Souvenirs (Return Trip to Episode #8)

0:02Welcome to, oh, this is such a special out of office because it is what we call, what Ryan and I call a return trip. Now, what's a return trip? Well, it is when you go back to a place that you've already been. You can seek out all the secret treasures. You can return to old favorites. And, you know, that's how you should think about this particular episode. This is a return trip to a beloved, a famed episode from the archives. And Ryan picked this out all by himself. He got up from his sickbed. I should mention Ryan is sick, which is prompting this return trip. Ryan, unfortunately, the world traveler, as you know, he's been living it up in Europe and America lately.

0:46And he just got back to Mexico and bam, Montezuma's revenge. He's got a stomach bug there. He is laid up, not possible to be near a microphone unless it was to be transported to the bathroom, which is something I have a policy against. So I said to Ryan, what episode in the past do you feel really embodies something that our newer listeners need to know to really understand out of office? And he immediately said, Kiernan, my best friend, Kiernan, there's one episode where your wisdom and thoughtfulness and philosophy just so informed and transformed to the way that I travel. That's the one. And what Ryan chose was our episode about souvenirs.

1:39And I have to say, I have seen the change in Ryan. He now knows the three Ps that are essential to a souvenir. He actually has a tattoo on his inner thigh so that if he's considering buying something to bring home from a trip, he runs it through the three Ps to decide, is it actually a good souvenir? So with that, I'd like to hand this episode over to a young, innocent, much more attractive and bouncy young pair of lads named Ryan and Kiernan of yore to talk about the philosophy of selecting souvenirs. Have a good return trip.

2:35Hi, I'm Ryan Davis. And I'm Kiernan Schmidt. And this is Out of Office, a travel podcast. Hi, Ryan. Hey, Kiernan. How are you? Oh, you're looking very well. I am so well. We both have big smiles on our faces because we've recently been traveling. We have been traveling. You just got back from a really cool-looking trip. Yeah, in Iceland, which. Wow. You were pretty wrong about Game of Thrones. Yeah. Not being taped. Taped? Is that what young people say, that it's taped? I do want to issue a formal retraction. I was wrong. They do film episodes, sections of Game of Thrones in Iceland, and I was wrong.

3:22I think maybe to talk, so a little bit of a preview here. Next episode is going to be about Iceland. I think maybe we should start with you doing a recalculating about how I was right about Game of Thrones. I'll tell you another reason, Ryan, that I got a big smile on my face is because today we were talking about one of my favorite topics. Souvenirs. Love souvenirs. Souvenirs are great. I like searching for them. I like looking at them once I have them. uh you know mementos keepsakes bric-a-brac uh uh trophies tokens uh i think i have i think i've hit them all pins pins patches uh yeah uh cards pitch postcard count as a souvenir absolutely i think if you buy it as an art object it is a souvenir but if you buy it to send it to someone not a souvenir that's what i would say you're giving them a souvenir oh we're jumping way too far into the philosophy part of the conversation first we got to get to everybody's favorite segment which we promise we'll finish at christmas just a couple more weeks folks to use ryan's favorite phrase actually just a couple more weeks folks isn't a bad tagline let's put that in the maybe pile as we endeavor on the quest for a tagline ryan uh this is this your week.

4:45So have you done your work? Yes. So I've been playing around with the idea of a journey. I can see a wall of post-its behind you. I assume each and every one of those. That was a lot of idea generating, but I came up with a few that I think are very good. Okay. Honed original work. Yeah. Original. You know, as much as anything is original. That's true. Everything's been done. So are you ready for this? All right. I'm going to sit back, relax. I'm the client. Get ready to pitch me. All right. So it is Out of Office, a travel podcast, world's... What? God almighty. What is it? I'm just trying to pick a good one because I have so many.

