Hotel Introspections (2017)

STOCKHOLM HOTEL BEDROOM

Back in my hotel room, having had dinner and a few local brews at a ‘pub’ that played Rick Astley and felt sticky, I contemplated my farts. Ripe. The pub sold a beer that was palatable and each sip didn’t feel like a civil penalty for having ‘fun’. The staff were attentive and one of them actually looked Nordic. In the back far corner of the pub was a casino where second generation immigrants wasted their time and krones on crones of the night.

Now in the room I am watching ESPN conduct an experiment in modern irony. American Soccer. New York Fartknockers v the Philadelphia Paedos.

The most excellent free ice and water machine my last interaction before bed. The room itself is a cell, with NO WINDOWS. Not a joke and not a reference to the fact that it had one of those crap Apples instead. No, literally, right – no windows. OK I can adapt to that feeling of incarceration but what’s with plastering the four small walls with a montage of (18th century?) Swedish architecture, which included, at least, one hundred windows (I counted them)? Presumably it is meant to compensate, but it feels like mockery. And I’m sure I saw the Babadook in number 43. I am being inadvertently taunted by someone else’s well-meaning thoughtlessness – again. SNAFU