Souvenirs - special notes - Giftshop Paris Bookshop Jean-Thomas Cullen

Special Random Notes about Souvenirs

Ideally, traditionally, we travel someplace and, to remember how thrilling it was, we buy a keepsake to always remind us. Usually, it's a pretty little thing of some sort to be displayed on a shelf of memories, photos, and treasures in our livingroom. Or it may consist of a little stash of presents for our friends and loved ones, to share the glow as we tell stories (and gush about how happy we are to be home again). That's still the time-honored way to do it, and far be it from me to suggest any changes. But the world has changed, and I want to offer a few observations for what it's worth.

Here are some considerations. The word souvenir means 'memory.' We go somewhere to visit, and we bring back a memory—typically in the form of a keepsake called a souvenir. Giftshops are full of souvenirs in Paris and elsewhere. If you're on a big trip, you may end up with a lot of trinkets, chocolates, and gifts to lug around. You may want to consider carefully how you want to manage the logistics, because today's world is quite different from that of half a century ago or more.

Consider this for one thing: on a past trip to Rome, we bought a couple of 'gotta have' items including a very nice ceramic plate with beautifully wrapped little chocolates. It was a moderately expensive item, and we wrapped it in our clothes to carry safely in our backpacks so the items wouldn't break. When we returned to San Diego, we visited a local large discount price warehouse, and found that we could have bought the exact same imported item there at a fraction of the cost and hassle.

My one firm suggestion is practical and seems obvious. Send a lot of postcards from wherever you go. The postmark authenticates your visit to Paris or elsewhere. Above all, don't hesitate to send *yourself* some postcards that you can display forever in your home. Be practical and travel smart. Buy practical, meaning light weight items that won't spoil while you travel (especially in summer heat). Consider mailing items home as you go, but weigh the cost of postage (sometimes makes more sense than lugging). Buying some items online from genuine French or other local retailers often makes sense—hence I offer my online souvenir shop (here) as a useful alternative to consider. And, you know, you can't wait to get to Paris again, or maybe you feel you'll never go again, so buying a beret or other souvenir here may make sense (at least some of the retailers are actually French or even Parisian).

Refrigerator Magnets (RM). Some people won't touch them, thinking they are tacky. Others (like me) love them within boundaries of good taste (meaning: quality, and less is more). We have acquired some gorgeous RM showing universities, palaces, and other iconic spots in Budapest, Prague, Berlin, Cologne, Luxembourg, and the like. I think at the moment our large kitchen fridge sports at most about half a dozen. Yes, a fridge looks terrible when plastered with RM (my abbrev., no relation to the dark money of the Suckin' Reich, nicht wahr?). On the other hand, a few carefully chosen top-quality images will add sparkle to your seltzer every time you pour a refrigerated glass. Idea: buy as many as you want, and rotate them. Keep a favorite memory-drawer nearby, with all your treasures in it. Rotate once a week or month to keep the memories fresh. Fun that way.

Another personal anecdote is this: someone I knew here in my wonderful home city of San Diego came upon the wonders of Irish cheese (Dubliner, I believe) and special-ordered a pound to be shipped 8,000 miles to San Diego at great expense. He then discovered he could have bought the same cheese much more economically in a local supermarket. That story shows how much the world has changed in recent years, and we should adapt.

When I was a child in Europe, I fell in love with Côte D'Or chocolate from Brussels. We came to the U.S. in 1960 when I was 10 and, while I was intrigued by new adventures and flavors (e.g., popcorn), I sorely missed by old elephant-picture chocolates which are truly world-class. In those days, if you walked into a U.S. home, 99.99% of everything in that house was made in the USA. People thought it unimaginable to buy anything (clothes, furniture, dishes, food, a car) imported from a foreign country. The change probably started in the 1970s (I'm guessing) with the growing tsunami (no pun intended) of Japanese car imports, along with transistor radios and other gadgets. Until then, people in the U.S. lived as if on a huge island, isolated from the world. Today, most everything seems to be made outside the USA, now notably in China. Starting around the turn of the century, a booming market of imports from Europe developed. I remember when the first European chocolates became available in the U.S. in the 1980s or so, they were usually gray from months of traveling along unaccustomed routes. By 2000 or so, there was a heavy flow of European goods into the U.S. along well-traveled and efficient routes, so the chocolate was no longer gray but fresh. Like the Irish cheese story, or the Italian gift plate mentioned above, you may be able to buy the same trinket in your home town or city in North America. It's a good idea to think about these issues, and plan ahead. It's best to travel light. Take your friends' addresses with you, and send them postcards. Except for rare local products like wines, the exported stuff you can buy at home is often just as good.

