A Translator's Effort to Decode his own Work

Greetings.  I am in the process of publishing a series of twenty letters that I translated from French several years ago.  I don't know who wrote them exactly, but they are all addressed to someone called Khalid, which is why I call the work Letters to Khalid.  I realize that it isn't the most interesting title, but I had no other idea what to call them.  I spent a number of months translating them in different hotels in Santa Monica, California.  I always thought I was being Punk'd or something because the situation was so bizarre, but that's another story.

Anyway, let me get straight to the point.  Whoever wrote these letters (and as I explain in the text, I don't even know if it was a man or a woman) visited a variety of places throughout the country.  I think they may have seen all fifty states, but I can't be sure of that.  But here's the weird thing: the writer doesn't mention the name of any city, hotel, restaurant, museum, stadium, etc. that he or she visits and describes. The unique exception is the Gulf of Mexico, and that's a fairly vast territory.  Some of the places I think are pretty obvious.  Of others, I am totally clueless.  For example, I've lived in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Atlanta, among other cities.  There are landmarks described in the letters that I'm fairly certain identify those three cities.  Most of the time, though, I don't really know where they are.  I set up this site to get some help with identifying the locations described in the text.  

If you have any ideas, thoughts, or comments, please drop me a line at tips@letterstokhalid.com.

The Hotels

Click above to check out some of the hotels where I was allowed to do the translating. 

The Letters

Click above to get to the letter pages.

The Flower Men

Everything I can tell you about these guys is on this page.

The Presidents

This is a list of all the presidents introduced in the letters.

The Prime Ministers

The two operatives in the United Kingdom.