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Salem report
This year I was a little more organized and did a lot of online research at http://www.salem.org regarding specific addresses of places I wanted to go, and Alexx plotted everything onto maps.
We parked along Essex Street since a lot of the places I wanted to go were near there and during
October there are lots of vendors and musicians about, so the entire square is like a street fair. There was even a small carnival with a ferris wheel.
My tradition is to start with the labyrinthine
Darby Square Bookstore at 215 Essex Street, which was, as usual, offering a sale: all books half price, and if you bought four you got the fifth free. Alexx and I started out quite certain that we weren't going to buy any more books and yet we still ended up getting that free fifth book. I found a book about women in pre-code Hollywood and a thesaurus for extremely literate people, and Alexx found Graves's _I, Claudius_ and _Claudius the King_.
We passed on my usual lunch stop, Polonus European Deli & Ice Cream (176 Essex St # 2, 1/2 block from the bookstore), which is the best Polish deli/ice cream shop/European imports store ever, because I really needed a bathroom and hot food.
* An important note about women's bathrooms in Salem: there is a severe shortage of them. Everywhere I went, there was a line of women waiting for a bathroom. I usually go to Salem on a weekday, so I had never noticed this before, but if you are female, you need to take into account that often when you want a bathroom, there is a 15-20 minute wait involved.
Also, it was really cold yesterday, but if I had known that many women of all ages wander around in all sorts of witchwear, I would have worn my cloak. It seems that cloaks and witch hats of an almost infinite variety of design are pretty common in Salem in October.
After grabbing a lunch at the pizza and deli in the Museum Place Mall (which did make a pretty awesome BLT, no skimping on the bacon), Alexx pointed out that the mall also had a chocolate shop, so we went to check it out.
Turtle Alley http://www.turtlealley.com is the perfect chocolate shop for anyone having a Lovecraft tea party the next day. There were crispy chocolate-covered eyeballs, gummy eyeballs, black licorice bats, wax fangs, chocolate fangs, various types of candy bats, witches, and skeletons. There were also candied fruit (I bought a small box of pomegranate and also some candied ginger) and chocolates and fudge and the house speciality, turtles. I bought a small bag of lavender caramels for me, and also a couple pieces of chipotle chocolate bark.
At this point we went back to the car to drop off the large bag of candy I had bought, and a young man approached Alexx and asked if he would be interested in praying with him. Once we started moving away from the young man, he called out "Is it okay if I pray for your friend?" to which I replied emphatically "NO!" and he said "Okay.," making him at least the most polite--or perhaps just easily cowed-- random religious type I had ever met.
We passed through Derby Square (265 Essex St.)
which has a lot of witchy-type shops, including at least one place that's fun to look for costumes and used clothing, and proceeded on to
witch city Thrift and consignment (301 Essex Street).
The walk around Derby Square and to Witch City Consignment is about 5-6 blocks.
If you need a snack and maybe some Internet, try
It was pretty cold, so Alexx bought me some fried dough and we sat in the pizza place in the mall people watching and chatting until about dinner time, when we went to
Salem Beer Works (278 Derby St).
I had been to there on weekdays and really enjoyed the nachos and hard cider, but it was really crowded and loud on a Saturday with an hour wait for a table if you showed up before 5:30, and a two hour wait after that.The food was pretty good, our waiter was wonderful (and sounded a lot like Dennis Hopper, which added to my enjoyment), but next time I will probably try something else for dinner
http://salem.org/visit/index.php?grp_ID=3
perhaps Gulu-Gulu Cafe 247 Essex Street
which had people sitting in the street-level windows playing chess and Scrabble.
By the time we were done with dinner, it was even colder, and I was tired enough that I made the decision to skip the Lovecraft art show at the Knights Templar Oasis, so we got in the car and listened to The Playground on WERS all the way home, where I had a hot bath and hot cocoa and promptly went to sleep.
We parked along Essex Street since a lot of the places I wanted to go were near there and during
October there are lots of vendors and musicians about, so the entire square is like a street fair. There was even a small carnival with a ferris wheel.
My tradition is to start with the labyrinthine
Darby Square Bookstore at 215 Essex Street, which was, as usual, offering a sale: all books half price, and if you bought four you got the fifth free. Alexx and I started out quite certain that we weren't going to buy any more books and yet we still ended up getting that free fifth book. I found a book about women in pre-code Hollywood and a thesaurus for extremely literate people, and Alexx found Graves's _I, Claudius_ and _Claudius the King_.
We passed on my usual lunch stop, Polonus European Deli & Ice Cream (176 Essex St # 2, 1/2 block from the bookstore), which is the best Polish deli/ice cream shop/European imports store ever, because I really needed a bathroom and hot food.
* An important note about women's bathrooms in Salem: there is a severe shortage of them. Everywhere I went, there was a line of women waiting for a bathroom. I usually go to Salem on a weekday, so I had never noticed this before, but if you are female, you need to take into account that often when you want a bathroom, there is a 15-20 minute wait involved.
Also, it was really cold yesterday, but if I had known that many women of all ages wander around in all sorts of witchwear, I would have worn my cloak. It seems that cloaks and witch hats of an almost infinite variety of design are pretty common in Salem in October.
After grabbing a lunch at the pizza and deli in the Museum Place Mall (which did make a pretty awesome BLT, no skimping on the bacon), Alexx pointed out that the mall also had a chocolate shop, so we went to check it out.
Turtle Alley http://www.turtlealley.com is the perfect chocolate shop for anyone having a Lovecraft tea party the next day. There were crispy chocolate-covered eyeballs, gummy eyeballs, black licorice bats, wax fangs, chocolate fangs, various types of candy bats, witches, and skeletons. There were also candied fruit (I bought a small box of pomegranate and also some candied ginger) and chocolates and fudge and the house speciality, turtles. I bought a small bag of lavender caramels for me, and also a couple pieces of chipotle chocolate bark.
At this point we went back to the car to drop off the large bag of candy I had bought, and a young man approached Alexx and asked if he would be interested in praying with him. Once we started moving away from the young man, he called out "Is it okay if I pray for your friend?" to which I replied emphatically "NO!" and he said "Okay.," making him at least the most polite--or perhaps just easily cowed-- random religious type I had ever met.
We passed through Derby Square (265 Essex St.)
which has a lot of witchy-type shops, including at least one place that's fun to look for costumes and used clothing, and proceeded on to
witch city Thrift and consignment (301 Essex Street).
The walk around Derby Square and to Witch City Consignment is about 5-6 blocks.
If you need a snack and maybe some Internet, try
It was pretty cold, so Alexx bought me some fried dough and we sat in the pizza place in the mall people watching and chatting until about dinner time, when we went to
Salem Beer Works (278 Derby St).
I had been to there on weekdays and really enjoyed the nachos and hard cider, but it was really crowded and loud on a Saturday with an hour wait for a table if you showed up before 5:30, and a two hour wait after that.The food was pretty good, our waiter was wonderful (and sounded a lot like Dennis Hopper, which added to my enjoyment), but next time I will probably try something else for dinner
http://salem.org/visit/index.php?grp_ID=3
perhaps Gulu-Gulu Cafe 247 Essex Street
which had people sitting in the street-level windows playing chess and Scrabble.
By the time we were done with dinner, it was even colder, and I was tired enough that I made the decision to skip the Lovecraft art show at the Knights Templar Oasis, so we got in the car and listened to The Playground on WERS all the way home, where I had a hot bath and hot cocoa and promptly went to sleep.