My friend flew in from New York just this past week. She's from the area, lived in Ferndale, dated me when I lived in Hamtramck and she was looking for some lunch.

"I want dill pickle soup," she said to me over the phone.

We went to the Polish Village. It was during the lunch rush.  The place was filled.

However, before we walked through the door, down the steps and through the other door, the first thing I noticed was the parking lot – that huge, underused parking lot. Remember that thing? It's pretty much always empty. It was that one that was such an issue with the restaurant people. It's that parking lot that, according to some, would be eaten up by the Aldi development, stealing the spaces like a thief in the night and reducing business just as quick. Well, that parking lot was, maybe, a third full during the lunch rush. From what I saw, as far as I can tell, and I've always believed this, there won't be a problem with spaces.

Besides, no one likes to pay the parking meter anyway. I'd rather walk two blocks then drop a quarter in any meter – and I do.

Anyway...

We made it in. There was a rolling mumble of a filled restaurant in the air and the sound clinking silverware on ceramic swooped in every five seconds.


I ordered the Polish plate and ate most of it. She got the same and ate half.

"I want to see Hamtramck Disney Land before I go," she said to me as we walked the two blocks back to her car. We parked two blocks away because, as I stated earlier, I refuse to pay for a meter.

Hamtramck Disneyland, you know about that. That piece of art that joins two housing lots with men-shaped wooden slabs holding guns, plastic horses, paintings, and strings of lights that never seem to be lit. It's in the alley between Commor and Carpenter, sandwiched between Klinger and Sobieski.

As we turned the corner I could see it peaking out at us, going straight out into the sky. Bright colors and weird shapes staring back at us as we inched closer. It never ceases to amaze me, though. It's colorful and creepy and interesting and playful.

"I'm getting out," she said when we pulled up and parked. She swung around to the back of the car, quickly moving toward the installment. "I love this horse, he painted it gold," pointing as she stood in front of the garage door that was facing the alley.

She walked up and down, back and forth. I just leaned against the car and laughed. We've both seen it a hundred times. Still, she gets so excited. And still, Hamtramck Disneyland makes me laugh.

And the size of it, too, man, it's huge. It shoots into the sky. The whole thing reminds me of those blowfish with the spikes sticking out of it. I know it's not exact, obviously, but there are so many poles and figures jutting into the sky that, for me, it's the first thing that comes to mind - a spiny blowfish. One piece is a slab of wood made to look like the Statue of Liberty. It's a flat board, cut with two legs, painted green, crowned and holding what looks like a giant flashlight to symbolize the torch.

"My mom said she wanted to get that Statue of Liberty tattooed on her," she said. I shook my head.

She would stand as far away from installation as she could, right up against the fence of the yard directly across from it in the alley, trying to take in the whole thing. That's hard to do because you don't know exactly what you're looking at. You recognize all the shapes – horses, trucks, "people" – but piecing it all together, each little nail and screw and piece of wood and dollop of paint, well, that's not as easily recognizable.

We weren't there for long, about 15 minutes or so.

"My mom loves that place," she said. "I love that place."

For me, I like it. It's a one of those things that makes Hamtramck, Hamtramck. However, what I love is that when my friend from Brooklyn comes here she has to eat dill pickle soup and come see this thing, come see Hamtramck Disneyland.

So, that's what I love. Well, that and dill pickle soup.