Man it was HARD getting back to work!! (I realize that the amount of sympathy I will get is minimal, perhaps microscopic, but I'm still complaining to anyone who listens.) I really have to win that lottery...
So here's 1 of my wrap-up/summary entries - the bags I brought back with me (plastic and otherwise) - I know my dear friend Mitchell is shaking his head about the bag lady implications of collecting them, never mind writing about them, but for me it's fun to keep them for a while and when I do re-use them, to get a little memory flash of where I first got this one or that one.
The first one will be no surprise to anyone who's been in Southeast Asia lately - it's from 7-11 in Bangkok (there must be a 7-11 every 25 meters or so).
Then I have a couple of little paper shopping bags from Vietnam - one from our hotel in Hoi An and the other one from our favorite Saigon department store, Dong Hai.
From Singapore I have a yellow plastic bag with lions all over it - from Kuala Lumpur a bag from the Cold Storage supermarket.
From Dubai airport I have a big sturdy bag from duty free that advertises Pine cigarettes.
Somehow I got out of Turkey without a bag!
From Spain I have one from El Corte Ingles in Barcelona, and 1 from the Sanctuari de Lluc (beautiful Mallorcan monastery which of course has a gift shop) and 1 from Eroski (a supermarket in Mallorca).
From the UK I have one from W.H. Smith and a little one from Harrod's and one fromn St. Martin in the Fields that says 'Shop in the Crypt'.
From Frankfurt airport I have one from WorldShop inflight shopping (they must have given it to me at the F lounge) that says Eine Welt voller Ideen! (A world full of ideas!)
From Sao Paulo a very small one from a pharmacy and a few from Master Supermercados.
From NYC one that's a combo of plastic but in a paper shopping bag form from Eli's (which I think is an offshoot of Zabar's) and a not very special one from a store at JFK where I broke down and bought an EXTREMELY cool Pan Am flight bag - the zippers (including the one for the little pocket inside) all have tabs with the PA globe symbol - a blast from the past (and I will think even more often of my friend Liz, former PA white glove service queen, who left us much too young 5 years ago).