5:33All right. How many? 1 ,786 or whatever. 1 ,076. Okay. Whatever that website pushes it out. Okay. without the same ones every time so and you just love to just pick and choose we're definitely gonna find it this way all right out of office a travel podcast take a journey and smile actually that really applies to me describing the big smiles that we have today yeah we we we traveled we smiled you know and that's because we took a journey and the only thing is a lot of times we're recording you know a trip is four months off eight months off yeah or you know, we've just come back and you know, we're not, we're not very smiley when that's the case.

6:16No, no, both deeply depressed people. Um, so I, you know, to me, unless you pack something in there to take care of the frowns, the, the like 48 weeks of frowning. Yeah. Um, I just don't think it captures the spirit. I don't think we're all smiles. Yeah, no, we're not all smiles, but we do traveling now i don't know this goes now how about this all right out of office a travel podcast take a lifelong journey oh i i like it i like it because it's the journey of life and keeping the journey alive and travel it's pretty good yeah it's not bad what's it stolen from i it doesn't tell me oh it doesn't know we'd have to you know which word was replaced the word journey journey yeah oh you're using the word journey this week fantastic yeah yeah all right what say it one more time take a lifelong journey take a lifelong journey yeah i mean that really it gets to sort of an existential question of if you're perpetually journeying are you ever on a trip but shouldn't you make your life a journey you know shouldn't you shouldn't you approach life certainly feels like a journey the same vigor we approach traveling yeah but the thing is it expand traveling to mean all of life, then what does this podcast really stand for?

7:45I like. It does give us more to talk about. Because. Talk about chores. Your chores are travel. And I don't know. It seems a little too broad. I need something very specific. Something we can own. Something we can put on a t-shirt, on a hat, on a pair of socks. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I think that I've got. You've cracked the nut on this one. Perfect one. I am highly skeptical that that's true, especially because I can see you reading through the list trying to pick some random one that you didn't prepare beforehand. All right, go ahead. All right. Okay. Are you ready for this? All right. You're like those baseball players.

8:25They're like, all right, I'm going to knock the bat on the ground, and then I'm going to hit it on my cleats. Then I'm going to lift it up, then it's going right back down to the ground. You've got to hit those cleats. You've got to dirt that. Maybe dust off the base a little bit. All right, come on. journey, one is not enough. I think I just don't like the word journey, honestly. Yeah, well, it's possible. Because I think, it's what? No, no, I'm with you. I think journey, I mean, first off, I think it evokes the band journey, which is very divisive. It doesn't evoke that to anybody under the age of 55.

8:57Well, we're both in our late 70s. But I also think not every trip is a journey. You know what I mean? So I think, because I think we like to talk about day trips, local hikes, as well as epic journeys. What about the word escape? Like something like we're serious about escape. Honestly, that fit better with the jail episode. A taste for escape. Yeah. A taste for escape sounds like, you know, Sandals Resort, I would say. Pretty good tagline. Sandals does pretty well. He does do pretty well. Have you ever stayed at a scandal? No, have you? No. God, no. I don't like seeing people's feet So I couldn't go to a sandals resort I don't want to eat at a buffet For seven days Which goes along with cruise ships too Also not my bag So again You have failed to produce Anything that's useful Right now we have one in the hopper This seat taken This seat taken is my mom's favorite She texted me out of the blue and she said Is this seat taken Oh Judy I know.

10:06Thank you so much. Yeah. So she's on board with this. And that one came from genuine thought. Yeah. It didn't come from random Googling at Shopify dot please make me a slogan dot org or whatever you use. Yeah. All right. Do you have one more to play us out on? Out of office, a travel podcast. Let the escape begin. i would like that if you if every week we said oral escape okay i still love an oral escape um i let the escape begin i like if you say it like a horse racer so how do you do that out of office a travel podcast let the escape begin that's sort of like a wrestler though right Let's get ready to escape.

