Saturday, August 29, 2009

Q: If you are American and are traveling to Europe, what gifts to you take to the lovely friends who are hosting you?

Dear Readers,

We have a dilemma. We are trying to think of gifts to take to our friends who will be hosting us in Europe, but clearly, nearly anything European is superior to anything American. We thought of taking chocolates, but the finest chocolates found in America are European. Does it really make sense to take chocolate back to its motherland, by which point it's quadruped in price? I've heard that our rubbery American chocolate does better as pencil erasers in Europe than as an edible, so that is also out of the running. (Notably, they also make superior pencil erasers).

Or then we considered the default option of taking something "Tar-heel"ish, to spread the UNC pride. But the concept of college sports is rather a foreign one in Europe, and only serves as a reminder of American football and basketball, which are far inferior to soccer, as far as sports are concerned. Clearly, we are losing this battle.

Help?

6 comments:

Kim said...

You could go wander around A Southern Season and find something North Carolinaish and not necessarily Tar-Heelish. Plus you would get to wander around A Southern Season.

Andrew and Lauren said...

I heart New York t-shirts? A Book of Mormon? A framed artistic picture of Chapel Hill or one of your cool drawings? A pineapple? These were my first thoughts.

TALYA said...

How about something local like jams or nuts? Those travel well. Otherwise, you can just make it a point to take them out for dinner while you stay with them and pick up some fresh flowers for their home. I often do that....

Anonymous said...

Food is always good. ie: specialty chocolates, jams, or peanut butter's a good one...

Anonymous said...

or what about specialty candies? Don't they have something like that there?

Anonymous said...

riiiiight...just read the ENTIRE post, so 4get the chocolate recommendation ;)