#witchesbecrazy

Today was a momentous one; it was the day we ventured to Salem, to investigate what we could about the whole witch trial party, and, let's not lie, to pretend we were in Hocus Pocus (one of our all time favourite childhood films!)

To get there, we had to catch a real train, our first real train in nearly three months. This one was quite techno, it had leather seats, three seats on one side of the aisle and even free wifi. Win! The journey only took about half an hour, and then there we were in Salem!

The station itself was a bit odd, but we weren't too concerned. We walked down into town and headed straight to the visitor's centre. Along the way we passed lots of different people dressed up as witches and the like all standing about handing out leaflets.

Once we had spoken to the nice lady at the visitor's centre and got ourselves a map, we headed off to the Salem Witch Museum. Salem has a Heritage Trail in the form of a red line painted on the ground, like the Freedom Trail in Boston, which would make the whole experience much easier for us!

The first part of the Salem Witch Museum consisted of an "audio visual" presentation in the round. We all sat on benches in a darkened room where there were scenes set up all around us. Each scene lit up appropriately as the story was being told, accompanied by music and sound effects. There were scenes inside households, a courtroom scene, suspects imprisoned, a man being crushed to death with stones on his chest and a scene at the gallows. There was also an excellent devil lurking in the corner whose eyes lit up red in the dark. In the middle of the floor was a circle also illuminated in red around which were the twenty names of the people killed during the Salem Witch Trials.

When this was over, we were split into two groups to be taken on a guided tour of the second part of the museum. Our group was to go second, so we got to hang about in the museum shop for seven minutes where we purchased a couple of postcards and a chocolate witch face!

The second part of the museum was a very simple exhibition of how the perception of witches has developed through time, i.e. how they started off as celtic midwives who were good with herbs and worshipped the earth, then became feared by men of the church who didn't understand their beliefs or medicine, and thus branded as devil worshippers. Apparently "witches" still exist today, male and female, in the form of people who still worship nature and the earth.

After leaving the museum, we had our lunch on the common, and were very excited to eat our chocolate witches! We followed the trail down to the water front and went to look at the House of the Seven Gables where good old Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the 1851 novel of the same name.

By this point it was getting crazy hot again. We walked along the waterfront, where all the houses were very pretty and very old. After milling about briefly by the water, we walked back into town following the trail, finding an old burial ground and the Witch Trials Memorial, built for the three hundredth anniversary of the trials. Sadly, the actual cemetery in Hocus Pocus is in Marblehead, a nearby town. Damn.

As we were melting in the heat, we sat and had a cold drink outside a bar before walking to the Witch House, the only house remaining in Salem from the time of the witch trials, where the overseeing judge lived. We went inside and looked around, it was surprisingly small, but interesting nonetheless.

We mooched about the centre of town for awhile and then went to get the train back at about half four. Salem is a weird train station, there's only one line and trains from both directions stop on it? Confusing.com.

We had both decided we needed haircuts, especially before hitting up NYC (obvs kitty reached this decision quicker than I did). So, when we got back to Boston we went in search of hairdressers to make appointments for the following day. Once this was achieved, we went back to the hostel, watched some Olympics and made some pasta. Standard.

The day we did absolutely nothing.

After a week of fruit and yoghurt for breakfast, today we decided to go all out so headed to Beacon Hill in search of something a little more substantial.

Beacon Hill is a beautiful area full of quaint little shops, cafes, restaurants and the most beautiful houses. I spotted a cupcake store that sold gluten free cupcakes - definitely need to check this out at some point!

We happened to stumble upon a place Amy had read up on so decided to mange there. The breakfast was beaut - a roast vegetable frittata with home fries and some melon ( also known as 'Cantelope' - Americans have weird names for fruit) Yummeh!

After breakfast we went in search of the museum of African American history. We searched high and low before eventually finding it and seeing it was shut #fail

After that disaster we decided to head over to the water to lounge around in the sun. We passed a cute little boat club and as we stood outside enjoying the view in the sunshine Amy spotted a huge downpour of rain heading our way. Terrifying.

We hid in the boat house with other drenched members of the public until it passed - the rain here be cray.

The rain soon passed and the sun came back out again and people were back sunbathing within minutes. We found a nice spot to lay and chill that had a lovely view looking out onto the water.

We didn't achieve much other than staring into space and getting more freckles all day to be fair, but a nice day all the same.

After doing dick all we went to our fave place to grab stuff for dinner - Trader Joes. It's literally the best store in the world!
A standard gluten free pasta and sauce party was had for dinner although we threw in some vegetables for good measure. We are definitely lacking in vitamins from this trip!

Another night of watching the Olympics and going to bed early was had. We are loving being able to relax as this travelling from spot to spot shizz gets a bit exhausting ... Also the beds here are really cosy :)

Harvard Initiation

Summoning all our intellect, today we got the train across the river to Cambridge on a mission to investigate Harvard. When we arrived, we headed straight to the main campus. It really is very pretty, with all the old buildings around grass and trees. We managed to latch onto the end of a tour, so we learnt about the library, and that the guy it was named after died on the Titanic after a trip to England to gain more knowledge. We also learnt that the statue of John Harvard isn't of John Harvard at all, it's just a random student that the sculptor chose as a model.

After our adopted tour ended, we sat on a bench in the middle of the square and chilled out for ages. It was crazy hot, we were in the shade and thoroughly enjoying people watching. When we could be bothered to move, we wandered around and took some tourist photos before wandering down into the town. Along the way we found the Harvard shop, where they sell t-shirts and hoodies and the like, and where we took advantage of their water cooler...