10:58I don't. Yeah, that did sound. If our mics hung down from the ceiling, maybe it would be a better fit. But, yeah, I think, boy, we got a lot of work to do for Christmas. We do. We do. Otherwise, this seat taken, your mom will be very happy. She will. Yeah. All right. I think it's time for us to get to the meat of episode, Souvenirs. Let's take off. Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff, please Alright, Ryan Souvenirs We're going to talk about What makes a good souvenir What type of souvenir you and I each like And then maybe a couple of our favorites Some of the highlights from our collections Some of the great souvenirs that we purchased I went deep into the archives Went back into the warehouse And pulled out a couple of my favorites Alright, well I'm excited to hear that I like, my dream would be to have You know in Indiana Jones when they put the Ark of the Covenant back into a box deep in a warehouse in a wooden crate and they just lower it into place?

12:02Yeah. Eventually, I would like to have so many souvenirs that I need one of those. I think that you are well on your way. I am well on my way. So, Ryan, what do you think makes a good souvenir? What do you look for? I look for something that is unique that you cannot get in New York City where I live, right? Oh, that's a very high bar. It is. We get most things in New York City. So often I travel with people and they buy things that are like on Amazon. And I'm like, what's the point? What's the point of that? I mean, I like something that is handmade, locally made. Those are the things. So when I look at it, I actually, oh, I remember this trip that I took.

12:45So something that really is unique. One of my favorite souvenirs that I've ever bought. was in Moscow, and it's a Russian doll, and it's got a picture of George W. Bush and Putin smiling at each other. And then every time that you open it, inside is a smaller American president until you get to the very tiniest. Huh. Who's the tiniest? I don't remember, but I could look. I think we've established James Madison was the shortest president. I don't know that Madison's the kind of figure you look at, you immediately identify him. I mean, Putin's power is long and it goes all the way back to Madison.

13:24All the way back to Madison. He installed Madison. Folks don't know. I can imagine them making a version of that Russian doll now, but just Trump is like a giant outer layer. The amount that they control him is represented in the size of the doll. Yeah, I've thought about having it remade and, you know, and have a bigger Obama. Oh, have an outer layer made. Yeah, put Obama on top and yeah. Why would Obama be in there though? Obama signed the START treaty with Russia. I mean, he was a good, yeah, he had good Russian policy. So I definitely agree with you on the unique factor. I'm always on the lookout.

13:56I mean, I think it's very hard nowadays to know when you're looking around souvenir shops. How do you know these things were actually made nearby? I think many of them are mass produced kind of trinkets. Well, I always look and I always ask. But if you go to like, if you kind of are downtown or you can go to like a market, you can usually find like a local artist bazaar or something and i've gotten into the habit of always buying my mother a piece of jewelry whenever i whenever i travel uh so she's got like earrings from brada slava and she's got like this beautiful um necklace from dubai and like so that's one of the things i'm always looking for uh when i travel and and and you find those often like little art markets or kind of side you know places where there's boy you've been a lot of place it's your mom must have a hell of a collection walking around like uh mrs howell from gilligan's island is decked out in all these international jewels a lot of houston european costume jewelry do you always get your mom you said you always give your mom something right yeah that's sort of my i i buy less souvenirs for myself and more and more stuff for my for my mom i only buy you know one or two things per trip i never come back i have a friend uh who you know know, he just loads up, I mean, literally needs like a second suitcase or backpack just to like carry back all the souvenirs.

15:10I like to get one or two things that really capture the experience for me. Um, I too try to try to do the research of what is there a marketplace or a local artisan where I can actually like talk to the person who's going to create the thing or who has created the thing. Cause then, you know, it's authentic. Right. Um, I have, uh, it will not surprise you a very catchy framework that I use. A framework? A framework I like. It's the Schmidt Souvenir Framework for Excellent Souvenir Buying. Is this an Excel formula? I put the word souvenir in it twice, just so you really know what it is. So what is this framework of yours?

15:48It's the three Ps. Are you ready? Oh, gosh. First P, price. Oh, sure, yeah. Because you're a grifty guy. I'm a frugal Freddy. This is a guy who flies Wow Airlines, okay? Which also, by the way, ties into how heavy this company can be. I don't have a P that goes to the weight, but that's actually... Oh, no, I'm wrong. The second P gets right to the weight. What is the second P? So the first is price. Price. Where, you know, I don't want to spend too much. And by the way, this has led to some regrets that I want to talk about. All right. So the first P is price. The second P, portability. Portability.

