quote:

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Originally posted by leo:
a glass paperweight from Venice.

Some embroidery from Bruges.

Some incense from Paris.

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Now I have lotte Lenya singing Was bekam des Soldatenweib* in my head.

*what did the soldier's wife get sent
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
From Iceland recently, a sweater, gloves, and a gorgeous lopi wool rug dyed in landscape colours. I couldn't get any knitting wool as the only shop I saw was shut, it being Sunday. Bookmarks for nephews and nieces, and some jewellery using basalt for sisters. Two hand turned wooden boxes from a brilliant turner on the Faroes. Couldn't cope with carrying his lampshades. Turner
 

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Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
Neckties. I buy at least one, but usually three in each country. In the 1970s it was tea shirts. But I immatured into an old fart who wears ties.
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
I buy a picture fridge magnet. I've moved house a lot, and these were always the first things to be unpacked. Weirdly, as soon as my travel souvenirs were on the fridge, it felt like home.
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
I also collect fridge magnets, our large American Fridge is now quite full
 

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Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :
 
I collect tickets. Bus tickets, concert, gardens, boat trip tickets.
So as well as reminding myself where I've been and what I've seen, they tell me when I did it too, which is so easy to forget.
 

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Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :
 
Snowglobes.

SS Francis and Clare bought in Assisi and JPII bought from a nun in St John Lateran are particular favourites.
 

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Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
Rocks. And my friends know to pick up pretty stones for me during their travels!

I'm not talking about boulders, mind you, but little rocks between one half inch and two inches long.

I have a fossil from Pennsylvania that has a star all the way through. (It's the inside of a certain reed.)

My BFF just brought a little piece of fossilized coral from the Arctic Ocean!
 

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Posted by Graven Image (# 8755) on :
 
I would buy dolls for a young friend. Now I tend not to lug anything home. I have enough stuff. The people who owned our home before us have filled the yard with rocks all with painted date and place of their travels. Some are rather large and I cannot imagine bring them home in a suitcase.
 

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Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
A coffee mug. A friend got me started, explaining they break, you don't end up with too many. Well, she had 3 pre-teens. Hers broke. I have to weed mine out sometimes. But it's fun that every cuppa tea or juice is in a mug with pleasant memories attached.

One per trip, not per tourist site!
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
When I was in China we went to Xian, site of the Terra Cotta Warriors. The town is also the eastern end of the Silk Road, and in the Muslim Market there I found a carving made from a single joint of bamboo. It was about as big as my thigh, and represents a squash blossom bud with some leaves. What it really looks like is Cthulhu, or perhaps the submarine Nautlus, or maybe a giant squid. Tentacles! Since it is bamboo it is fairly tough and light, which is good since I had to bundle it in my arms and carry it home like a baby.
 

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Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :
 
I usually buy a tshirt with a local design, unfortunately then I don't want to wear them and spoil them! I have a couple of gorgeous ones from Australia a couple of years ago with Aboriginal art designs.

The other thing is a local tea towel - always useful and a nice reminder of the summer holiday on a dreary winter's evening when I'm doing the washing up!
 

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Posted by To The Pain (# 12235) on :
 
I often, but not always, pick up a Christmas tree ornament on each trip. I didn't manage this summer, being too intent on my mission to find T-shirts for the small relatives. While I am on a trip just now (for work) I don't think that really warrants commemorating!
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
In one school I worked in, we set up a competition. Whenever a member of staff went on holiday, their task was to bring back the tackiest souvenir they could find for a maximum cost of £1.50. I remember a golf-playing Nessie, a snow globe of a London bus which leaked all the water out, a magnificent plastic-gilt Venetian gondola, a teddy bear Beefeater carrying an enormous flower, a musical Pope ... you get the idea! They all lived on a table in the corner of the staffroom, which became a magnet for the small children of staff.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
I went through a period of buying shot glasses from various countries and receiving them from friends. A nice practical present

I also have several regional cookbooks (how to make Hungarian goulash and streudal, Dutch croquettes etc.. and if it's that kind of country, a comic book in the local language.

