Ideas for small gifts to take along?

[Meredith1]

Hi, all -

Exactly a week from today - to the minute, in fact - my plane will depart for the first leg of my Camino, and I will arrive in Madrid Sept. 4. I need ideas now for some (very) small, lightweight items I can take as gifts for those times when I know I'll feel especially thankful for someone's help. In another post somewhere, one person suggested postcards with scenes from my state, so I have some of those.

Can anyone suggest anything else? Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 3000]

I took a roll of the golden U.S. dollar coins, and made friends a lot of places! I had the Sakajawea, but there are Presidential series as well.

I got free stuff at Manjarin and the Cowboy Bar. Three children with family groups now have shiny gold coins back in France and the Netherlands (no metal value, however). I got a beer for free at San Xulian. Albergues all along The Way have added the Gold Dollar to their wall collections! Since the $1 coin has never caught on in the U.S., you never find them here. But you can find them in Spain!

 

[JohnnieWalker]

I think that is a really nice idea and I have encountered pilgrims who had supplies of postcards, rosary rings and little rocks they had collected on the way and decorated as they went along. Some people keep it really simple and print labels with their contact details so that they can exchange with people they want to keep in touch with.

Buen camino

John

 

[annakappa]

We have taken pins, bookmarks and frig magnets ( naturally all with something mentioning Costa Rica) Anne

 

[Lydia Gillen]

I have brought small Irish linen handkerchiefs with lace edge and shamrocks embroidered in green in one corner. Very light and easy to carry in individual cellophane bags.

 

[LTfit]

Indeed a very lovely idea although I have not (as yet) done the like. Have been given a bracelet on 2 occasions which was very touching. Up to now have only jotted down name and e-mail addresses in my journal.

 

[tyrrek]

Kids might like one of these pin badges from your local football/baseball team or similar.

Buen Camino!

 

[Meredith1]

What neat ideas, everyone - thanks for all the suggestions.

 

[FrancesK]

Whilst i was hiking a met a fellow aussie who gave me a little koala bear which i could attach to my backpack. I loved it so much! Something that represents where you come from is a great idea

 

[Alan Pearce]

I always take along some lapel badges in the shapes of kangaroos, boomerangs and platypus which are so light to carry and are well received by the Spanish or by fellow peregrinos [don't anyone write in and say that the plural of platypus is platypi - I have just googled it and the singular/plural is platypus].

Alan

Be brave. Life is joyous.

 

[soch]

I have brought small Irish linen handkerchiefs with lace edge and shamrocks embroidered in green in one corner. Very light and easy to carry in individual cellophane bags.

Am much taken by Lydia Gillen’s elegant camino-gift idea of Irish linen handkerchiefs. Could her inspiration be some half-forgotten memory of school-girl lessons from Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales, whose ‘Wife of Bath’ was thus described__

And kerchiefs, of the finest texture found,
(Set on their frames they must have weighed ten pound)
She proudly wore each Sunday, on her head.
Her stockings were coloured bright scarlet red
This fifteenth century femme-fatale was notoriously multi-married, and of course-famously pilgrimage-addicted, ( was there a connection ?), including our own Compostela.__

She had been to Jerusalem three times,
Had crossed many a stream by foreign shrines.
She had been to Boulogne and also Rome,
St. James' at Galicia and Cologne.
Drop in at the website__ http://www.bremesoftware.com/Chaucer/index.htm
for helpful parallel-texts of the modern and original versions.

soch