In second grade here the kids study pets. And twice my kids have been given one of them. The first was a hermit crab, that my friend graciously added to her collection when we left on vacation. The second was an anole that ate live crickets! That was an adventure! This one we gave to the pet store before we left on vacation. Thank goodness for vacations (except it doesn’t work for our dog. Just an expensive kennel and we have to take her back when we get home).

My favorite souvenir is probably my olive oil decanter from Spain. We went to a glass blowing factory and I bought one of the gracefully shaped decanters with a cool old cork in the top. I managed to carry it home on the plane without breaking it. (My other favorite was from the same trip, a pottery bowl from Germany, but my son broke that years ago).

Pieces of the world in a bowl is so poetic. We should all do that!

I have to admit, I’m not very good at souvenirs. I tend to feel like they are clutter after a few years. But I feel guilty tossing them, so then they just sort of float around my own crabitat for a while…

To be honest, I thought they would just die….. to my dismay, they have proven to be heartier than I imagined. Even after moving them to the garage (they are LOUD) and then being totally forgotten about by their 8 year old owner, they hung on. They were recently re discovered and fed/watered. The little stinkers are unkillable.

There is a reason that we are not a pet family. They don’t do well at our house. Good luck with your hermit crabs. I hope they are as hearty as ours.

One of my favorites is a multicolored glass clock from Venice. It was kind of like Dalene’s story. I went back to the store several times trying to talk myself out of it and just before I had to run back to catch our ferry, I bought it. I love it because I can picture the store and the rainy, grey day I got to spend in Venice.

I bought my very favorite apron as a souvenir. It’s too cute, and I’m afraid to get it dirty. I still love it, though.

I love charm bracelets. My friend has two (she had to start a second) with beautiful charms from so many places. And they make such a fun sound!

One of the tourist regrets I still have was a lovely enamel bookmark. My continued pining for it inspired me to start a bookmark collection; they are easy to store, cheap, and can be found almost anywhere. So far I have…um…two. But I’m hoping to add many more exotic (can bookmarks be exotic?) ones in the future.

The other thing I like to do is press leaves and flowers from various places. My journal is full of them.

If you are ever in O. Macey’s or L. WalMart around 8:15 in the morning, you may occasionally see a six foot woman pushing a baby in the cart, trying to hide really bad bed head with a groovy shell strewn hat.

@ Emily: pictures are the best. Love, love them.

@ Jennie: you were smart to read about crabs before buying. Good luck with Frog II.

@ Dalene: good for you for buying the doll! I have a few tourist regrets of my own, sniff.

My other favorite souvenirs are in a little dish in my living room–scraps from all over the globe, some of which were given to me: an acorn from the grounds of Harvard, a piece of the Berlin wall, a bus ticket from Israel, sea shells from various beaches. I love having bits of the world in a bowl.

But in my heart of tourist hearts I knew that if I had one regret when I went home to the states it would be that I hadn’t bought her (assuming I didn’t). So I did. I went back the fourth time and haggled the price a bit and brought her home to Provo. She’s lovely and I don’t regret having indulged that one time in what for me was an extravagant purchase.

Second? My bright blue Marimekko mouse pad (here’s a photo of the red one, doesn’t that just make you happy?! http://www.finnstyle.com/mamopad.html).