Birthday Quilt

I got several awesome presents for my 30th birthday (which yes, was at the end of August and which I conveniently glossed over in my blog absence and subsequent travel posts), but none more awesome than this quilt, which my mom had made for me from a selection of the obscure travel t-shirts I’ve amassed over the past decade.

I mean, a comfy blanket is already a great gift to begin with, right? But a comfy blanket that allows you to relive crazy travel memories from places like Lebanon, Cambodia, Armenia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Palestine, Singapore, and Ethiopia - memories that would otherwise be balled up deep within the darkest reaches of your closet? As far as I’m concerned, that’s the best present.

(Although its inclusion in the quilt did end my longstanding contrarian desire to go to New York and parade around the Upper West Side in my Palestine t-shirt.)

I have to say, I never expected Saudi to be such a sartorial gold mine… in addition to the prominent “I <3 Saudi Arabia” (Ed. Note: I don’t) tee above, there’s also this gem, “My Kingdom is So Awesome.”

(Get it? KSA = Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.)

And who wouldn’t love this depiction of a Saudi woman “fighting the morning blues!”

(Which yes, is pretty much what I looked like every morning of the almost-year I spent working in Riyadh.)

Only one race shirt made the cut - Arabic words of encouragement from when I ran the Beirut Marathon in 2008.

And of course, a nod to the early days of my relationship with Alex, which started - as all great love affairs do? - with a weekend trip to Armenia and this purchase at the Yerevan airport.