TRAVELLING HOPEFULLY
A blog about going places and the English we find there
Travelling Hopefully · Post 03
The Best Day (Also We Nearly Missed the Flight)
by Bud (Bogdan Constantin)
I am writing this on the plane. We are forty minutes from Naples. Stan is next to me with his eyes closed, which means he is either asleep or processing something. Wei is by the window. She has not spoken since the gate. I think she is also processing.
Let me tell you about today. Today was the best day.
It started at the Ballarò market. We went in the morning, all three of us, which was Stan’s idea because he had read about it in the guide. The guide called it ‘one of the most atmospheric street markets in Europe’ and for once I agree with the 2009 guide completely. It is enormous and loud and the colours are extraordinary — oranges and lemons and red peppers and fish that are so fresh they look surprised to be there. I took a lot of photographs. Stan photographed a timetable on a wall. Wei photographed nothing but looked at everything with great attention, which is her way.
This is where I met Marco.
Marco has a stall near the eastern entrance of the market. He sells arancini, which are fried rice balls, and they are the best thing I have eaten on this trip and possibly in my life. I told him this. He seemed pleased. We talked — his English is not perfect, my Italian is zero, but we managed — and after a while he told me that today was a special day. His cousin Luca was getting married that afternoon, at a church about ten minutes from the market. The whole neighbourhood would be there.
I said: that sounds incredible.
He said: you should come.
I am wanting to be clear: I was so exciting about this! I said yes immediately, and I did not think about the logistics. This is sometimes how I make decisions. The exciting part comes first and the logistics come later, which is a system that works most of the time.
The church was the Chiesa del Gesù, which is on the edge of the Ballarò neighbourhood and is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever been inside. The ceiling is covered in gold decoration and beautiful old paintings — fresce in Romanian, frescoes in English, I looked this up on the bus. I was stand in the doorway for two minutes just looking up. Marco found me there and gave me a jacket that belonged to his uncle, because you cannot attend a wedding without a jacket, even if you are an unexpected Romanian travel blogger who arrived via a wrong bus from the ferry.
The wedding was not boring for one single minute. The ceremony was in Italian and I understood almost nothing except the important parts, which are the same in every language. Luca cried. The bride, Sofia — yes, really — laughed at him crying, which made him laugh too. The whole church laughed. Outside, there was confetti and noise and then a long lunch at tables in the street that seemed to have no ending. I sat next to Marco’s grandmother. She spoke no English at all, but we communicated with our hands and smiles — and we both loved the food very much.
I should mention the flight.
I had found the flight that morning, before the market. Wizz Air, Palermo to Naples, departing at 19:40. Very good price. I booked three tickets on my phone while Stan was making notes about the market layout and Wei was reading something. I meant to tell them immediately. And then Marco appeared, and the arancini were extraordinary, and there was a wedding.
I told them at approximately 15:30, from the back of a borrowed scooter.
What happened was: Marco’s cousin Enzo offered to take me back through the market on his scooter, and as we set off I remembered the flight details, and I shouted them to Stan and Wei as we turned the corner. I shouted: Wizz Air, 19:40, Falcone-Borsellino, check-in closes 18:40, you have the booking reference, it is in the group chat! Then we were gone.
From this point, my account of events is based on what Stan and Wei told me later, and I am wanting to say that their versions were both quite detailed and quite loud, so I will summarise.
“As someone once said: not all those who wander have a confirmed seat on a low-cost carrier. But we do. Row 14.”
Apparently there was a taxi, and then a discussion about the taxi, and then a faster taxi. There was something about the bag drop closing. Stan mentioned Tab 4 several times. Wei said something in Mandarin that she did not translate. They arrived at the gate with, according to Stan, four minutes to spare, which he described as ‘an unacceptable margin.’ Wei described the experience as exhausted. Stan said the experience was not exhausted — the experience was catastrophic, which is different.
I arrived at the gate with Marco’s friend Daniele, who works in airport logistics and was able to walk us through a staff corridor. We were there before the final boarding call. I had a small bag of arancini that Marco’s grandmother had given me for the journey. I offered one to Stan. He looked at it for a long time. Then he took it.
We are going to Naples. I am not bored. I am not tired. I am the opposite of both of these things.
As someone once said: not all those who wander have a confirmed seat on a low-cost carrier. But we do. Row 14.
Ciao from somewhere over the Tyrrhenian Sea,
Bud
Several corrections.
First: the flight. The booking reference was not in the group chat when Bud shouted it at us from a moving scooter. It arrived in the group chat at 15:47, which was seventeen minutes later. I know this because I checked the timestamp while standing in the street in Palermo with my bag and no information. I have noted this in Tab 4 under a new sub-section: Communication Failures (Preventable).
Second: the margin at the gate was not four minutes. It was six minutes and thirty seconds. I know because I was counting. I want this recorded accurately.
Third: the arancini. They were good. This does not resolve anything.
Fourth: Bud writes ‘I am wanting to be clear’ in two places. The verb want is a stative verb. Stative verbs do not use the continuous form. The correct form is ‘I want.’ Wei has more on this below.
Fifth: Bud writes ‘I was stand in the doorway.’ The past simple of stand is stood. ‘I was stand’ is not a form that exists in English.
Sixth: Bud writes that Wei described the experience as ‘exhausted.’ An experience cannot be exhausted. The correct word is exhausting. Wei has addressed this also.
I was at the gate with four minutes remaining. Stan says six minutes thirty seconds. I was not counting. I was breathing.
There are several errors in this post worth addressing before the activities.
First: the -ed / -ing errors. Bud writes ‘I was so exciting about this’ and ‘Wei described the experience as exhausted.’ The rule: adjectives ending in -ing describe the thing that causes the feeling. Adjectives ending in -ed describe the person who has the feeling. The wedding was exciting. Bud was excited. The journey to the airport was exhausting. Stan and I were exhausted. An experience cannot be exhausted — only a person can be. If you say ‘I am exciting,’ you are saying that other people find you exciting. This may sometimes be true of Bud. It is not what he intends.
Second: stative verbs. Bud writes ‘I am wanting to be clear’ twice. Want is a stative verb — it describes a state of mind, not an action in progress. Stative verbs do not use the continuous form. We do not say ‘I am wanting,’ ‘I am knowing,’ or ‘I am understanding.’ We say ‘I want,’ ‘I know,’ ‘I understand.’ Common stative verbs: want, know, understand, believe, remember, prefer, love, hate, need.
Third: ‘I was stand in the doorway.’ The past simple of stand is stood. If Bud wants to emphasise duration: ‘I was standing.’ Both correct. ‘I was stand’ is neither.
The arancini, for the record, were interesting. I was interested. These are also not the same thing.
“The market was ___. I could have stayed all morning.”
“Stan was ___ by Bud’s announcement from the scooter.”
New posts coming soon!