I have to add one small tale within a tale here, because many people cling to their old ways. I was in the checkout line at my local San Diego supermarket around 2010 sometime, with a few Swiss-made Lindt chocolate bars in my basket. The young manager at the cash register looked distressed. She said: "You know, I won't touch this stuff. I know it's better chocolate, but I still prefer my old (she named a brand)with all that sugar in it. That's what I like—lots of sugar." But you know, before we get snooty about important oo-la-la, I have one more anecdote to tell you. My observation, from many years of travel and living in foreign countries like a native, is that people are the same everywhere. There is no paradise where things are really better (although I'll take the weather in San Diego or the Riviera any day versus climates I have endured in Canada, Connecticut, or England just for example). But consider the next story before making judgments.

I've always had strong preferences about chocolate (technical term Theobroma, or Food of the Gods). One day, my wife and son and I were in London looking for a place to have something hot to drink on a cold, rainy, drizzle Sunday morning. We were staying near the big Victoria Station terminal of the London rail and tube system, and we spied a café—restaurant across the street from the huge station. Shaking rain from our clothes, we sat down and ordered hot chocolates. The young waiter took our order, nodded, and rushed off to bring our piping hot cocoas. I remarked to my wife: "Now we'll get some *real* chocolate, not that watery, bitter sugar-drizzle from the U.S." Indeed, when our hot chocolates arrived, they were delicious, topped with little cones of whipped cream. It was wonderful—and only then did I notice the sticker saying it was Ghirardelli Chocolate from San Francisco. Ouch, look of shame. But there is a kicker yet to this story. More recently, I learned that Ghirardelli has been bought by (what else?) foreign owners; no, not China, not yet; but Lindt, the chocolatier from Switzerland. What this all says is that we shouldn't be rubes today, thinking that the Eiffel tower pencil sharpener you buy in a Parisian giftshop is truly a product of the City of Lights. It may very well be made in China; or more silly, made in Bucksnort, Tennessee (just kidding).

My own observation, having lived for years again in Europe as an adult, is that you want to be careful in transporting wines. Maybe it's just me, but I brought some wonderful wines home from Germany while I was stationed there as a U.S. Army soldier in the 1970s, and when I opened them in San Diego, they tasted rather flat. My theory was that the vibrations of traveling cause the complex molecules in a rich wine to break up, and you end up with a table wine you could have bought at your local supermarket. And, by the way, California wines have in recent generations achieved world class. A note on beer: aside from the new global corporate ownership of many top brands, in the beer world it was common knowledge that under U.S. law, imported beer had to be pasteurized (have the soul boiled out of it) to be admitted into the U.S. I could drink a perfectly wonderful Becks beer in Germany, which has the world's strictest laws, known as Reinheitsgebote (Purity Laws) regarding the manufacture of beer (many of our beers aren't really beers under German definition, but sort of hold-your-nose fruit or rice beverages). A German beer by law may only contain water, hops, and barley. But: de gustibus non disputandum. Just saying. Then too, consider: these people might be in Bavaria on their bus the next day, where you are more likely to find a coocoo-clock than in other parts of Germany. By the time they get home to Vancouver or Seattle, it's all a blur anyway: just a golden glow of memories (try to forget the dark moments, like pickpockets, scam artists, and the like). Oh yes, hellpful idea: in our day and age, before going, you can watch YouTube videos to get free advice from (sometimes) experts and (sometimes) dingdongs. Take it all in stride.

