Day 12 – Witches and Italians

While waiting for Vero to shower, I packed up the car and sat near the water and just took it all in. I think I’ve pretty well decided that I will move to the sea when I’m ready to retire. The water is amazing and mesmerizing at the same time. I just sat there, read a book and enjoyed the cool breeze hitting me.

Salem was calling our name in the morning and we went to the tourist center, grabbed some maps and sat for half an hour to watch a documentary on Salem. We thought it was a good film but were very disappointed that they didn’t have any burning witches! Near the end of the film, we descended into laughing fits after voicing our own commentary about witches after each of the narrator’s comments. Example: Salem is a land of beauty and marvels. Then we would add “OF WITCHES!!!”. Ha ha…you had to be there. After the film, we got a photo taken of us in full-on witch garb! This photography shop dresses you up in costumes and then gives you different props to use while they take 20 photos. Then you can go choose which ones you would like to print out. Considering it cost a pretty penny, we decided on getting only one printed out which Vero has now at her place. It was fun to do and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a hilarious memento of their trip to Salem.

Vero also picked up a great shirt which had the outline of a witch on a broom and says “Salem, Massachusetts – A Witchin’ Good Time”. She scored that for a measly $5.

We headed out to tour around and went to the Witch Dungeon Museum which included a recreation of an actual witch trial and a tour of a mock dungeon. Supposedly there was an actual dungeon discovered 50 years ago but heritage sites weren’t a big thing back then and it was destroyed. All that was left is a piece of wood which hangs in this fake dungeon. The dungeon shows us the size of the cells and how the prisoners (the witches!!!) were imprisoned there (or burned! Burn the witch!). It was an alright tour, but I liked the recreation of the witch trial more (which were from actual transcripts). They also had posters around the room which explained the history of how the hanging of witches came about. It was pretty crazy. Essentially, if someone said you were a witch, chances are you would be hung with no questions asked. This ended when someone declared the Governor’s wife to be a witch and the Governor stopped the whole ordeal. But by that time, a slew of so-called witches had been hung (or burned?).

We then headed to a spell-casting seminar which had only Vero and I as participants. We both thought this was a great seminar as it had an honest to goodness witch teaching us to cast a spell. I doubt my spell will come to light as I think I was yelling out the wrong word! Woops! Maybe somewhere out there someone will have a curse on their heads instead! Anyhow, the spell caster was amazing and she had a great room with a smoke machine. We were really into it. I can see my Dad going to one of these events and thinking it was the lamest things he has ever seen. 😉

At that point, it was around 1PM so we decided we had seen enough of Salem and headed towards Boston.

I love Boston. I fell in love with it a few years ago when we went to visit Pam. We had the craziest snowstorm the weekend we visited so I was excited to see the town in its summer splendor. After parking underground, we started walking around the city core and headed towards the Cheers replica bar. We checked out a few buildings for their architecture and before hitting up Cheers, we saw this amazing group of dancers from Brooklyn who were entertaining the crowd. My favourite comment from them was “Alright, now you know we’re looking for some money from you. All we ask is that you take out your wallet, take out $5-$10, and then give us the wallet.” Ha ha. Turns out that this is a common joke amongst these dance troupes as I heard the same thing in New York City a few days later!

We walked to the Cheers replica bar which was a good time for a rest. Of course, I ordered a Samuel Adams beer. I thought it was neat that the bar looks exactly like it does in the TV show. The area surrounding it doesn’t look exactly the same but that doesn’t make it any less exciting. Vero ordered an iced tea and realized that in the States, they don’t put any sugar in it! I had forgotten that from our last time down in the US.

After Cheers, we decided to follow the Freedom Trail which is a red line which takes you on a tour of Boston through all the historical hot spots. I thought this was an amazing tourist attraction and would recommend it to Ottawa. It was so easy to follow a red line around the town. I don’t think Vero was too impressed with Boston in the end, but I think it had to do with the fact that I just kept walking and walking and walking and we didn’t get much of a break along the Freedom Trail. If anyone wishes to do the trail, give yourself the day and not a few hours. We ended up at the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) which is the oldest commissioned ship which is still afloat in the world! It was quite the site and I was disappointed to find out that we had just missed the time limit to board the ship for a tour. However, I can’t be too disappointed as I know that I’ll be back in Boston again one day.

After realizing that we were both tired of touring around, we headed back towards the car. Along the way, we stumbled upon a giant BBQ which is recounted in this original entry:

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I’m just putting these photos up for placeholders really since I don’t have much time to dedicate to updating this thing. However, tonight we are taking it easy in a motel instead of camping – mainly because my ROAD ATLAS SUCKS and it’s only shows major routes and couldn’t show us the actual road to the park it was showing in the middle of nowhere.

That being said, today was one of the highlights of the trip for me as it brought back memories of traveling Europe. We stumbled upon an Italian festival where there was a giant BBQ going on. Upon asking one of the locals, he said the St. Anthony’s Festival was running all weekend long but the neighbourhood always holds a free BBQ the day before it starts and he invited us to have some of it. We felt honoured and grabbed a burger and hot dog (before realizing that the entire neighbourhood was waiting for the Italian sausages to come out!).

This is where the magic lies…not in tourist attractions on a map, but in exploring the city for yourselves and stumbling upon goodness.

Tomorrow brings us into New York City to meet up with Katie and Miguel for the last leg of our trip. This was essentially what spearheaded this trip to the East Coast…it’s been quite an adventure and I will document it all properly in the previous posts in the future. For now, enjoy the few photos I’ve sent along, revel in the fact that Vero and I are fine and well, and enjoy the rest of your summer.

I suppose I should look up directions on how to navigate around NYC. I have a feeling this may be a giant obstacle awaiting me. Just call me David.

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After getting to the car, we navigated out of the city in search of a campground which didn’t happen so we decided to get a hotel room for the night. It’s kind of disappointing to go from paying $20 a night for a campsite to $130 for a hotel room for the night. However, we were tired, we were cranky and we realized that it would do us some good to just relax for the night before hitting NYC. The receptionist was hilarious as he had been working a 24 hour shift and was just spewing out hilarities left and right. I enjoyed the bathtub as I had a slew of bugbites on my legs and sat in there with a beer for awhile. Life was good! The room also had wireless Internet which helped me map out how to get to NYC the next day. I also realized that if you are ever in search of a WiFi connection, it may be a good idea to just pull into a hotel parking lot as they would probably have a connection around!

Overall the trip to Boston was alright, but after only spending a few hours there and just walking all day long, I realize that it wasn’t as fun as it was the first time around when we took our time to tour around. I will remember this for next time – it’s better to take your time and tour instead of rushing everything.