The stories make the souvenirs

and not, as many people think, vice versa

In America, one of my workmates was a woman named Jessie. She was obsessed with her appearance - not just how she looked, physically, but how she presented herself to clients, to colleagues, to her kids’ peers’ grandparents siblings, to the empty staff kitchen when she walked in for a cup of coffee. She was constantly adjusting her clothing, touching up her makeup, brushing her hair. I got the sense that she would have loved nothing more than to have lived in Stepford.

One summer, she went on vacation and, when she returned, she had a giant “OUTER BANKS” bumper sticker on her Lexus SUV. When I saw it, something seemed off to me; for someone so focused on the seasonal tint of her hair, shirt colors that complimented her tinted contacts, and the GSM of her business cards, I didn’t know what she was trying to communicate to other drivers with this one particular bumper sticker. In my opinion, advertising a vacation spot on one’s car was ab initio gauche; beyond that, advertising a vacation to North Carolina? If she’d stayed for a year on an obscure beach in Namibia studying sea turtle migration patterns, or had trekked by foot across Nicaragua with only a 15L backpack, that would have been something worth bragging about on her rear window; what would anyone in the world say to her about a brief stay on an overdeveloped stretch of the East Coast? Why did someone so focused on self-presentation advertise so blatantly the limits of her own experience?

In short: WHAT MESSAGE WAS SHE TRYING TO SEND???

Or did this knee-jerk judgment say more about me, and my own limited experiences? Maybe the Outer Banks were special; maybe, in more refined circles than mine, a vacation there represented actual achievement. Maybe I didn’t know enough about the proud history and legacy of the Outer Banksians - maybe they had their great pyramids, or ancient and incredible waterworks, and detailed myths and legends and rituals. Maybe it was me, in my own small life, that had a silly preconceived notion that boastworthy vacations should be of a particular type or character, should have different characteristics. Maybe I should have seen the glory of America first.

And perhaps I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge her for advertising her beloved vacation spot on her car. I perhaps judge conspicuous consumption when I, myself, believe strongly in a different type of conspicuous consumption. Mote/plank.

But twelve years later, in Milan and throughout Italy, I judged, judged, judged.

I’d see American men, in synthetic travel cargo shorts and patterned polo shirts tucked in over their expanded bellies, proudly sporting “MILAN” or “ROME” or “SORRENTO” or “FLORENCE” baseball hats while walking around these cities, as if headgear with anglicized city names were cultural camouflage that helped them blend in with the locals. Perhaps they really thought that all of the other men who wore sandals and socks and who had the same caps really were locals; maybe they thought that these caps didn’t mark them as immediate targets for price gouging and pickpockets. The women seemed to be drawn to t-shirts with giant graphics - say, an image of Venus in her shell, or a close-up of David’s flaccid penis (seriously) - as well as silk scarves, particularly with abstract, exploding pastel floral patterns or layer upon layer of citrus fruit, usually lemons.

Perhaps these particular costumes bring cache and clout in their cultures.

And I should really remember the advice of Nick Carraway’s father: “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” I thought of that line when I was in the Vatican museum, stuck behind one of a thousand tour groups, and I heard two men talking in broadly midwestern accents, one asking the other if he had ever been to Paris. The second man said, “No, but I would absolutely love to go.” I looked over and saw that they were two older Americans, in zip-on travel trousers and button-up shirts and matching navy blue “ROME” hats, with the confident walks that come with a lifetime of above-average prosperity, possibly from pharmaceutical sales or slinging used cars. I was confused: why couldn’t this guy get to Paris? But then I remembered: perhaps it was not in his ability to imagine.

And anyway, my philosophy is different, but is it better? I don’t like these souvenirs, and I try to stay away from places selling them, but I am human and I still crave consumption, I still crave small mementos that will remind me of specific times, places, or experiences. Let’s say kitsch makes for bad souvenirs…so what makes for a good souvenir?

