Hi Folks:
Today, July 7 (the first Saturday in July every year) is International Free Hugs Day!! So hug someone you love today. Or a stranger. Or, preferably, both!! This is our third year of hugging Victoria, so if you’re in Victoria today, drop by the Homecoming Statue (near the Tourism Victoria building, downtown by Ship’s Point) and we’ll be happy to share a hug with you!! Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
It’s now well into the evening and the last of the Canada Day fireworks will be drifting away down at Victoria’s Inner Harbour. The weather here was absolutely perfect for a celebration – sunny and warm but not too hot. As is our wont, Marcia and I brought our ‘Free Hugs‘ posters downtown with us and invested some four hours this afternoon giving out Free Hugs to anyone who was willing to share one! It’s always a delightful experience for us. We hugged someone who was two weeks old, and someone who was celebrating his birthday today – possibly into his nineties. We shared hugs with a couple from Brazil on their first day in Canada, and we hugged a gentleman who knew about two words of English – ‘Thank-you’ and ‘Iran’. There were people from Australia and Ireland and the US, from Alberta and New Brunswick, and yes, people from Victoria! We even had two young women ask us for the loan of a marker and two sheets of paper torn from a notebook – they made their own ‘Free Hugs’ signs before heading on their way. Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
It’s not (yet!) commonly known, but the first Saturday in July every year has been designated ‘International Free Hugs Day‘; that meant it fell on July 2 this year. Not that we ever need an excuse to hug people, but in order to celebrate we took our ‘Free Hugs’ posters down from the shelf and headed downtown. We also brought along a stack of ‘Hug Certificates‘, of course!
For our last ‘Free Hug’ session we were down on the walkway of the inner harbour, but we chose a different location this time: In order to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Canadian Navy last year, a bronze sculpture called ‘The Homecoming‘ was erected at Ship’s Point. The sculpture shows a young girl running into the waiting arms of her father, returned from sea. It was a perfect location for us!
We held our signs aloft and waited, but not for long. Very soon we had a reasonably steady stream of people coming by to hug, be hugged and, in some cases, to have their pictures taken. Several people asked why we were doing this, and we simply told them that it was International Free Hugs Day!! A couple of people wondered if it was a tourism promotion put on by the city; that may be a good idea (‘Hug Me, I’m from Victoria‘ T-shirts? Hmmm…) but no, it’s just something we enjoy doing. We hugged young people and old people and everyone in between. We hugged both locals and visitors to our city, all with gay abandon. We were instructed on how to say ‘a hug’ in Portugese (um abraca, I think), and basically we had a wonderful time! Hugging is good for you (and the person who’s hugging you), doesn’t take a lot of time, is non-fattening, doesn’t cause cavities and contributes to world peace!! Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
Well, the topic for this week’s ‘Being Green’ post is ‘Celebrations’, and there’s a lot to celebrate this weekend. If you live in Canada or are an expat Canadian living elsewhere in the world, Happy Canada Day, +1!
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