Hodgepodge 164/365 - Souvenirs

Yesterday in Austin, the customs guy looked at me askance when I told him I'd been in Israel and Italy for four weeks but I wasn't bringing anything from there home. "I don't buy souvenirs," I told him. To which he responded, "Do you travel often?" I'm not sure my response—once or twice a year—was convincing in the "no souvenirs" department. Don't normal people like keepsakes?

But now that I've unpacked, I see that I was wrong: I did buy six fabulous little notebooks, three French (papier velouté, douceur de l'écriture) with lined pages, three Italian with blank pages, plus two Schneider Viscoglide pens, one black, one blue. I also bought some toothpaste and hair conditioner in Italy—indeed, it's something of a tradition of mine to buy toothpaste overseas, because it reminds me for another several months, every day, that I was lucky enough to be over there, wherever it was. And I bought two reusable shopping bags in Israel, because: Hebrew! So cool!

And finally, I did bring back a few rocks from the Negev (but those I did not buy). They have joined my New Zealand rocks on the deck railing.

"Without bags! Shopping is clean" (approximately)

"Shufersal protects the environment"