16:38So that has to be, do I have room in my suitcase for it? Especially, you know, am I going to have to ship it? I mean, that affects the first P. Shipping it is a no-go for me. I agree. I've never bought anything large enough that I had to ship it. I'm always looking at things and ambitiously in my mind going, I could ship that. And then I realized, no, that would be, I'm just setting myself up for a huge disappointment somewhere along the line. To me, I just know that if I found, you know, a lamp or a carpet or some great houseware, you know, that I would pick out, especially in this market, I would get it home.

17:15Two weeks later, I'd be walking by a pottery barn. They would have, you know, something that was 90 % the same thing for half the price of the shipping and buying. Exactly. So I just feel like, and while I could still take pride that I had bought it internationally, I just, I can't do it. I can't bring myself to do it. And the final P I think gets to your point about authenticity, uniqueness. It is potency. Potency. How potently does this bring back to me the memory of the place? I want to be able to hold it in my hand, to look at it on my shelf, and to know that it's going to bring back all the memories, to transport me, to capture something about that trip that I experienced.

17:57I think that that is the key. That final P, I think, is the most important of your framework. Yeah. Potency. Potency. And so I personally, I, uh, I will usually aim for something that's worthy of a place on my bookshelf, um, or the, you know, probably the, the highest platform you can give it my desk. If you can make it to the desk, Ooh, baby, is that a good souvenir? So, uh, you know, potency, I also think post potency can come through as utility. So is it useful? I find if I can buy something that I'm actually going to use in daily life that is somewhat unique, I will appreciate that. I consider that to be a potent souvenir.

18:40Well, if you're traveling to Amsterdam, potency has an entirely different meaning, right? I don't know. I don't get that. I don't understand that. It could be a very potent souvenir that you probably shouldn't fly with. So looking around, do you have any souvenirs that you would particularly say fit those three Ps, price, portability, potency? Yeah, I think that the Russian doll, I think, is a great example of a souvenir that I'm super happy with and I've had now since my 2007 trip to Russia. Do you have it on display? I do. It's on my living room bookshelf. And people play with it at parties.

19:14They'll see it, and it's very strange to have a... Oh, I would say, back away. Vladimir Putin. That is not what it's for. No, but I do like to show it off because I think it's only gotten funnier as... I mean, that's funnier broadly defined. Yeah, yeah. Funny in the moment, but not in the bigger level. Exactly. Do you have it with all the different layers out next to it, or do you keep it all together? I keep it all together because I really like the picture of Bush and Putin on it. And you know me, I've already got a bunch of presidents on the same shelf. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, at some point, too many presidents on the shelf there.

19:51And do you have anything, any others out on display like that? On this shelf I do, I have a pipe that I bought at the Pyramids of Mexico City. Like a smoking pipe? Like a puff pipe, yeah. It's got a little face of like a, I don't know how to describe it, but it's like a kind of face that you would see carved in a pyramid perhaps. And as a pipe, it has no utility. Have you ever used it? I have tried. I've tried to use it. Well, maybe you can weave a tube through and just vape through it. You can make it into an ancient Aztec vapor I think they actually sold those next to the actual pipes Where did you get this pipe?

20:34At the pyramids in Mexico City And do you think this fits the authenticity? That sounds to me like mass market It is absolutely not authentic No, no, no Because I will say So this moves me on to something I think about Which is kitschy Is it kitschy? Is there value to kitschiness? Does kitschiness mean that I shouldn't buy it? Yeah, I mean, if you're buying folk art or from a local artisan, the kitsch factor can be pretty high. And you're going to have to sort of - Oh, see, now, do you think so? Because I don't think of that as kitsch. I think of local art as authentic. Kitsch, I think of as, yeah, maybe it's like, you know, an Eiffel Tower key chain.