At first, I came up with the following ideal characteristics:

1. A souvenir should be a reminder of something that the buyer actually did or went through.

2. A souvenir should have stand-alone utility.

3. A souvenir should not obviously be a souvenir.

4. A souvenir should not exist simply to brag to others of a trip the buyer took.

Souvenirs should not simply brag to others that you had the money and time to visit a place. Instead, a souvenir should have an actual use that is separate from the memories that it brings up. Ideally, actually, a souvenir should look, to anyone else, like a thing you have for a particular purpose; nothing about the thing should prompt others to think it is actually a souvenir.

Thus, sweatshirts and bumper stickers and baseball caps with a place name are untouchable. Yes, a baseball hat is useful for keeping the sun out of your eyes, but if it has two columns and “SPQR” on the front, people who know what SPQR means will think, “that person went to Rome and all they got was a stupid hat.” The point of such items is to boast to others of one’s own experience. That’s not a good souvenir.

Seashells, for example, are better, but still not ideal. They are not obviously a souvenir, and might remind you of a particular moment (perhaps strolling on a beach in Fiji after a tropical storm has washed the dregs of the ocean onto the sand) but they likely have no actual utility, so would only be kept around as a visible reminder of a trip to a place that had seashells. (If it is actually turned into something useful, like a giant seashell used as a cufflink and collar stay holder, then it could be a good souvenir, but that may or may not be a completely self-serving justification.)

So that was the list of ideal souvenir qualities I came up with originally. But then, I was talking to my friend Stuart about pens. He is a salesman, and works with really wealthy clients, and, on his sales calls, he usually brings a Bic. He mentioned that he might be interested in a Mont Blanc, and my immediate thought: what would be the story behind that? Like, if a client asked him about it, what would he say - that he wanted to look more professional, and so bought an expensive pen? He asked me about my pens, and I explained why I have a Mont Blanc (my father found it on a ferry in Hong Kong and gave it to me; I then brought it to a Mont Blanc store, and they confirmed it is genuine), my Parker 51 (my grandfather gave one to my father when he left Africa to go to university in France, which I lost in high school; I bought mine in a flea market in Lisbon), my Cross Townsend (a gift from an old boss) and my space pen (an investment ahead of my first trip around the world). I suggested that, instead of buying a Mont Blanc, he might want to go on a trip to Italy with his family, and, while there, pick something up - perhaps at A. C. Vecchietti or I Papiri. Then, instead of only being able to say, “I got it because it is expensive,” he could say, “I was in Bologna with my wife and daughter, and…”

In other words, my new definition: the best souvenir is a tangible object with a great story.

The problem with many souvenirs, then, is that the best story that people can come up with is that they went somewhere and bought it. Imagine: someone asks you about your ROME hat, and you can only say, “I went to Rome. Uh…I got it from a guy selling hats and water bottles near the Palatine Hill?” Maybe, however, that Rome hat has a much more detailed pedigree. Perhaps, for example, the wearer was in Cairo, on a layover, waiting for a flight to Abu Dhabi, and then on to Port Louis, Mauritius, for a month’s vacation. Perhaps the Cairo airport was evacuated because of a bomb threat; then they were stranded for three days, without anything to do, while they waited for another flight to take them on their way. They got a hotel and then, deciding to have an adventure while they waited, went on a trip to the pyramids. Maybe they boarded a packed van, without any air conditioning; the van broke down in the suburbs, and so the group ventured out while the driver waited for a mechanic. Under this person’s seat was a hat that, bizarrely, had “ROME” on it. Putting it on, they considered the strange confluence of events that had led to ROME having meaning in Egypt; the thousands and thousands of years of Mediterranean trade, the interactions between ancient civilizations, the historical beating butterfly wings that led Caesar to Cleopatra. Keeping in mind other enduring regional conflicts and competitions - Scotland/England, Ireland/England, Wales/England, France/Germany, Ohio/Michigan - they worried about Egyptians seeing the hat and thinking, “What an asshole - rubbing in two thousand years of cultural hegemony,” but such fears never materialized (as far as they could tell). The hat stayed on their head throughout the rest of the trip in Egypt and Mauritius and made it back to America, and they vowed that, one day, they would go to Rome with their ROME hat and wear it, and bring its story full-circle.

