Having slept atleast 6hr, we woke up early to get to today’s destination, Salem ‘the witch city’, before the masses get in there. It’s renowned for the 19 people tortured and killed in the late 1600’s in a puritan fuelled hysteria, where witchcraft was used as an excuse to murder innocent people who were poor or outcasts, or maybe even someone wanted to ruin another, maybe business reasons.
I had heard that the commercialism was quite poor taste, and that certainly was true. 99% of paraphernalia had your archetypal witch with a pointy hat flying on a broom, with ridiculous phrases involving broom related punnery.
Despite this, we really enjoyed our mooch around, Lulu’s bakery needs a mention for the friendly service, fantastic suggestions of some local breakfast items I’d asked for (fresh bagels, scones and the best cinnamon whirl ever!), and refreshingly witch free decor!
We took a tour around the witch museum to hear the history, and balance out a bit of the crassness. The gift shop again, more ‘my other car is a broom’. Sigh. Reminds me of Pearl Harbor, and the trucker caps with a cartoon grinning fish holding a machine gun with ‘Pearl Harbor’ written under as a souvenir. I don’t think I will ever understand.
We went on Google maps to find a thrift store (charity shop in the U.K.), and was met with overpriced tat. We are talking $30 for a worn-out smelly looking tshirt, and wasn’t even for charity. Just ‘vintage’, or ‘I saw you coming’ shops, as Leon likes to call them. Another that came up as thrift on Google, was just another ‘witch, please’ type shop. Ah well, they were still fun to look round!
