Sudetenland Tales by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Sudetenland Tales

Page 160

Across the bay, District 2 is weird. It looks mostly vacant, except for the occasional Soviet era brutalist building, or a brand new apartment ‘community’ that looks like it was thrown up in a Denver suburb in 2007. I’m thinking this was a poor district that got completely ignored for ages and now development is just starting now that there are bridges over there.

I wandered after that, and went to the Hotel Jesse Jackson. I ducked inside to look at the lobby, and didn’t stay long. It’s one big room, a straight shot with four DEI type people at a desk nothing but doing staring at me, reminiscent of Walmart. I took a quick look at the history mural next to the gift shop, mostly fake and stolen jewelry in there, no logo polo shirts, and they mention Imamu Amiri Baraka having lived there, but of course gloss over Hunter Thompson’s brief stay in room 37. By the time I left, it was noon, a hundred degrees out, and the sun was pounding down full force.

I went to the only German restaurant in town. It was straight up old school American Bavarian food, full menu. Asked for a speisekarte, bitte, and as it turns out they speak less German than English. Fair enough. Got a bretzel mit käse, und currywurst. Tasted like the curry was made with their weirdo ketchup, so I scraped it off and used a bottle of ‘US mustard,’