So you ask them about the hat, and they say, “So there we were, 120 degrees in the shade in the suburbs of Cairo, with a…”

“Cairo, Egypt?”

“Cairo, Egypt, with a broken-down van…”

In the first instance, the wearer is living a mediocre and unimaginative life. In the second…well, that’s a really fucking cool reason to wear a ROME hat in Rome.

Perhaps that’s part of the poverty of wealth. With money, people just go out and get what they want - events, objects, people. If something is broken, they pay to get it fixed or disappeared - think Daisy and Tom Buchanan. The stories that rich people have are often extraordinarily poor, no matter how much they spend, and so are their souvenirs. If you don’t have money, though, you have to be imaginative, to be open to experiences, and you get better stories.

Regardless, I think over and over that maybe I shouldn’t be such a judgmental asshole when it comes to other people and their souvenirs, because maybe I don’t know the full fucking story.

And in this definition, the object is often irrelevant. A bad souvenir in one situation could be an amazing souvenir in another. What matters is the quality of the story.

Sometimes, the story is determined by the seller, by the company. This is marketing; it is what intelligent brands spend their money promoting. Think: what kind of notebook did Hemingway and Picasso use? (A: Moleskine.) Do you know what kind of pen the King of England uses? (A: Mont Blanc - and he really hates when it leaks.) What kind of cookware did Julia Child use? (She was sponsored by Le Creuset, but she preferred Descoware.) People buy these stories; once they are repeatedly told, they self-perpetuate.

Other times - and this is where the item doesn’t matter - the story is provided by the buyer. These are the best souvenirs possible because they have individual importance that no other person could ever manufacture or create; they are entirely personal. These souvenirs actually remind the owner of a specific memory; the association is not, as with Moleskine and Hemingway, almost entirely derivative.

So what is the best souvenir I got in Bologna?

Charlie and Charlotte wanted to visit Bologna, and, when we shared our itinerary with them, they decided to meet up with us for part of our trip. They are amazing travel companions. Charlotte is perhaps the most cosmopolitan person I have ever met, and would be the ideal friend to bring to anything from a rural Hindu wedding to a palace reception for visiting Scandanavian royalty. Charlie is one of those people who has thoroughly considered virtually everything worth thinking about, especially aesthetics, and he has some extraordinarily strong opinions on topics about which most people would argue do not merit having strong opinions (a quality I both admire and possibly share). Together, I feel like I could meet anyone with Charlotte and watch her charm them, and I could go anywhere with Charlie and learn something new and fascinating about something I never knew existed before.

Over the next few days we went to breakfast, lunch, and dinner with them, and to museums. I introduced them to the guys at Santo Stefano bakery. We got a bus to the monastery outside of town and walked down the longest portico in the world back into Bologna, stopping for coffee and sandwiches, carrying Daniel on my shoulders most of the way. I brought Charlie to my vino sfuso shop and introduced him to the owners, and tasted most of what they had on offer, and paid €5 for the equivalent of two bottles of delicious wine. We visited a pen shop and got a bottle of blood-red ink, which I used for the rest of the trip; Charlie learned about pens, and I spent a long time trying to figure out how I somehow knew more than him about a topic as important as nib width. And we learned about churches, about different kinds of brushes, about the plan of indoor spaces, from lecture halls to libraries to stadia. We flew gliders with the kids, fed ducks and turtles in a pond, ate tons of gelato, and had some of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had.

Then, one day, my friend Cassidy sent me a message. He is a chef in America, has received certain accolades that make me trust his judgment of food, and he knew we were in Bologna. There is a restaurant, he wrote, that is rumored to be the best in Bologna, a city which prides itself on having the best food in Italy; it is on the list for a potential Michelin star. If we could get there, he wrote, we should try it out.

