July 17-- Free Hugs

By now, everyone should expect that if it's the weekend, I will be going to the market. This weekend is particularly sad, since it's our last market weekend of the trip. First priority: donuts. The donut man gave us piping hot donuts sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, so heavenly. I met up with Kelly and Claire, since we had plans to have a tea party that afternoon. But before we could get there, we ran into Heather and Stelios, whom Kelly and Claire had met the night before. They both work at a camp for terminally ill children and adults and were spending the weekend in Galway. Today, they were on a mission to give out free hugs on Shop Street. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Free Hugs campaign, but this guy started the campaign by standing in a city with a "Free Hugs" sign and giving people free hugs (here's a link). So, this was essentially what Heather and Stelios were doing. After watching them give a couple of hugs, we just had to join them. It's interesting because the Irish aren't really very expressive with their emotions, so they aren't too big on hugging. But we still hugged so many people. It was a really amazing experience--some people just thought it was silly, a couple people thought we were on drugs, but some people that I hugged just said "Thank you, I really needed that." A lot of people asked why we were doing this, and Stelios just said something like, "You know, you wake up, you feel good, and you think, what am I going to do today? And you go out and make people feel good, add love to the world." Definitely one of the best experiences of this trip, and my life as well. I suggest you all go hug someone right now.


It only gets better from here. After leaving with a hugger's high, we headed down to Sweetie's Tea Room for our afternoon tea party. We all got our own teacups and pots and then a selection of yummy treats from the bakery. It was so delicious... definitely the perfect girlie afternoon.