Contributed by Diane Baglin of Mooroopna
IN 1988, my sister and I set out on a European adventure with Contiki. After a 30-hour flight we made it to Heathrow, where we were taken to our motel to begin our travels.
Part of our itinerary, while in Italy, was to attend a leathermaking demonstration and learn the difference between ‘real’ leather and imitation leather. While there, we couldn’t resist ordering a tailor-made jacket for ourselves.
Afterwards, we had free time to shop at our leisure. My sister and I meandered our way through the streets of Italy where we found a handbag shop. Armed with the knowledge we had learned about ‘true’ leather and imitation leather; we both came out with matching handbags. Mine was copper colour, and my sister’s a black handbag.
We were walking back to meet our coach when stopped at the lights, it began raining. We sat put our ‘new’ handbags down – but kept hold of the shoulder strap. The lights turned green, and we went to walk when the bottom of our handbags had rotted away!
Everything was now in the gutter and embarrassed as we were, we gathered all our things (and ourselves) and thought how smart we were. We had been conned; they were made of cardboard!