There is a law in the Arachnid family that wherever I go I have to buy my Mum a bookmark. The house is full of them but we only ever seem to use train tickets and shopping lists to actually mark books.
 

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Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :
 
Teddy-bears.

If we go somewhere new, we like to buy a teddy (usually with the place-name on his sweater).

Or if we just happen to see a little bear who looks as if he's been waiting for us to adopt him ...
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Cottontail:
In one school I worked in, we set up a competition. Whenever a member of staff went on holiday, their task was to bring back the tackiest souvenir they could find for a maximum cost of £1.50. I remember a golf-playing Nessie, a snow globe of a London bus which leaked all the water out, a magnificent plastic-gilt Venetian gondola, a teddy bear Beefeater carrying an enormous flower, a musical Pope ... you get the idea! They all lived on a table in the corner of the staffroom, which became a magnet for the small children of staff.

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This is awesome. You know, if you took photos, you'd have the makings of a popular blog right there.
 

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Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :
 
My last ten years or so in work were in aviation, and many of my colleagues had to travel extensively by air all round the world in the course of work. A colleague of mine had amassed a large collection of airline sick bags (empty!) which he used to get all our other colleagues to bring back whenever they flew!


 

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Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :
 
When I was a child, I, too, collected fabric badges which got sewn onto my duffel bag. As a couple, we have collected mugs, which explains why our mug cupboard has over 100 in it - particularly mugs of places and advertising promotions. (Easter eggs were often chosen because they came with a mug). It's quite sad to see mugs from attractions which have now closed, like the visitor centre at Goonhilly in Cornwall. We used to buy pin badges for Lord P and he had a large piece of fabric mounted on the back of his bedroom door with them pinned on.
We now have so much "stuff" that we tend not to buy souvenirs, but we do take lots of photos!
 

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Posted by cattyish (# 7829) on :
 
I have a charm bracelet. It has a little Sydney Harbour bridge, a Maeshowe dragon and a disc shaped charm I bought in Marrakesh airport on it. There was a Groatie buckie but that fell out of its mount. I need to get something German as I was ill while there and something Austrian because we were in the mountains far from any shop.

Cattyish, jangling.
 

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Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on :
 
Stones.....old roof tiles.....shells......
 

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Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :
 
Books, sometimes in languages I can't read. Granted, I learned French a few years after spending a long morning wandering the specialist bookshops of the Latin Quarter, wondering if somewhere there might be one that specialized in philosophy (...yes), but, at the time, it cause my then-girlfriend no end of bemusement that I had all these dense books I couldn't do anything with.

Perhaps the strangest thing I've brought back was 25 pounds of dirt. Well, clay, really, and a very unique kind at that, but try explaining that to the person wondering why your bags are overweight.

My mom, of course, collected rocks. Not small ones, either. Usually about 30-40 pound rocks, sometimes larger, that she could put in the garden. There were a few times on road trips when the family minivan would lean to one side a bit as my dad and I deposited the Requisite Rock.

(edited to indicate time, rather than cause)

[ 27. August 2015, 16:49: Message edited by: Ariston ]
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cottontail:
In one school I worked in, we set up a competition. Whenever a member of staff went on holiday, their task was to bring back the tackiest souvenir they could find for a maximum cost of £1.50. I remember a golf-playing Nessie, a snow globe of a London bus which leaked all the water out, a magnificent plastic-gilt Venetian gondola, a teddy bear Beefeater carrying an enormous flower, a musical Pope ... you get the idea! They all lived on a table in the corner of the staffroom, which became a magnet for the small children of staff.

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This is awesome. You know, if you took photos, you'd have the makings of a popular blog right there.

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Or a Pinterest page.
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cottontail:
In one school I worked in, we set up a competition. Whenever a member of staff went on holiday, their task was to bring back the tackiest souvenir they could find for a maximum cost of £1.50. I remember a golf-playing Nessie, a snow globe of a London bus which leaked all the water out, a magnificent plastic-gilt Venetian gondola, a teddy bear Beefeater carrying an enormous flower, a musical Pope ... you get the idea! They all lived on a table in the corner of the staffroom, which became a magnet for the small children of staff.

