Among My Souvenirs

I have so many but I don’t need any

Did you know that souvenir is a French word meaning, as a verb, to remember and as a noun, a memory? So, among my souvenirs, is among my memories.

And I have a lot of memories, particularly of my travels. I don’t know why I collect souvenirs because even without them, I have strong memories of the places I’ve travelled and the experiences I’ve had there.

New York memories

I’m always surprised when someone tells me they’ve been to New York. Of course, I ask, “Where did you stay?” and they don’t remember even if their trip was quite recent. I’m collecting information for another possible trip maybe. I don’t know, but I want to know everything! It’s why I love reading travel stories so much.

I’m using New York as an example as my visit happened in 1999 before I started writing and before digital photos. I won the family trip valued at $10,000 at my local shopping mall — 6 days in New York including flights and accommodation. It was so exciting just to be at the drawing of an entry out of the barrel. I had visualised it being mine, so when my name was called, I was stunned — I thought I’d slipped into a dream state. But enough about that.

My husband at the time, and our three kids flew Air New Zealand through Auckland to LAX and straight on to JFK. Oh to be young again. No swollen legs, no jet lag. It was 3 am when we arrived at our hotel, the Milford Plaza.

We had been put in one room. Lexi slept on the floor. I went to reception when we woke and corrected the error. Even so we weren’t given adjoining rooms but rooms on different floors! We had a corner room looking down 8th Avenue and 45th Street. See what I mean about memories?

I don’t need souvenirs. I did buy one special one in NYC though. It’s a musical snow globe playing “New York. New York.” There’s a subway train and a yellow taxi circling iconic New York scenes: Times Square, The Statue of Liberty, the Chrysler Building, the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building where I bought the globe. That was 24 years ago and I remember what we did each day in New York. Each of us had a choice of one thing we really wanted to see/do in New York.

My choice was the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. It was fascinating. It wasn’t hard to appreciate the struggles of the immigrant population. The tenement we walked through had been frozen in time when the Great Depression has closed down much of the garment trade shopfronts and immigrants moved further west to find work.

So, my memories are my souvenirs but if I don’t write them down, they’ll be gone once I die.

My childhood souvenirs

When I recall my childhood, I collected stamps from service stations in a special passbook, a similar shape and colour to a passport. That has long gone. I progressed to collecting postcards. I have many albums filled with postcards of places I’ve visited. I love receiving postcards in my letterbox even today. Thank you, Anne Bonfert.

I’ve collected just about everything

As an adult, going on trips around Australia, I collected silver spoons. I have hundreds but have nowhere to display them. It was always a challenge to buy a silver spoon from some ghost towns where you would not expect to find one. I have one from Glen Davis in country NSW that I bought from a tin shed! Glen Davis used to mine shale for its oil. It’s not a place most Australians have visited nor have any interest in, but I love places like this.

When I started travelling overseas, silver spoons added too much weight, so I collected entry tickets and brochures from castles and historic houses I visited. They turned out to be just as heavy and my luggage was 11 kg overweight at Heathrow.coming home. At 30 British pounds per extra kilo, I was up for 330 pounds ($1,000 Australian at the time). That’s the first of many Heathrow stories.

I haven’t mentioned my shell collection, my Coke bottle collection or my ornament collection. I don’t have any of those with me, apart from the Wedgwood I bought in England.

After that disaster, I collected fridge magnets — apparently not as heavy as paper! I still buy the occasional fridge magnet for my collection. But the souvenir I look for these days is a Pandora charm — not just any Pandora charm — but something special relating to the city. I only have bought one so far this trip. I wanted a Berlin Bear but I had to be happy with the Brandenburg Gate.

And these days with such a busy sightseeing and partying schedule, I don’t have time to go looking for a Pandora shop, so I only buy a charm if I happen to find a store in my wanderings. So my Pandora bracelet is not a serious souvenir collection — but it’s an expensive one.

I found a Pandora shop in Leipzig when I was looking for Lidl but they didn’t have any charm that was particular to Leipzig but they were prepared to engrave one for me… that’s not serendipitous enough.

I’d love to get the yacht charm from Gdansk but the Pandora shop is over the other side of the railway line so I wouldn’t just happen upon it.

My favourite souvenirs now are the unforgettable memories I create meeting and socialising with people. I think I’ve become a more confident solo traveller so am meeting a lot more lovely, interesting people than I have ever met on previous trips.

I love hearing their travel stories as much as I love reading yours. Here’s a couple of souvenir stories I really loved.

Ellen Eastwood’s souvenirs don’t take up much space in her house but collecting them was so much fun!

I loved reading Erie Astin’s story of her year at Oxford. Her memories are the best as are her cute souvenirs.

And Jillian Amatt’s souvenirs are her memories all documented in her travel journals. I forgot to mention I have a collection of these as well. When I get old and lose my memory, I’ll love to have these read to me. I don’t need them yet. My memories of my travels are the ones I remember in detail. I know — it’s uncanny!