Collecting #3: miscellaneous travel paraphernalia (or, the equivalent of the bottom drawer, the back of the cupboard, or the shoebox under the bed)

My last ‘filing drawer’ (a re-sealable plastic bag in the inside pocket of the Samsonite, I remind you) contains all those little bits and pieces of travel paraphernalia that are not so easily categorized. There are concert tickets stubs from shows we loved: Marisa Monte in Buenos Aires, The Strokes in Amsterdam, Death Cab for Cutie in Brussels…, opera tickets from memorable nights (Prague, Budapest, and Milan), tickets from museums or art exhibitions that impressed or inspired us (only from the most outstanding), and restaurant receipts and business cards (from the most enjoyable and most memorable meals; the rest are stapled in our research notebooks). Why do I treasure them so much? Because like the flight ticket stubs and hotel room keys, they serve as reminders of our most special experiences, because our memories are faulty no matter how good we think they can be, and because together these little bits and pieces comprise a bigger story. To me, they’re worth the excess luggage fees.

Collecting #2: hotel room keys

An accidental collection of hotel room keys has come about simply through forgetful-ness. It would be tricky to inadvertently tuck away a heavy thing on a key ring with a big brass room number. But the increasingly popular plastic swipe cards are so easy to forget, whether in the back of a trouser pocket with the credit cards and currency, or lost somewhere inside a big shoulder bag amongst the guidebooks, notebooks, and PowerBook. Especially the ones that are stylishly designed or have sentimental value. Especially as the reception staff never seem to want the swipe cards back. So it’s a collection that has come about somewhat haphazardly, a card here or two (or three) thrown together in the bag, another found amongst the reams of paperwork we reluctantly collect: hotel bills, restaurant receipts, supermarket dockets. And – because the collection has involuntarily and inevitably formed, however haphazardly – one is reluctantly retrieved from a garbage bin. It’s another little piece that goes some way in making up the bigger puzzle after all. And one day I'm probably going to want to figure it all out. To find out why we have really done what we are doing. And then – because this is how it happens - I find myself saying: “Um... honey... don’t throw your room key out…”

Collecting #1: ticket stubs

In a hotel room in Heraklion the other evening, I flung my Samsonite bag open wide to retrieve a corkscrew from a handy plastic zip-up pocket inside. We’d had a long day of travel, the weather was terrible, and my husband and I needed a glass of red wine. Although we’ve been travelling around the world together like this, from one assignment direct to another, for over two years, it was the first time Terry had noticed this little ‘filing cabinet’ of mine. “That’s like one of those folders or credenzas,” he pointed out. And it is. Only I store my precious little collections in plastic re-sealable sandwich bags instead of paper sleeves. So, what do I collect then and why? Well, my most valuable collection consists of our travel ticket stubs – whether it’s by plane, train, bus, or boat, I secret each of the little paper slips away. One day I hope we write that book we keep postponing about our two years (or so) on the road, and those tiny ticket stubs will serve as chapter-starters to our story. But they’re just as much a record and reminder of the trip itself – the date and time travelled and destination journeyed to – as they are a little piece in the big puzzle that is our travelling life. So who else out there keeps their ticket stubs?