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This is awesome. You know, if you took photos, you'd have the makings of a popular blog right there.

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Or a Pinterest page.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sparrow:
The other thing is a local tea towel - always useful and a nice reminder of the summer holiday on a dreary winter's evening when I'm doing the washing up!

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I nearly drove myself mad trying to find souvenir tea towels in Singapore. It's just not a thing there any longer, it seems.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
...but they do a great line in really tacky souvenirs of the Merlion!
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I tend to buy stuff for other people, rather than for myself. This has the advantage of cluttering up someone else’s house . Can be anything, but preferably original and/or slightly kitsch and funny.

In Amsterdam, I picked up a genuine Delftware cow for my parents. They also have a nodding dinosaur in the back of their car from the Natural History Museum. My (now) husband got a wee Nessie from Scotland.

One year for Christmas I bought the ugliest Parisian souvenirs I could find as presents for my whole family (yes I did get them real presents as well). We then voted on which one was the tackiest. That said, for really tacky souvenirs, Paris can’t compete with Rome. I think my mother still has a Pope Benedict calendar somewhere.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I am now worrying about presents from my eclipse trip back in March. I bought one sister a pair of reindeer antler earrings, very tiny, with little copies of an ancient rock drawing of a reindeer on them. I haven't seen the other sister since, cannot remember what I would have bought her, and cannot find anything that makes sense as a gift for her. I hope to see her soon - have that very nice basalt and silver thing for her from Iceland, but not from the earlier trip to Norway.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
...That said, for really tacky souvenirs, Paris can’t compete with Rome. I think my mother still has a Pope Benedict calendar somewhere.

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I have a Pope JPII snow globe from a friend's visit to Italy. It looks as if he's Godzilla, terrorising the buildings of Rome

 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
That said, for really tacky souvenirs, Paris can’t compete with Rome. I think my mother still has a Pope Benedict calendar somewhere.

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I bought a friend a small fridge calendar from Florence, entitled "Florence by Night". The twist? None of the photos are by night ...

 

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Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ariston:

My mom, of course, collected rocks. Not small ones, either. Usually about 30-40 pound rocks, sometimes larger, that she could put in the garden. There were a few times on road trips when the family minivan would lean to one side a bit as my dad and I deposited the Requisite Rock.

(edited to indicate time, rather than cause)

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Last time the BF and I were walking in the Lake District, we passed through a disused slate quarry. BF decided that he would like to take back "a few" nicely shaped pieces of slate to put round his garden pond. He was definitely leaning to one side after that as we came down the mountain track!


 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
It has turned out that the two hand turned boxes from the Faroes have turned into one. I sent them off, on the same day, as birthday gifts to my nieces, one in South Wales, one in South London. The London one has failed to arrive after being sent on the 11th.
I have the certificates of postage. I shall initiate search on Tuesday after the Bank Holiday. I have emailed the turner to see if there can be a replacement.
Bad taste in the mouth, that sort of thing.

[ 30. August 2015, 19:15: Message edited by: Penny S ]
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
The North East man is sometimes given gifts whilst working abroad. My favourite so far is a cheese slicer with a decorative handle, which cheers up the cutlery drawer no end.

On one working trip he was given framed dead butterflies, which I refuse to have on display anywhere.

One gift baffles us. It's two small china ornaments, which can fit together. One is a little cat, and the other is a small boy doing a backwards crab bend. The small boy is wearing the sort of trousers that non-potty trained little boys can wear, with an open crotch, and the crab bend position means that his genitals are displayed.

The small cat fits under his back.

We have no idea whether it represents something - a character in a fairy story perhaps? Anyone come across anything similar?
 

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Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
If I were you I would hide it away before Operation Yewtree gets hold of you.
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
It's not on display!! It's still in the box it came in.
 

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Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
Very wise.
 

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