Paris

Collecting Postcards

/ Julie M. McKinnon / Leave a comment
I've long loved Victorian postcards, especially those from Halloween and Christmas.

I’ve long loved Victorian postcards, especially those from Halloween, Easter and Christmas.

I’ll never forget how excited I was going through the postcards my Mom had picked up at a garage sale. They were stored in one of those gold plastic hospital wash basins, and they told stories of people visiting far-flung places or sending loved ones touching greetings. I was 10 at most, and I enjoyed reading the handwritten notes on the back of the postcards as much as admiring the photos or illustrations on the front.

That wash basin was the start of my first real collection, one I have expanded on in the decades since. Mom and Dad often went to auctions, antique stores and junk shops, so they liked that I had something to look for and buy with my allowance. Even today, all but the rarest postcards are fairly cheap.

Victorian holiday postcards, especially for Christmas, Easter and Halloween, have always been among my favorites. I also liked postcards from where I grew up and other places where I have lived:

Linen postcard with Our Lady of Consolation statue from my hometown of Carey, Ohio.

Linen postcard with Our Lady of Consolation statue from my hometown of Carey, Ohio.

Relatives and friends have helped me add to my postcard collection through the years. My oldest sibling, Carol, goes way out of her way to try and make sure I have postcards from every country she visits on vacation, and she has also picked up vintage postcards for me. This historic postcard was in a shoe box with cards Carol bought at a garage sale:

Jack Dempsey Knocks Out Jess Willard: Postcard commemorating the "Champion of the World" fight held in Toledo on July 4, 1919.

Jack Dempsey Knocks Out Jess Willard: Postcard commemorating the “Champion of the World” fight held in Toledo on July 4, 1919.

Antique or vintage postcards are favored souvenirs when I travel. Poking through dusty antique shops and markets beats souvenir shops any day, although I do buy and send my share of new postcards. I’ve found fantastic old postcards at postage stamp markets in Madrid and Paris, including this one:

I picked up this Eiffel Tower postcard at a postage stamp market in Paris.

I picked up this Eiffel Tower postcard at a postage stamp market in Paris.

At first I felt guilty about reading people’s notes on postcards, but I quickly got over that. Nosiness prevailed because postcards contain real stories in a very appealing package.

Pack a Bath Mat

/ Julie M. McKinnon / Leave a comment

Soap

The sudden force of falling onto the side of the hotel bathtub in Paris literally took my breath away – and cracked three ribs, one in multiple places.

I laugh about it now, but the fall nearly two years ago still makes me leery of hotel showers. I took bird baths for five days on a stop in Stuttgart last year because my room had a shower that was a mirror image of the one in Paris. I dubbed it the “death trap.”

All I was doing on my fourth day in Paris was reaching out of the shower for a bar of soap I left on the sink. It happened so quickly, but I must have slid on shampoo suds. After running my fingers over my side several times to make sure nothing seemed out of line – and somehow managing to get out of the tub – I did a quick search on my smartphone for advice from well-known healthcare organizations.

Turns out, there isn’t much to be done. Medication can help control pain while breathing, but doctors don’t wrap cracked ribs anymore. They do warn that it’s possible for a fractured rib to puncture a lung.

That last bit caused me to spend days taking deep breaths around the Louvre, Versailles, Montmartre and other sites to check if I still could. Wine therapy wasn’t enough to dull the pain the first day, so the next morning I went to a pharmacy for help. I waited until I was home to see a doctor and get X-rays, but I figured out where the nearest hospital to my hotel was just in case.

So, I offer this travel advice:

  • Pack a bath mat. I’m looking for a thin one for my next trip to Italy even though I only take a backpack on trips.
  • Take a smartphone and charger. Make arrangements with your cellphone carrier to have an international data plan while traveling abroad.
  • Install a translator app for foreign travel. It will help explain what happened to a pharmacist or physician, as well as come in handy on other occasions.
  • Carry your health insurance card. If you’re really anxious, call your insurer’s customer service to find out what to do if you are injured in the area where you plan to travel.
  • Make sure you have everything you need in the shower before turning on the water. Enough said.