Travel Wall
So as you might have figured out from skimming over the blog, Mary and I love to travel. And while traveling we like to sightsee, check out the museums, go to concerts and plays, and eat. Boy, do we like to eat. One of the things, though, that we don't much care for is shopping. We've just never been all that interested in buying souvenirs, knick knacks, or velvet paintings of Elvis, no matter how cool they look under the blacklight. We also don't consider travel a primary means of finding bargains on local products. I suppose one could get a really fine deal on something like coconut shell bikini tops in the South Seas, but really, how many times a year are you really going to be in a position to wear something like that? Once, maybe twice tops.
When there is something we like, we find it's easier and often cheaper to buy it online. And buying online cuts down on the chance of getting fake or overpriced goods. Unless one is using eBay that is.
Along with shopping, another common tourist activity I haven't quite got the hang of is tourist photography. I've just never seen the point in taking a poorly framed and usually out-of-focus picture of yet another cathedral that a year later I will not be able to identify. Once in a while we'll get someone to take a picture of us in front of some historical landmark so later on we can point to it and say, 'see, we've been there!'
It also helps to establish an alibi when the British Crown Jewels go missing. We can pull out the pictures and establish that we couldn't have been involved with any jewelry heist, as we were all the way over on the other side of London at the time admiring the Old Operating Theatre Museum (because who doesn't want to spend an afternoon checking out the grim surgical implements from a time before anesthesia?) Sure, you laugh and think, how often does something like that happen? But it only takes once and then you're finding out what happens to those who displease the British Royal Family. <shudder>
Anyway, so where is this all leading? Why, to something I like to call the Travel Wall (patent pending).
The Travel Wall is our link to our travels. The concept is simple, really, because I myself am pretty simple. Rather than buying souvenirs or taking pictures of every place we go, we search for local artists that are selling scenic photos or watercolors of the place in question. We buy one piece of art for each major location we visit and when we get home we frame them and place them on the Travel Wall.
Like so:
It actually is a pretty elegant method (or at least I like to think so) of keeping something from each place we go, while not cluttering up the house with a bunch of knick knacks that we don't care much about. Now at every major destination we visit, we make time to go and check out the local art galleries or street markets where the itinerant artists hang, and we get us some Art.
There are also a few benefits to our current practice. Packing or shipping home prints or paintings is a lot easier and cheaper than say, a 175 pound mahogany water buffalo carving. And our total outlay has never exceeded $70 for even an original watercolor. That's more money available for sampling the local comestibles. Finally, since it's in the main hallway in the house, visitors are always stopping and making the mistake of asking where such an interesting picture was from, that frequently evolves into a several hour long explication that has the added benefit of either making said visitor sorry he or she ever asked, or in special cases results in a sooner than expected departure.