Most of the time, when people say I “should” do something, I intentionally ignore the suggestion, however well-meaning it is. With Cassidy, “should” turns into “hey everyone, change of plans.”

There were no reservations available online, so we walked up to the door about twenty minutes before it opened for lunch to try to get their four first-come, first-served seats available for walk-up customers. We were hoping that our party of four adults and two children could shoehorn ourselves into them - maybe Daniel on a lap and Nick in his buggy. When the door opened, and the woman came outside to see us, we were - surprisingly - the only people waiting. She said that while they have four seats available, they could only accommodate three of us, and, after a bit of discussion, Alice and Charlotte agreed to take Nick to another restaurant and leave Charlie, Daniel and me to have this near-Michelin experience.

We started pulling the high chairs away from the bar counter and then the woman came back; actually, they could seat us at an actual table, and she showed us to it. Charlie and I sat across from each other and Daniel sat at the head in his favorite light blue blazer and shirt. She brought out bread and menus, and we discussed the choices with Daniel, making sure he knew exactly what he was ordering so he wouldn’t be upset later when he didn’t get sausages and roast potatoes. He would be the only child in the restaurant for the hours-long meal, and every time one of the servers walked by, I noticed that they would look at him and smile to themselves; a kid being really cute and engaged, wearing a blazer, and not being glued to a phone seems to charm adults, and I hope he remembers that when he is older. Over the next hour, every table was occupied, a few by individuals working, mostly by couples or groups, with several septuagenarians in pearls or ties. Strangely, too, the vast majority of the people seemed to be from the neighborhood; most of the people who spoke English were people who came in to ask if any of the unreserved seats were available and were graciously turned away.

And the meal was exquisite. Over four courses, with wine for the adults, we talked - and Daniel was happy to be there with us, one of the big boys, asking questions and tasting from our plates. The bill for all three of us came to just over €100 - an absolute bargain. It was the second-best meal we would eat in Italy.

The chocolate cake was apparently excellent.

One day, we went to the Bologna botanic gardens with Cs. It is a different kind of garden than we are used to in Britain: rather than carefully cultivated, like the Kew gardens in London or the Royal Botanics in Edinburgh, it is overgrown, chaotic, and seemingly vacated by any caretakers. We wandered under ancient trees and down neglected dirt pathways and, in a corner near a big, white, delapidated greenhouse, I saw a table with a jar with some plant cuttings in it, a basket with small envelopes, and a sign in English - these are cuttings and seeds from the garden, available for free or for a donation, many thanks. I thought: this is exactly what I didn’t know I really wanted. I had a €10 note, and I thought that the furtherance of knowledge about plants is a worthy cause, so I took five Purple Heart cuttings and two packets of seeds and left the cash in a grey money box. When I showed them my new purchases, Charlie admired the colors of the leaves, and I thought: this is a good sign.

When Charlie and Charlotte left, the cuttings were in a glass full of water on my dresser, starting to root.

We had five cities and nine weeks left in Italy. For the rest of the trip, the last thing I did before leaving an apartment was to carefully put the cuttings in a Nalgene bottle with a little water; the first thing I did when we got to a new apartment was to child-proof it, and the second was to get the clippings in a new glass. Over the course of the trip, they got company - more Purple Heart from Palermo, jade from Mondello, a pencil plant, tradescantia zebrina from the sidewalk in front of a palace, and a strange succulent from Catania that I had never seen before and can’t identify without using AI, which I am, for some reason, reluctant to do. In all, I came back with 18 different cuttings and the two packets of seeds, all in the Nalgene bottle deep inside my luggage. The purple heart from Bologna had long-since grown long, white roots; three of the five original cuttings survived the journey. The first thing I did when I got home was to pull them out and get them not in water but, finally, in soil, where they would quickly outgrow their first container and then, in the winter, settle into their second.

Now, as they all sit on my windowsill, looking just like any other houseplants, I often think of what it took to get them, and to get them back, and that these are good souvenirs, and a small part of me is tempted to message Jessie on LinkedIn to find out what, exactly, the Outer Banks meant to her so long ago.