Souvenirs

Lovely but useless Murano glass.
It's not even real Murano glass!

When purchasing souvenirs on holidays, most of us lose our heads. We just want to capture the moment with something tangible – a little bit of sparkly magic we can cling on to when we go back to our routine lives. Even though we know, most of us know, that souvenirs are inevitably rubbish and carry no magical powers whatsoever. Oh no, we tell ourselves, I’m not buying plastic trinkets made with cheap child labour. Oh no, I’m going to buy something real, something authentic. Say, a tiny Murano glass figurine from Venice that costs half your shopping budget. That sits on the shelf. Collecting dust. Made exclusively for the tourist market.

I’ve bought a stack of useless things both for myself and for others, in the spirit of souvenir buying. In Canada I loaded up on bear poo (chocolate coated sultanas), maple leaf key rings and maple syrup soap, butter, candles and tea. In Spain I bought hand painted plates, in Russia I bought lacquered trinket boxes and in every country I’ve visited I’ve collected a pen, key ring, postcard and/or magnet. I bought $20 worth of bead jewellery in Brazil and paid $60 to get them treated at Customs.

I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed when purchasing my cheap Taiwanese import spoons at the counter, but tell me what else I can give my aunts. Let’s face it, they’re convenient and don’t take up any important space in your suitcase. In Hong Kong my niece actually spent seven days and nights searching for damn tea towels for her aunts. They were, incredulously, nowhere to be found. Cheap jewellery, pashminas, imitation handbags and purses aplenty. But tea towels, forget it. She ended up finding one at the airport as we were preparing to head home.

Perhaps my parents take the biscuit in terms of impractical souvenir buying. My Italian parents living in Australia visited their homeland in 1977. As gifts for themselves and other family members, they brought back with them four (that’s four) La San Marco espresso machines from Milan. Orange and chrome. Four. My father estimates a good 6 kilos each. In one suitcase. My parents were clearly well ahead of their time with regards to home espresso machines, but right up there in the ‘crazy’ category as far as souvenir buying is concerned.

I scrounged around for a photo of this coffee machine that used to sit in our kitchen. I failed to locate one, so I casually asked my aunt, one of the espresso machine recipients, if she had one. She had one better - the actual coffee machine, still in plastic. I took this photo last week. Needless to say, my aunt is a bit of a hoarder....

You think this is just a 21st century malady? Not so. On the Grand Tour in the 1700s the English hoards invading Italy packed up extraordinary booty to take home. Keep in mind, those on the Grand Tour were mainly male 20-somethings with money to burn and an aching desire to prove to those at home that they were now learned and cultured young men. They took home plaster busts and portraits of themselves sitting idly by classic Roman scenes. They carried off with them an enormous amount of sculptures, medals, paintings and books. Some of them started museums. Possibly the most disturbing to our modern sensibilities – they chipped off hunks of marble from the Roman Forum relics that they would later convert to a lovely coffee table.

But like us souvenir suckers today, the English regularly fell for fake antiquities. Enterprising Italians quietly rustled up some half decent marble Roman torso, scrounged up some suitable limbs and then tinted them all with tobacco water to age them consistently. ‘Come this way sir. Of course it’s real!’

I had my own Grand Tour / crazy souvenir moment when visiting Hobart in Tasmania. I walked into an antique map shop and stopped dead in my tracks. On the wall were four framed engravings of Rome in the style of Piranesi. They were at least half a meter in length and height. Each. They were straight out of the 1800s and I instantly fell in love with them. I recalled my parents epic journey with four coffee machines and thought, I can’t really buy four framed 19th century engravings can I? No, I decided, that’s too silly. My souvenir from Hobart will be restricted to fudge and chutney from the market. And maybe a hand painted bookmark. But no 19th century engravings.

Six months later, home in Adelaide, I was still thinking of those engravings. They called to me like no other souvenir ever had. (Except for maybe a pair of Prada sandals in a Hong Kong outlet store that I still dream about now and then). So I called the store and, yes, they were still available. A few days later I was hanging them on my office wall. Best souvenir I ever bought. 

One of my beautiful engravings. No regrets about this souvenir.