When we got all the way down to the river, we sat in a park to eat lunch. This is where the most eventful part of the day occurred: I got shat on by a bird. For real. I didn't even realise, and just thought a leaf had fallen on me, but alas it was not to be. Kitty was alarmed by my lack of reaction, but after a laughing fit, was kind enough to get as much as possible out of my hair. I was mostly too hot and tired to care. I'm taking it as a sign that I have been singled out for my astounding intelligence. It's also yet more proof that birds are evil! Following this significant event, we mooched back into the town and hit up Starbucks for our new favourite refresher drink: passion fruit tea lemonade. Sounds bizarre but it does the trick!

We got the train back to the hostel where the first thing I did was wash my hair! After eating dinner, we headed to the cinema to see Ruby Sparks, which we had seen advertised earlier on in our trip. It was really a very good film; it's basically about a writer who begins writing about his dream girl, only to find that she appears from nowhere. It's made by the same people as Little Miss Sunshine and is thus equally funny as it is moving. Like LMS it also stars the legend that is Paul Dano. Antonio Banderes also makes an excellent appearance. Believe me, it's not as ridiculous as it sounds. We highly recommend it!

When we got back to the hostel, we had yet more new roommates, this time three guys from Chile who were very friendly and came and talked to us for a good half an hour or so. They told me that I sound like the voice from their listening exercise tapes when they were learning English which highly amused us! They randomly broke into song at one point, apparently it was a Portuguese song?! One of them didn't speak as much English but kept joining in with random comments which were thoroughly entertaining. As we all went to bed, they all started singing 'Call me maybe' which was hilarious! Definitely an improvement on the strange guy in the skirt!!

Party in the Park

The weather in Boston has been amazing so far but it's still unbearably hot when your trying to walk around the city so we decided to take it easy today.

We had a leisurely wake up, enjoyed our free breakfast then made lunch before going to chill in Boston Common. It's a beautiful park and it seamed lots of people had the same idea as us because the park was full of people walking their dogs, sunbathing and reading in the shade. Beaut.

We attempted to even out our tan which is still hilarious - pale legs, tanned shoulders, pale necks and freckled noses - were quite the sight.
But after a while we got tired of sweating in the sun so chilled in the shade taking amusing photos. I never new my face could change so much, or how much Amy could look like voldermort in the sunlight...

After our lazy day in the sun we got dressed up and went to explore the restaurants in North End, they have some amazing Italian restaurants there so we were both very excited for a carb fest!

Amy was a good friend and found a place they did gluten free pizza!! Oh yes!!!

The restaurant was really nice and we had the loveliest waitress who called us 'doll' and 'princess' - she gig a good tip.

The food was amazing and I was in heaven with my pizza! As was Sparks with her lasagne - all in all the night was a great success! After filling our faces we wandered back to bed in our room with our skirt-wearing male roommates...

'Who the hell is Paul Revere?!'

In true Boston tourist fashion, our aim of today was to do the famous Freedom Trail. Prior to this though, we enjoyed the hostel's free breakfast. Standard.

The Freedom Trail is a route you follow around Boston that leads you past significant historical points of interest, most of them to do with the American Revolution (hence "freedom"). Conveniently, the trail started just around the corner from our hostel at the visitors centre on Boston Common. So off we went...

As you can imagine, the trail is tourist heaven so there were lots of annoying, slow moving people to contend with along the way. We enjoyed ourselves though, following the red line around the city and taking photos of everything like proper tourists. There are lots of impressive buildings along the trail, like the Massachusetts State House, and several large churches. Dominating the trail though, are the numerous burial grounds; there seemed to be one every ten minutes or so! Also seeming to play a leading role in the trail was a bloke called Paul Revere, he literally kept popping up everywhere, and we're still not entirely sure what he did... We think it had something to do with lighting lanterns to warn of a British invasion, and something else involving a midnight ride? We were obviously paying more attention to our photography than the information placards!!!

The trail went right through the heart of a neighbourhood called North End, home to a massive Italian community. It's heaven for someone who wishes they could be an Italian gangster, like me. We will definitely be heading back there to check out some of the numerous restaurants.

After North End, the trail lead us over a bridge into Charlestown where there was, wait for it, a Paul Revere Park. There was also a huge old navy yard which was part of the trail. By this point, we were hot, tired and hungry, having been walking for several hours. Instead of lurking around the navy yard, we followed the last part of the trail up to the Bunker Hill Monument, yet another unnecessarily phallic structure, much like the Washington one. In fact, it was pretty much the same as the Washington one, just a bit smaller.

We decided to make a beeline for the first place selling food we saw, which happened to be a cute little tavern. It was a pretty old building and had the feeling of a cosy pub in Devon or somewhere which was nice. I ordered Shepherd's Pie, which was surprisingly good, and Kitty ordered steak. Again. I think it's becoming a slight steak fetish situation...

After this we walked the Freedom Trail in reverse to get back to the hostel. Boston really is a nice city, I read somewhere that it blends the old and the new together better than anywhere else. It does! I also read that it's one of the best walking cities in the whole of the US. It is! It feels the most European out of any of the cities we have visited so far, and therefore familiar maybe. We get good vibes from it anyway.

We located the nearest Trader Joe's to stock up food, making ourselves a feast of pasta and salad for tea. We then finished the day by routinely watching the NBC coverage of the Olympics. We were very happy that the USA won the girls gymnastics all arounds, the gymnastic girls have become our faves!

Our new dorm mates are three guys, all of whom are nice but a little odd, one appeared to be wearing a skirt. This could be an interesting few days...