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.
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