Gotta love traveling. Gotta love the excitement of hearing a foreign language, the exotic smells, the exuberant staff of family-run tourist traps.
Gotta love the hot towel handed to you on the flight. Gotta love the taxi driver practicing his incomprehensible English on your way from the airport. Gotta love the friendly receptionist greeting you at the hotel by immediately registering your credit card in case you’d get any ideas.
Gotta love the solitude in your room, the superb serenity, the well-deserved me time after all of your friends have declined to come along. Gotta love the cleaning lady who keeps walking in on you masturbating even though you’ve been shouting “busy!” in three different languages while she’s banging on the door. Gotta love a good jerk-off followed by a good cry. Just gotta.
Gotta love the prepubescent savages mixing up your margarita with chlorinated water as they plunge into the swimming pool right next to your unfortunately placed sun lounger. Gotta love the relaxed vacation mode when deciding you’re too comfortable to get up and have the cocktail replaced. Gotta love the exquisite flavor of chemical-mixed body fluids as you gulp it all down in one go.
Gotta love the kind soul waking you up after five hours in the sun, the curious observers and the peeping passersby, the pool guard hunk who after much convincing reluctantly accepts to grease your back with a whole tube of after sun.
Gotta love the all-inclusive buffet that does, indeed, include pretty much everything you could ever think of, including an impressive smorgasbord of foreign germs you’ve never even tried before. Gotta love the second round of expired churros. The third round of flat lager. The fourth round of what must surely be bootleg vodka.
Gotta love the bored housewife hitting on you in the bar. Gotta love her and God bless her. Gotta love her enraged alpha husband offering to redecorate your face despite the fact you literally haven’t uttered a single syllable to either him or his better half over the course of your entire stay.
Gotta love the nostalgia of 90s hits on repeat. Gotta love “Mr. Jones”, and of course, gotta love “Lemon Tree”. Gotta love the white wine on tap. The tequila that hits your head like a thunderclap. The thoughtful waitress who politely reminds you to try to open your eyelids and pay your bill and please go to your room, so you don’t have to keep all of that stuff in mind yourself.
Gotta love the minibar. Gotta love those teeny-tiny, absolutely adorable bottles of Jack Daniels and Grey Goose and Bombay Sapphire that, after three or four calls for room service during the same night, the treasonous hotel staff eventually stops restocking. Still. Gotta love that about the hospitality industry. Gotta love their unparalleled ability to make your abuse look cute.
— Henrik Düfke spent a decade writing ads in London and New York before switching to fiction. He is currently finishing his debut novel.