And here's maybe the ultimate kicker, perhaps reflecting a lost world in the age of Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, and the rest of the Rat Pack. my late father, a professional gambler around Las Vegas and other spots around the world (which is why I don't gamble) used to tell about the perks that Las Vegas casinos made available to high rollers to keep them spending money and feeling special or pampered. Among those perks was a daily plane load of fresh bread, baked in Paris, flown to the United States every night to be eaten in Las Vegas during early and mid-day (probably on the Concorde, I would imagine, which could make the Paris-New York run in a little over four hours).

I would never dissuade you from the special joy of buying a keepsake in a far away place. At the same time, I urge you to plan ahead, look twice, and be practical. Maybe for some readers, sending postcards (with genuine postmarks) would be optimal, and ordering genuinely made gifts by Parisian retailers online (like my Amazon or similar affiliates) would make sense. Your call. But consider one more story and then I'll let you keep browsing.

In late 2017, I was strolling in San Diego's wonderful Fashion Valley shopping mall, which is the number one model for my own Citta Moda online mall. Malls in the U.S. are in crisis, as you know. People are window-shopping physically, but going home and searching online for the best bargain on an item they like. Here's my story. I was stroling through the chinaware department of this huge anchor store. The place was almost like a church, all hushed and gloomy, but dripping with an aura of wealth. It was huge, lavish, and amazing. I stood there (if I had a hat, I would have taken it off and held it humbly in both hands) and an elegantly dressed, pleasant, and attractive woman in her forties asked me if I needed help finding something. Seeing her department store name tag, I thanked her but said I was only browsing. I pointed to some high-priced imported name brand French chinaware and asked a few questions. The prices were, of course, celestial. I asked her half-jokingly if she was sure these French-label dinnerware sets weren't really made in China. That would make them genuinely Chinaware, right? She puffed up and looked at me as if I were absurd. I said, "Well, let's double check. What does it say on the bottom?" I can't remember the name brand, but it was something stratospheric like Limoges or the like. Taking me up on the challenge, she picked up a $300 bowl and looked at the bottom, which was covered with a series of stickers suggesting French origin. Peeling all these successive stickers off, she found at the bottom, ingrained into the crystal itself, the legend Made in China. That's a true story, and I'll reserve judgment on the implications for now. But consider carefully: it's possible you might walk into a Paris store, buy a pricey keepsake, and lug it all the way home as a gift for a loved one, who may peel the labels off as you sit there beaming, and tell you with a slightly bemused air that your souvenir from Paris was made in China. So buying a souvenir far from home to treasure from your visit is not always what it's made out to be.

Just one more note. I should write a book, huh? While I was stationed in Europe with the U.S. Army for years, I always enjoyed traveling. Everything is at most a few hours away. For example, a friend in Luxembourg recently told me he spent Christmas in Paris ("only two hours by TVG," he said, meaning the fabulous Train à Grande Vitesse or High Speed trains). My observation was that tourists, especially from outside Europe, were shuttled around in busses and there was a brisk trade in tour guiding. Example 1: I became confidant with a tour guide in Italy on my first tour to Rome, and observed how he and the bus driver worked together to navigate people not necessarily to the famous attractions they paid a lifetime's wages to travel thousands of miles to see—but to ice cream shops, gift shops, and other pit stops where the shop owner would give kickbacks that the driver and guide then split. In the end, I think usually everyone comes out happy, but that little ratty joint off the beaten path was not "the most beloved ice cream parlor in Rome." Here's Example 2: In Kaiserslautern, where I was stationed, there was one such pit stop called, I believe, Harry's Gifts, where gullible tourists could stock up on all the stereotypical German items like Lederhosen (short leather pants) and Stein beer mugs. Problem was that nobody in that part of Germany ever wore Lederhosen or drank from a Steinkrug (literally, a stone tankard; not a current German usage). In the Rheinland-Pfalz area of Germany, you typically get your beer or wine served in a plain glass (not an ornate faux-European Medieval jar with a handle); and the traditional wear for men is a form of culottes, or knee-breeches, worn with high woolen stockings and sturdy shoes. If anything, you'd see the leather shorts and fancier beer mugs in Bayern (Bavaria). If anything, the Rheinland is most famous for its wines, although both beer and wine are world-class throughout Germany.

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