1 September 1990
General Norman Schwarzenegger,
Commander in Chief of American Forces
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Honorable Mister General,
I have the honor to inform you that I am the proprietor and manager of the Hotel Xenophilia (A’ class) on
the island of Friki in the Aegean Ocean.
I am wishing to proposition you that my hotel is completely disposable to you and your heroic army for vacations of your goodself, your officers, your sub-officers and your privates when it is time for you to rest from the shielding of Saudi Arabia from the might-be invasion of Mr Hussein. I am also suggesting that you arrange your visit to be a coincidence with a visit from the enchanted Mrs Schwarzenegger (if she exists) from the United States so you can vacate together like my good friends Mr and Mrs Seymour S. Sisskind who are coming to Friki every year from Santa Monica in California.
If your officers, sub-officers and privates are doing the same, then the Hotel Xenophilia will be the happy rendez-vous and place of banishment of the agony of separated couples, intermixing after such a long time. For the ones who are not married there is the discotheque behind the hotel. It is closed for the winter at the end of October but the third cousin of the husband of my wife’s sister, who is the owner, is .assuring me he will open it if there is the perspective of arrivals from the gulf crisis.
The comforts of the hotel are of the highest standard. Every room has shower and toilet and audio system with three channels (pop music like Madonna, light music like Mantovani and classical music like Boston Pops). It is not operating at the moment because the electrician who made the installation is a fraudulent knave who took money from everybody in Friki and went to Brazil. But please be assured that the system will be rectified at the soonest.
Because of our experiences with Mr Sisskind and his enchanted wife, we know how to make American breakfast with Alka Seltzer, orange juice, Wheaties, flapjacks with golden syrup, eggs with bacon or sausages and all kinds of coffee from the machine that is operated by my daughter Aspasia who has a diploma and knows everything.
My customary chef (whose father worked as a small boy in the kitchen of the king of Greek cuisine, Nicolaos Tselementes himself) is unfortunately departing at the end of this month for his annual vacation in the Bahamas, but I am engaging a very good man who was a sailor on a Greek ship, who descended from it clandestinely in New York and who, for five years, before he was betrayed to the immigration by a jealous woman, was cooking hot dogs and hamburgers from a cart on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 45th Street.
At night he was going to cookery school and learning to make tuna salads, pastrami sandwiches, chicken in the basket and other deliciousnesses beloved by the American people. So when, God first , you and your officers, sub-officers and privates come to the Xenophilia you will think you are not eating in Greece but in your home.
Also, you may rest assured, dear general, that there is no prohibition of alcoholic potions in Friki and that liquors of all kinds flow from the bar of the hotel which is like a fountain of refreshment, attended by my daughter Aspasia who remains on duty at every hour·of the day and of the night except when she must go somewhere, in which eventuality her place is taken by my youngest son, Fotis, when he is not at school, who is learning from Aspasia all the jiggers and the cocktails.
So, dear general, after gazing at strict and sandy desolation for so long it is time for you to come to a Greek island and stare at the blue Aegean, and instead of looking at camels and Arabs every day, you must come and enjoy the local color of the green mountainside behind the hotel where a typical island man like the picturesque Barba Mitsos grazes his goats and the oldest woman of the island who remembers Kolokotronis collects every day the leaves of the dandelion.
I am enclosing our off-season prices which, please remark, include continental breakfast only. The American breakfast with Wheaties, etc. is extra. I am also enclosing a brochure of the hotel and the itinerary of the boat from the port of Piraeus which, unfortunately, is only once a week because the line is infertile.
I am impatiently awaiting your reply with , hopefully, reservations from you, your officers, your sub-officers and your privates, for whom, together with Mrs Kalosoridis, Aspasia and Fotis, we pray every night that God protects you and sends you to us soon.
Yours most friendly,
Xenophon Kalosoridis
Manager-Proprietor
