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Wanted to share with you the three amazing purchases of my trip:
(After this, I’ll shut up about the fucking Afghan painting, I swear.)

I’ve categorised them in order of Schleppage, ie: was the purchase worth the carthouse-effect it had on my suitcases? Could it even fit into my suitcase? Did it double up as a suitcase?

In third place. Crawling in with a healthy dollop of post-purchase dissonance.
A few factors have prevented this being Number 1.

1) It’s not as cool as Number 1 or Number 2.
2) It has a shape of footprint on it after a particularly clammy armpit-in-face journey.
3) I saw one like it in Camden and I’ve been hauling this thing around like a truckload of rye buns since the first day in Istanbul.
4) The office started to freak out, saying the eyes were following them from its perch on the whiteboard. So putting it in the WC may frighten hot European guests away.
5) Also, because of its intense ‘Get me the hell out of Kabul’ gaze, I’m starting to see it like I see clowns: pure terrification.
6) Ultimate consumer model of a marketer’s dream, that people like me adhere to at, say, tourist traps outside the Blue Mosque. I always do this and it’s embarrassing.

However, because it’s also helluva twee, and she’s just so beautiful, I fucking love it anyway. It survived a trip, where air hostesses hated me and had to put it in a special cupboard, passengers on tubes called me a cunt, and my hosts for the weekend thought I was a window licker.
I think after all that I adore my picture.

Second place.
1) It’s Number 2 because my old one died on the trip. So the reason is more ‘needed appliance’ than ornamental.
2) It retails for the same price as a ticket to Cape Town. Shit’s crazy but that’s too crazy. It’s a fucken hair straightener for crying out loud. But there’s a quality reason behind this, and the packaging is definitely a part of it.
3) It’s crazy pink. Immediate lust.
4) I bought it in Heathrow’s Duty Free so was cheaper than any I’ve seen for a while. (£110. Is that cheap? I heard they go for about R2500 in South Africa)
5) It came with three free lip-glosses (I work in marketing and yet I fall for my own promotional talk)
6) It’s a ghd. And my old one wreaked havoc with my hair, and then just died. This one really is the shizzbomb, if what every girl on the planet says is true.

I have a bright pink sozzly ghd! And three lipglosses! So pretty, I might display it by dangling it around the Afghan painting and label it ‘Contemporary Art.’

First place.

Almost a tie with Number 2, except 2 is genuine and this bad boy is a fake.
But it’s the best fake I’ve ever seen. I checked out the real guy on the website and I’m telling you, mine looks better. It also didn’t cost between £500 and £700.

Baby, it’s a bright, spunky blue Miu Miu.
One of my new friends in Istanbul had been to the shop before, at the Grand Bazaar. They said leather was good in Turkey, but I’d bought enough of that in Argentina, so wasn’t looking.
But she knew this tiny little stall and wanted to get a bag for her sister. Hers was amazing – exactly like mine, but creamy and brown. Basically love-of-your-life sort of stuff.

I bargained the guy until I was the same colour as the bag in the face and he was having a hissy fit by the end of it (‘Good luck God with you. He has big job.’ No kidding.)

Just a ballache walking around with two handbags. Everyday. Again, not a practical shopper. Hence the piano, the painting, the electric tutu, the I Love [Insert Destination Here] shirts. I have a collection of those. And wear them.

But, I, at the very least, am rather content with my purchases.