It was a blast!! After a little over 3 hours I lost count of how many hugs I got, but it was well in excess of 60. There were some pretty funny responses we heard to the offer of "Free Hugs"... such as, my wife would kill me, I'm too old, I don't like hugs, what do you really want?.... and then things like - are you getting married, is this some sort of experiment, why would you give out hugs.... but the most common response was - can we get a picture??? What was so cute though was the number of guys who would walk by and look and shake their heads, while slightly blushing, and keep looking back, while walking away - and then on their way back through the square they'd stop for a hug. It was quite funny how many people had to be dared by their friends to get a hug - and then the rest of their group would get hugs too. It was great - everyone hugged us - the elderly, children, the handicapped, Down Syndrome, and everyone else too!
Things I discovered - the Italians, while I may have posted before about the obnoxious volume level and how they're swarming Prague right now, are by far the friendliest and the most willing to engage in hugs, even when they don't speak English, the , Germans not so much - they'd turn a hug down in perfect English. The British/Irish stag groups think they're hilarious yet all say the same thing - What about free sex? The older tour groups look and smile but don't hug so often. No-one had a sign in any Asian language so we missed a whole target hugging group and will change that next year (this is an annual May Day event) - but they'd gesture their request for a photo... or sometimes would try to sneak a photo by posing a foot in front of where we were standing... so we'd walk up and pose with them and then get a hug. MORE SUNSCREEN! And lots of water.
Amongst my group of friends there were more than 300 pictures taken, easily. That doesn't begin to compare to the tourists who stood, stared, and then photographed us - combined with the number who had someone take their photo while getting a hug. We tried to implement a one photo - one hug rule but it didn't work very well - people took lots of pictures from a distance.
I also got to go an a CRAZY ride on the octo-bike - a bike that seats about 8 people... and met a ton of guy working/living in Prague from the SF/Santa Cruz areas!
For more complete photos click on the link to my friend's album Free Hugs Photos.
And - go give someone a hug - it makes for a beautiful day!
1 comment:
Hey! The fried has a name! :-P
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