Salem

I was waiting in one of Boston’s train stations wondering whether I should go to Salem or not. While I didn’t have a place to stay yet, I did really want to see Salem and I didn’t know whether I’d have a chance to or not. While I was waiting I got a call from one of the people I’d emailed on couch surfing, Sam. He said that he already had two people staying with him but that I could join if I didn’t mind squeezing in somewhere. I can sleep anywhere and so was more than happy. Sam said he’d pick me up from the train station upon my arrival and to look out for a ‘blue jeep with something unique about it’. I had no idea what this could possibly be, and actually approached a different blue jeep asking if it was him. What are the chances that two blue jeeps would be coming to the train station around the same time?

Sam eventually arrived in this, which had a tow truck thing on the front of it which can’t be seen in the picture. Sam is a really interesting guy, being versed in multiple languages, able to play a didgeridoo and knows a lot about pretty much everything, especially Salem and its history. I arrived quite late and met the other guys staying with Sam; Luis, a Mexican guy around my age having his first experience in the USA and Merv, a Californian seasoned traveller and couch surfer. We went out to a bar to watch a band before heading home to bed.

Breakfast was a large affair the next day, which was good as I would end up doing a lot of cycling.

Because of Salem's history and its famous witch trials of the 17th century, there is a big focus on tourism here. Seen below is one of the local street performers (who looks like a nosed and eared Voldemort) terrorising a bus full of tourists.

One of the hotels in Salem allows you to rent their bikes even if you're not staying with them which is a great system. While the system is great the bikes aren't quite as good. Luis picked a good one but mine was incredibly squeaky, yet functional. We cycled around town for a while, looking at the nice houses until we happened upon a driving licence. It had a name and an address on it and as we had nothing better to do, off we squeaked to the man's house to return his licence.

What about dead dogs?

We passed by an interesting named beach on the way there, and after arriving left the licence on his front porch (he wasn't in and his angry dogs wouldn't open the door to us - rude!)

We stopped cycling for a while and sat on a patch of grass with our bikes and chatted. Luis, a surgeon in training back in Mexico, told me that he'd come to the USA to visit a friend who'd turned out to not be such a good friend, leaving him stranded in Salem. This is when he got on Couchsurfing, found Sam, a place to stay and friends to explore with. It's the silver lining of a bad experience, being able to make new friends and travel together.

That evening, we met up with the others and cycled out to an Italian restaurant. There was a rude lady at the bar seating area who didn't want to move one seat along to enable us to all sit together, and chose instead to leave altogether without ordering food after this heinous offence. Some people.

We cycled back, stopping along the way to skim stones across a lake, rattle my bones on a squeaky bike along bumpy paths and eventually arrive back in Salem. I'm a bit afraid of city cycling and so I sometimes take to the sidewalk instead. On this occasion, I was cycling too quickly downhill and before I knew it there were shopfronts. I cycled past a donut shop and almost collided with two police officers who were leaving, dodging them by mere inches. Sometimes stereotypes are true, I realised. Luckily they didn't chase me or arrest me or anything, probably because they would have to admit their presence at the donut shop in doing so. Imagine yourself a little headline.

We arrived back at home and chilled out before passing out. The next day we followed the signs to a local yard sale, which was to be my very first one. I was reminded of the opening scenes of Toy Story 2 and actually it was pretty much that except I had no sinister motives (like the chicken man). While I say that, this picture of me wielding a knife at said yard sale might make you think otherwise.

This was to be Luis and I's last day in Salem, as we were heading off to New York together that afternoon. We did a witch museum tour complete with mannequins and cheesy one liner but it was quite interesting learning parts of the local history that I hadn't already learnt from Sam. Afterwards, we looked some more around town at some big houses.

That evening, we boarded a train to Boston where we looked around before boarding our bus to New York where we eventually parted ways after a slice of breakfast pizza (yes, that is a thing).

His first time in the Big Apple

Bye bye, Luis.

Thanks for reading,

Dan :)