Problems with directions & prepositions

Selin (center) with some friends experiencing their first Holi festival in Queens. 

by Selin Tekin
TOEFL Preparation Class

These are text messages that led up to my first Holi experience.

The day before the event:
     Chris:  I can’t come tonight. There is a concert in Bushwick that I really want to see later tonight.
     Me: Ok. See you later.

Four hours later:
     Chris: Tomorrow is “Holi” in Queens.
     Me:  What is Holi?
     Chris: Indian festival where people throw colored powder at each other in a park
     (As usual, I didn’t pay attention to the details in the text.)
     Me: Seems nice. Ok I will ask my friend if she wants to see Brooklyn. We are gonna go to Brooklyn. But if she wants to see Holi we’ll go there.
     Chris: Don’t wear nice clothes!!!
     (Again I didn’t pay much attention to the text.)

The next day:
     Chris: Hey!!  You coming to Holi?
     Me:  Yes we’ll be at Port Authority at 1 pm. Seems as if we’ll be late.
     Chris: Ok take your time. We can meet at Singh’s Roti Shop. On Liberty Avenue. Last stop on the A train. A train to Lefferts Boulevard.

I was with my friends Hande and Tulay. Unfortunately, we had some problems with subway directions, and I completely misunderstood which stop we had get out of. We thought we had to switch to the C train to get off at Liberty Avenue on the C.

     Chris: Are you close?
     Me: I don’t think so.
     Chris: Where are you?
     Me: On Liberty Avenue
     Chris: So, you should find the Phil Rizzuto Park.

Tulay, Hande and I asked 3 people how to find the park. We reviewed the messages again and one hour later, we understood what we did. Unfortunately, we were in a dangerous part of Queens, and three people tried to sell some strange things to us. It was really terrifying. I really felt uncomfortable and felt responsible for bringing my friends there.

This time, Chris called.
     Chris: Where are you?
     Me: I’m sorry. We are coming. I’m gonna explain what happened.
     Chris: Ok!!

Part of the problem was our lack of knowledge of prepositions--on, at, in, under, behind, ... When Chris texted us, he guessed that our English was good enough to understand his message. Unfortunately, many Turkish people have big problems with prepositions. When Chris said, "on Liberty Avenue. Last stop on the A train,” we guessed that we had to get off AT Liberty Avenue. Chris meant that the restaurant was ON Liberty Avenue. There's a Turkish expression: “One tribulation is better than a thousand counsel.” I will definitely pay more attention to prepositions in future text messages.

Tulay, Hande, & Selin

Finally, we arrived at the correct station--Lefferts Boulevard, the last stop on the A train--and got off the train. As we started to move through the park, we saw some people with some paint on their clothes. Then I finally got it because once upon a time, I saw Chris’s facebook photographs of Holi, and I remember all of them. Unfortunately, we weren’t wearing bad clothes. We had regular clothes on. Hande and Tulay blamed me. To my defense, I didn’t want to go there. I just wanted to show Hande different kinds of things about New York, and she wanted to see this celebration.

Selin, now enjoying the festival. :-)

We started to take some pictures with the people covered in colors of some kind of powder and suddenly a man threw red powder on our faces and then another man threw green powder on our faces and just as we found Chris, a woman suddenly threw purple paint on us. It was really funny; we can laugh at it now but not that day. We just couldn’t get comfortable.

Then we decided to eat something at Singh’s Roti Shop on Liberty Avenue. We arrived there and it was really crowded and almost everybody was drunk. There was an Indian song playing inside, and it was really loud. People were still throwing powder, and it was really hard to breath. We decided to eat something called “double,” but I had no idea what "double" was. Actually, I still don’t have any idea what it was. However it was a really nice dish with spices.

     Me: Oh my goodness! We have to go to “fashion night” tonight.
     Tulay: We should go back to New Jersey first :s ohhhhhh
     Chris: You can change at my place and get ready there.

He was kind of a hero for us at that moment. We felt grateful. We went to his house to change our clothes and clean our faces.

Everything was amazing that day because everything improved as we improvised. Even if we had some problems finding directions, we had a really nice time. I think our school should organize an activity for next year to Queens for the Holi celebration.


--Selin was in the TOEFL Preparation Class when she experienced Holi one weekend. She is now heading back to Turkey with plans to return to New York in the near future. Thanks for sharing, Selin, and good luck!

--For information about the Holi festival in Queens, visit holinyc.com.