My American vacation: Salem!
The next day, we went to Salem! It’s a bit far away, but it was pretty easy to catch a few trains there!
Salem is famous for the witch trials, a period in American (and European!) history when communities targeted people they felt were strange or crazy, and accused them of being witches. Many people were brought to a court room, and some were executed. There was no real evidence, all that was needed was for someone to accuse you of it! That’s where the idiom “witch hunt” comes from, which refers to an effort by a group of people to harm someone just because they’re unpopular, not because they did anything illegal. (Donald Trump often calls the many criminal cases against him a “witch hunt”!)
Nowadays, Salem is mostly a tourist spot, with many stores themed around witches and witch culture. I might say there are 3 types of witches:
- cartoon witches, like you see in movies or for Halloween
- historical witches, like the unfortunate people who were executed in the 1700s
- modern witches, who follow a spirtual belief called “Wicca”
Any time you see a witch with a broom, it’s definitely the cartoon-style one! Wiccans don’t care about brooms, and of course historical witches didn’t really fly!
A symbol of Wicca is the Pentagram, which is basically a star, and it’s often associated with the colour black. It’s more of a style, and many people who dress in all black are often called “goth”, so there’s a lot of overlap between those two cultures!
Besides the many witch stores, there are some historical landmarks as well. Nothing so spectacular like New York or Plymouth, but still interesting.
This is the tiniest lighthouse I’ve ever seen! It’s maybe 4 meters high! Why is it so small??
Hmm, why is a Boo, from Mario, with Frankenstein’s monster?
We had a really delicious pizza for lunch! The garlic bread was pretty bad, the pizza was some of the best I’ve had here!
Because Salem is famous for witches, many shows and movies are filmed here, or at least, the story happens in Salem. One famous movie, Hocus Pocus, was filmed at this house. I saw the movie a very long time ago, so I didn’t remember it. Did any of you watch it?
Hmmm, Pikachu, are you okay…? You look a little… strange!
We wandered around the small town a bit more, and then we headed back to the train station for the long ride back.
We got Cinnabon! A famous cinnamon bun chain in America (I had it my first time when I was in Osaka!)
The train was actually delayed quite a long time, and when it finally arrived, and we started to go, it go delayed again! Overall, we were about 2 hours late, so we were pretty exhausted by the time we got home. Salem wasn’t super amazing, but it was really interesting to be in a historical place like that, so now when I see a TV show that takes place in Salem, I can say “I’ve been there!”
After Salem, we did some smaller activities over the next few days, again to save money. We were both pretty tired from constantly exploring and traveling, so the next couple of blogs maybe won’t be so exciting, but I’m still looking forward to showing you all the photos I’ve taken! :D
