flour-milling port on Lake Erie that has known better days.

Industry in the Buffalo area has flourished, largely because of the hydroelectric power from Niagara Falls, Buffalo is the largest grain milling centre.

The White House. We have all heard of the famous White House in Washington, the residence of the President of the United States of America, but how many of us know why it is called the White House?

This building was not always white, nor was it called the White House. But it has always been the official residence of the President of the United States. It is the oldest federal building, the foundation stone of which was laid on October 13, 1792. The place was chosen by President Washington. The building was designed by an architect James Hoban, who won an architectural competition for the best design for the President's house. Originally this federal building was called President's House, and President's Palace. It was originally grey in colour. The first residents of the White House were President and Mrs. John Adams in November 1800. So why did people begin to call it the White House? This is part of American history.

During the British-American War when the Americans fought for their independence, the British entered Washington and on August 24, 1814, burned President's House. Only the black walls were left standing. Some years later (1817) the President's House was rebuilt and the walls were painted white. So people began calling the President's residence the White House; but this didn't become its official name until 1902. It is interesting how many rooms in the White House are known by their colours. There is the Blue Room, the Red Room and the Green Room. There are 132 rooms in the White House. The rooms for public functions are on the first floor; the second and the third floors are used as the residence of the First Family.

The White House grounds are open to the public only once a year on Easter Monday,

National Gallery of Art.The National Gallery of Art was created for the people of the United States of America by a joint resolution of Congress, accepting the gift of financier and art collector Andrew W.Mellon.

During the 1920s, Mr.Mellon began to collect with the intention of forming a national gallery of art in Washington. His collection was promised to the nation in 1937, the year of his death. Funds for the construction of the original (West) building were provided by The A.W.Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust.

On March 17,1941, President Franklin D.Roosevelt accepted the completed building and the collections on behalf of the people of the United States of America. Andrew Mellon's hope that the newly created National Gallery would attract gifts from other collectors was soon realized in the form of major donations of art from the richest people of America as well as individual gifts from hundreds of other donors. The paintings and sculpture given by Andrew Mellon have formed a nucleus of high quality around which the collections have grown. The Gallery's newer East Building, was planned to accommodate the Gallery's growing collections and expanded exhibition schedule as well as to house an advanced research centre, offices for curatorial, education and administrative purposes, a great library, and an increasingly large collection drawings and prints.

The building opened on June 1, 1978, and was accepted for the nation by President Jimmy Carter. Funds for construction were given by Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce, the son and daughter of the founder, and by The Andrew W.Mellon Foundation.