21:14You know, I know that it's mass produced. That's high kitsch, yeah, yeah. Well, actually, if you're using the pipe correctly, that might be high kitsch. No, I do think that, you know, when you go to, like, folk art and you're looking at local artisans, there's a dividing line between people who make things that they know will sell to tourists. So, like, you know, the guys in Midtown Manhattan who are, you know, spray painting, you know, 9-11 memorials, right? Like, those are kitschy, even though they're sort of local artists. They're garish, and they're playing into exactly what you're expecting to get at that place.

21:49Right, so you've got to look for the artisans that are like not deliberately going for the tourist dollar, or at least not as like overtly sort of like, you know, painting things that are specifically like out of the tour guidebooks. Yeah, I mean, for me, I try not to kind of junk up the house with too much kitschy stuff. Right. But I do have a weakness for certain kitschy objects. So I'll tell you, one of my favorite souvenirs that I have, and I had to search long and hard for it, was I was in Bhutan, which is a Buddhist country, and I was walking down the street and I saw in a car, they had on the dashboard, a miniature Buddhist prayer wheel.

22:34So if you know, when you, when you visit a Buddhist temple, there's often these large cylinders outside. And the idea is, is as you walk around it and you're contemplating and praying, you spin these wheels and the wheels have prayers on them. And the idea is each time you spin it, the prayer is being said. And this one was solar powered. So on the dashboard, it would naturally spin all day long. And I, you know, I like the idea of covering all my religious bases. And just having the prayers going 24 seven. Exactly. Exactly. So I thought, well, I get, it depends on daylight, really. Maybe it's like, yeah, keep a light on.

23:09Right. You keep a light on. Sure. And so I looked long and hard and I found, and it's very kitschy. It's like bright golden plastic, but I love putting it on the sill by the window and just having the Buddha get those prayers and thoughts each and every day. That's nice. Of course, for all I know, it probably says, you know, I'm a hack tourist who bought this. Please disregard all this noise. Now, did the Buddha have a solar powered one of these, you think? Or that doesn't seem authentic to me. As far as I know, the inner light was enough for him. Right, right. Whereas for me. Touche. That's good.

23:42All I know is that when I look inside, not much there. So I'm trying to capitalize on the outer light. That's really where I think I can get ahead. When you say that, it might say that you're a dumb tourist. I bought my mom. Actually, I said a hack tourist, but thanks for throwing that in. When I was in Dubai, I went to the Gold Suk, which is in old Dubai. You have to take a little boat across, and it's sort of the only part of the city that hasn't been massively overbuilt. overbuilt, you know, consumer capital of the world. And so it's a, it's a, a basically a little street for a bunch of gold merchants.

24:18And I went in and I was, it was early in my trip. I was there for seven days. So it was early in my trip and I wanted to get my mom a piece of jewelry. And so I got them to put the name, uh, Judy in Arabic and make it in this beautiful sort of white gold setting. Uh, and I have confirmed since I've gotten back that it does actually say Judy. Oh, all right. But for the longest time, I'm like, this could pretty much say anything. Yeah, an asshole's mother. Yeah, my mom's wearing this all around town on Eastern Shore Maryland, and it says something horrible in Arabic, you know, nobody would know.

24:50Actually, wearing that around Eastern Shore Maryland is dangerous, even if it says Judy. Exactly, exactly. But we did get it confirmed. Yeah, that's good. Who did you confirm it with out of interest? My mom had a friend who, believe it or not, spoke Arabic on Eastern Shore Maryland and did confirm that that was the name Jude. I mean, I will say that that is a little kitschy to me, but I've seen the Arabic writing, and those are beautiful, and I understand why Westerners are interested in trying to get something that reflects the artistry of the lettering. Yeah, I think that it might be a little kitschy, but because it was made locally, because it was there, it was a little gold shop.

