Blogging in Boston - Part Three
We rode into Boston from our Wakefield station, then immediately hopped onto a train headed to Salem. It can add up price-wise to ride the trains if you don't have some sort of unlimited train pass, but it's still more fun and less stressful to just do the train instead of driving.
After arriving in Salem, it was sort of sprinkling off and on, so we wandered around for a bit until we found a place to stop and have lunch. We found ourselves at The Village Tavern which was freaking delicious. We shared some cheesy bacon fries as an appetizer, and they were incredible. We each got a burger, and those were also super tastey.
So good. That restaurant was great. Fantastic service, fantastic food, fantastic atmosphere. If you ever find yourself in Salem, check it out.
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| Salem Commons |
After food, we just kind of explored the area. We walked through the downtown, went into some shops, sat in the Salem Commons. We even walked through the oldest cemetery in Salem - which happens to be where Giles Corey was pressed to death.
Giles Corey is the only person in American history to have died this way - through legal channels, I should say. I'm sure some wackadoo has probably killed people this way (I think there was even a Criminal Minds episode or two where someone pressed people to death). Basically, Giles Corey was accused of and arrested for witchcraft. The laws of the time though, stated that you couldn't be tried unless you entered a plea of either guilty or not guilty. He refused to make a plea. So, the pressing was used as a way to try to torture him into making a plea. But, he refused. Every time they asked him to make a plea, he'd reply, "More weight." So they literally just kept piling rocks onto him for three days until he died.
I don't know what it is, but New England small-town history like this fascinates me. It always has. And I'm the first person to dip out of scary or spooky situations - I don't like being scared, don't like haunted houses, don't like horror movies, none of it - but Salem doesn't feel haunted to me. Even with all the ghosts, apparitions, and folklore, it feels more historical to me than haunted. Giles Corey's ghost apparently still haunts the village, but he typically shows up right before something bad happens to the town. Like a giant fire in 1914. That was the last known sighting of him.
Normally, that type of thing would scare the crap out of me, but instead, it just makes Salem more interesting to me. It also had a huge history of being a port town, dealt with pirates here and there, and just overall, is so cool to me. If we end up moving out this direction, I'd definitely vote for us living in or near Salem. I love it.
I also bought this super cool sweatshirt. I normally don't buy clothes from tourist shops because they're always ridiculously overpriced, like $50-80 for a sweatshirt. But this one was $25. And, so were the rest of the sweatshirts. And most T-shirts were like $10. Waaaaay more reasonable! So, I went for it. I've worn it like three times since then already.
When we left Salem, we headed back on the train to the station in Boston before hopping back to the one in Wakefield. If I haven't mentioned this before, in this area, you will see a Dunkin' Donuts on like every block. And we've just kind of embraced that fact a little bit. There's one right across from the station in Wakefield, and we've been there almost every day so far. We stopped there and got some beverages before heading back to the hotel to crash for a little bit.
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| The Dunkin'! |
We did go out again for some dinner later that night at a Chili's we found up the road. We were not impressed. But then we spent our last night at that crappy hotel, and that's definitely a good thing!
More later.
Write on!
Amy
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