Day 30 (July 13)
Summary:
Today was my last full day in San Diego. The plan was to go to the Pride Festival in Balboa Park. I made a pit stop at the Starbucks on the San Diego State University. Christian owns a website project where he wants to try and feature really cool projects that make the world a better place. I was his first project so we got some photo's for him at San Diego State University before I headed over to attempt to attend the Pride Festival. Once I almost got to the Pride Festival I met Nancy, Maegan, Charise, Yngvild, and Cheyenne. I gave them free hugs signs and we gave away some hugs while we traveled to get some food at Mission Beach. It was a go-with-the-flow kinda day. We ate at a mexican food place and gave away some hugs at the beach including a bunch of guys having their bachelor party! After hanging out a little bit I took the bus back to my host's house. Tomorrow I am traveling to Albuquerque!!
Highlights:
1) Meeting Steve and Christian at Starbucks before heading down to Pride.
2) Meeting up with Nancy, Maegan, Charise, Yngvild, and Cheyenne at Pride and going to Mission Beach for dinner with them.
3) Roller coaster ride.
4) Photo stuff with Christian.
Lowlights:
1) Being called a hug prostitute by someone following me..
Learned:
1) Giving away free hugs signs is really awesome, it allows people to start their own free hugs right away!
2) Crafting relationships is part of the Free Hugs Lifestyle and is as important as giving away lots of hugs
Day 31 (July 14)
Summary:
Today my host drove me down to the Amtrak station in San Diego for my 2:40 departure to Albuquerque. On the way we stopped to wash his car. I arrived at the train station at 10:00 and headed to Starbucks across the street to watch some Burn Notice and send out some emails/ organize my hugging time in Albuquerque. At 1:40 I went over to the train station to wait. We boarded the buses (train work was being done from the San Diego stop to the Oceanview stop so we had to take a bus to Oceanview before taking the train the rest of the way to Los Angeles where I would catch my train to Albuquerque. I boarded the train to Albuquerque and left at 6:15 and was seated at the very end of the train which allowed me to look out behind the train as we headed down the track. It was a really beautiful view and I had enough space to do some organizing while traveling. I will get into Albuquerque at about 12:00 pm tomorrow.
Highlights:
1) The view from the back of the train.
2) Getting a lot of my stuff organized for my time in Albuquerque.
3) Meeting a young girl who makes stuff out of duct tape.
Lowlights:
1) The train was on its way to Chicago. It made me a little bit homesick as a lot of the people that I met on the train were headed to Chicago, the greatest city on earth.
Learned:
1) This is how my mind works:
- I want to give away lots of hugs.
- Yeah but giving away few hugs is just as good and you have to explore each city to understand and be able to receive the maximum impact for all of your hugs!
- But it doesn't feel as if I am accomplishing as much!
- That is not the point
- Blah
- Blah
- We will talk about it later. I'm too tired to think about this right now.
- Night buddy.
2) Being organized is good.
3) Almost all of my belongings now fit in my Osprey backpacking pack.
Day 32 (July 15)
Summary:
Today I got to talk to a person I met who was on his way to Chicago. He is a pastor at a church in Chicago and I got to talk to him about my tour projects and my passion for giving away free hugs. I then arrived at Albuquerque at 11:00 am and walked to the post office to send a package of some extraneous stuff back to my house in order to lighten my load a little bit. I then took the bus to a Starbucks near my host's house in order to wait for them to get home so that I could meet them. I went over to the house at around 5:00 pm. It is a really nice house. I am staying in a guest bedroom and the bed is super comfortable. We ate dinner and talked a little bit and then I went to bed at about 10:00. Tomorrow I am planning to go pick up my bike rental and then visit Tim's Place and get some breakfast and hugs!!
Highlights:
1) Meeting David and Jenny, my Albuquerque hosts.
2) Sending off some unneeded weight and lightening my pack.
Lowlights:
1) None
Learned:
1) Albuquerque is a lot like Los Angeles in the fact that everything is really spread out, but the people here are a lot nicer. As I walked down the street anyone I met would say good morning or good afternoon. The people here are a lot more open than in Los Angeles.
2) The landscape of New Mexico is a lot different than what I am used to. It is amazingly beautiful and there are a lot of hills.
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