Hotel

"I´m from the great state of Iowa, and that´s not a province but it could be." Pete answered. "Where are you from? You sound like Jean Claude Van Damn, you know who he is?" The german stood there in his underwear, casually as though he were in a locker room. "I´m from Hamburg." he said. Pete was silent. "Dats in Germany" the man added.
"Okay, okay, I´ve heard of that." Pete said.

Pete brushed his teeth and opened each little bottle the hotel sink had to offer. The german was in bed breathing deeply and slowly with the lights still on in the room. Pete turned off the lights and climbed into bed. He lay on his back in the pitch black of the hotel room, listening to his foreign neighbor and wondering when, if ever, god would speak to him. "Good night." Pete whispered to the german man.

In the morning Pete awoke to find the German man gone and the his bed made neatly as if he had never slept in it. "Hello?" Pete called out, but there was no answer. Downstairs in the lobby Pete found his roommate in the restaurant eating the free buffet breakfast. "Just toast and jam? That´s no kind of breakfast. I´ll be weak in the knees by 10a." Pete circled the food table and took several pieces of toast, and filled two glasses with orange juice. He sat down with his roommate. "Is this what ya´ll eat in Germany for breakfast?" Pete gleaned at the German. "Of course." The german replied matter of factly. "Well god damn, that must be why you´re so thin. See, back in USA we eat all sorts of things like eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes... I guess I´m on a diet now, right?" The German man dipped his toast into his coffee mug and took a soggy bite.

The tour bus waited outside the lobby and people began to board. Pete put his backpack in the cargo hatch underneath the bus and got on. He sat in a window seat and stared out. As the bus pulled away he saw the young Spanish women running after them. Pete´s heart raced. "Whoa! Whoa! Amigo!" he yelled to the driver as he sprung from his seat. "Halt-eh the bus-eh! Stop!" The bus came to a bucking stop and the Spanish woman gained some ground and finally reached the door. She got on board. "He was going to leave you." Pete said pointing at the driver "Loco, loco. But I talked some sense into him."