My first memory of being in a hotel is also my first memory of being in this country. We arrived in America from the former Soviet Union in the middle of the night in the summer of 1985: my father, my mother, my brother and me. I was eight years old and too tired from the journey to retain much of that initial touchdown or the rush of activity that followed our deplaning. The visa checkpoints, the baggage collection, the taxi ride home; these are all a blur. My first coherent recollection is waking up in a room of similar size to the living room of our apartment in Moscow but, unlike our apartment, this room was almost entirely brown. Dark brown carpet, wood veneer furniture, ochre-painted walls, mustard yellow curtains; all made visible by the dim glow of a 60-watt table lamp.
Excerpt from the introduction to A Room for the Night
Alex Yudzon