thinglets: hotel hobbies

While I could never say that I'm a consummate world traveller, there is always a sense of appreciable adventure upon staying in a hotel for a couple of nights.  Tonight I'm staying near the Toronto airport at the Renaissance which, oddly enough, does not seem artistic in the least.

While in a hotel, there's always a few things I try to do:
1) Check out the restaurant/bar and lament if they don't have one
2) Throw the bedspread on the floor and never touch it again
3) See what channels I get
4) If I'm on an upper floor (6 tonight), spend a few minutes checking out the view
5) If I'm in a Hotel/Convention Centre, try to scam free drinks or meals by blending in.

front

lobby fireplace

I also always think of Marillion's "Hotel Hobbies", even though the lyrics paint a far seedier experience than I usually have. I imagine that, for someone whose job had them living in hotels on a weekly basis, they may able to identify with some of the experiences in the lyrics more readily. I just dig any lyrics that Derek Dick writes.

Hotel hobbies: padding dawns, hollow corridors.
Bell boys checking out the hookers in the bar.
Slug-like fingers trace the star-spangled clouds of cocaine on the mirror.
The short straw took its bow.

The tell tale tocking of the last cigarette
marking time in the packet as the whisky sweat
lies like discarded armour on an unmade bed.
A familiar craving is crawling in his head.

And the only sign of life is the ticking of the pen
Introducing characters to memories like old friends.
Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines,
A fever of confession a catalogue of crime in happy hour.

Do you cry in happy hour? Do you hide in happy hour?
The pilgrimage to happy hour.

New shadows tugging at the corner of his eye,
jostling for attention, as the sunlight flares
through a curtains tear, shuffling its beams
as if in nervous anticipation of another day.