Writing — Travel
Can a Keepsake Tell a Thousand Stories?
A few of the souvenirs I’ve picked up along the way
Ok, maybe a thousand is pushing it, but the stuff we collect along the highway of life way does indeed have memory-laden stories to tell.
This post is in response to an excellent prompt by Linda Ng about her favorite souvenirs from her travels. Dag nab it if Belcairn, Nishan Fuard and Osan Fernando didn’t manage to beat me to the punch though with their fab stories (linked below)!
I’m not too big of a souvenir person, although I do love postcards and fridge magnets. They are cheap, for one thing, and mildly fun.
The best keepsakes though, I believe, are the ones given to us by other people or the ones given to us freely by nature.
Unfortunately, most of the souvenirs I’ve collected in my life have either been lost during my incredibly chaotic life of the past, or are in Florida at the moment. Here are a few I have with me here in Trinidad though.
1. Sarongs and scarves from my step-mother-in-law 🧣
It was sweet of her to gift these beautiful scarves and sarongs to me. My sister-in-law demonstrated how to tie up the big sarong (the one on the bottom)into a dress. Of course, when I got home and tried it I was just as clueless as f — , like she hadn’t even shown me a thing.
It’s ok. YouTube is always here to save in such cases. Will have to watch some videos and figure out how to do this. I’m sure I won’t look at cute as those girls usually do on the videos though. But whatever! 🧣
2. Trini flag-colored ankle bracelet bought at the beach 📿
My husband Andy bought this for me one day when we were at Maracas Beach. These are the colors of the Trini flag, so it was both cute and patriotic.
Kinda funny though, he ended up regretting buying it because the vendor was kinda rude to him afterward. In the man’s defense though, my husband can be a talker, especially after he’s had a beer or two. 🍻
3. Cool Panama bag I have yet to use 👛
On my second return trip to Trinidad from the U.S., several months ago now, I ended up having a rather traumatic plane fiasco mishap. By the way, I do admire people who tell their traumatic airport check-in and boarding stories, such as this recent one by Sajjad Choudhury and this one by the lovely Adrienne Beaumont 🇦🇺.
My own story is still too freshly traumatic to talk about at length, so I’ll cut to the chase and say I ended up taking a last minute flight that routed me through Panama City and thus I ended up having a layover of several hours in the Panama City airport (got to know that airport rather well in the short time we spent together.)
Still can’t claim to have visited Panama, airports don’t count, although I was able to get an awesome view of the Panama Canal when flying in and also Panama City, which has a pretty distinct look — kinda reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Warsaw after it had been bombed by the Germans in WWII. Apparently, this is the older section of the city.
That alone was pretty fascinating, and normally I wouldn’t have bought something as extravagant as this bag, but it was half price and I just loved the look of it. Never even have used it yet. It just looks too cool for school — or anything else.
4. Shot glasses, postcards and fridge magnets 🥛
Can’t go wrong with staples like these. The shot glasses were given to us by Andy’s relatives actually, who were nice enough to give us a lot of pots, pans and dishes when we first came here to Trinidad. Saved us some money!
Most of the magnets are from my cross country-US road trip last year, although the one with the moose magnet and postcards from Idaho I bought for my husband on return trips. He’s really an NYC boy at heart. Places like Idaho might as well be outer space! 😆
The one with the scalloped potatoes recipe was pretty funny I thought. We’ve never made the recipe but really should. I love scalloped potatoes — and most any kind of potato dish really. 😋
5. Rocks 🪨💎
Rocks may seem like a pretty odd souvenir, but in my defense, I am from “the gem state”. There are a lot of people in Idaho known as “rock hounds”. I suppose somewhere in the back of our minds we are all looking for that rare nugget of gold, silver or a priceless gem of some sort that will allows us to become rich.
However, I also just love collecting interesting looking rocks with neat patterns and unique features. Somewhere in the back of my head is the aim to buy a rock polisher and perhaps even make jewelry out of the smaller rocks, but still haven’t done this.
Most of these were collected along the banks of the Snake River or in the lava beds of Idaho.
I had wondered if anyone at the airport would give me a hard time flying international with a big bag of rocks in my suitcase, but no one did. I’m sure they’ve seen far worse things.
What are your favorite souvenirs from traveling?
Thanks to Linda Ng’s for this great prompt. Her original post:
Follow-up posts by Belcairn, Nishan Fuard and Osan Fernando:
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