25:27It wasn't like at the Mega Mall. It felt authentic. Yeah, it could have been at the— It's actually the souk outpost of the Mega Mall. I'm sure they made it. I'm sure they just put a quarter in some machine somewhere and it like made it. Yeah. How about edible? Do you go for edible souvenirs when you're traveling? I do not fly with food home. I don't think I've ever done that. I guess when we were in Russia, we brought home vodka and we brought home caviar. So you checked vodka? Yeah, checked vodka. I really won't do liquids because I'm terrified of them exploding all over my bag. Well, it doesn't seem worth it.

26:11Like, even when I'm in Mexico, there's great tequila, there's some good wine. But, you know, I can get all that in New York at one of my lovely independent liquor stores here. So it's like, why am I flying? Now, Ryan, do you have any, like, souvenirs that got away? ones that you know you had in your hand or you saw behind the glass you thought i need that but then and then a pocket got it that's that's the last episode how many times are we going to talk about pickpock yeah or or sure or or somebody took it away but is there anything a souvenir that you didn't bring home that you still think about to this day absolutely not no i'm a i'm a person who when i want something i i try to get it I mean, the reason I asked this because I have one that I still, it haunts me.

27:03I still think about it. And it's, um, when I was in Peru last June, uh, Catherine and I spent some time in the rainforest and we saw the largest rodent on earth, which is called a capybara. Okay. You can't bring that home with you. My top choice would have been a taxidermied capybara, but instead there was, in this shop, this beautifully sculpted wooden model of a capybara. And I wanted it so much, I could see it on my shelf. I have just the space for it. And I looked at it and it was$70. And I just didn't know whether it was worth$70. And so I put it back. I said, I don't need it. Walked away.

27:48And I've regretted it ever since. Turned out I needed it. And so I reached back out to the store, which reached back out to the sculptor. And I got in touch with them and they said with shipping and packaging and getting you a new one, it would be$250. You should have bought like 10 of them and brought them back here. I know. Flipped them for 200 bucks each. It was a huge, it's a huge, huge mistake. I posted to Facebook, is there anyone I know in Lima that can just go over to the store to get it for me? And as it, as it turns out, I know no one in Lima. No one. No one. And I think you even responded to the post and said, I'll go if you need me to.

28:29Well, next time I'm in Lima, I will pick you up a carved... Capybara. Capybara. Capybara. Capybara. Capybara. Chesser. God, it's just callback central. So anyway, it was the expense. And I do struggle with, I try not to buy sort of overly expensive. Though for the right thing I've now learned from the Capybara incident The great Capybara disaster of 2017 You know, sometimes you can loosen those purse strings Yeah, so I bought an expensive rug Was it more expensive than$70? It was more expensive than$70 Wowee So I don't know if you've been to Istanbul, Kieran No, I haven't Well, there were some pretty aggressive sales folks there Okay and I was with my friend Eugene and we were walking down the street and this guy pulls us into his carpet shop.

29:26And it's beautiful. There are carpets everywhere. And he sits us down and somebody who works there brings us some tea and he starts talking about New York and how much he loves America. He starts throwing these rugs down on the floor and showing me each one. You are getting the razzle dazzle. I'm getting the razzle dazzle. And they throw them and they make this great noise and it's like there's so many people running around. Sort of a kerthump? Yeah, a great kerthump. Kerthump? Very satisfying. I wanted to get up and throw them down myself. They sound thick and luscious. They were. And so I was not really in the market for this kind of product, this sort of rug.

30:04And I was like, well, I haven't got my mom anything yet and it would be nice, so how much is it? And the guy's like, he tells me the price. And let me tell you, it was a little more than I was. A little north of what you were expecting. North of$70, you know? And I was like, whoa, how do I get out of here? And really, there's just no way to get, because he's laid the carpets all around me. So I'm pretty much like, I'm basically surrounded by three foot of carpet. You're ensconced in carpet. Yeah, I can't move. You know, I'm holding this tea. He's basically making you pay to escape bounds of carpet.