Salem 10-30-99–10-31-99
My suite (me, Danielle, Dani, Holly and Jenn) decided to go to Salem Massachusetts for Halloween. We got a hotel a few weeks in advance and got everything ready to go. Friday night we packed everything up, and went to bed. At 3:30 am, our alarms went off, waking us up to go to Salem. We left here around 4am, and headed out. It took about 7 hours to get to Revere, where our hotel was. Holly and Dani fell asleep right away, leaving me and Jenn up front (Jenn was driving, I was the navigator) and Danielle in the middle in the back. We listened to CDs (the entire time all we heard was Jenn saying “this song makes me cry” and me saying “I didn’t know Billy Joel sang this song.” haha) and talked.
We stopped around 8 to get breakfast at a rest area. Back on the road, Holly and Dani fell asleep again. By then the sun was coming up and we had been driving for about 5 hours already. We crossed into Massachusetts onto the Mass Pike for another 2 hours or so. We were fine until our computer driving directions took us off the Mass Pike and into Cambridge, Mass. They had us traveling on all these streets, which weren’t really going anywhere. We lost the street we were supposed to be on next, then found one that was 3 directions later. We didn’t know where we were so we stopped at a CVS and asked for directions. The first girl we asked worked there, and she didn’t know how to get to Revere. She asked someone else, and they didn’t know how. So we saw a fireman, and asked him. He was like, “So you want to get to Reveah,” (you know, the Boston accent!) and gave us really good directions. So we got onto some route, which took us to some other route, and then we had a dispute about where to get off, so Jenn just got off the expressway and into a rather, um, lower class neighborhood. So we pulled over to a church and Holly and I went in to ask for directions. The man told us we weren’t far from Reveah at all, and then told us to come back to worship on Sunday.
So we get to Revere but we didn’t know where to find Squire Road, where our hotel was. So we asked AGAIN for directions from a gas station. We had to go through a round-a-bout, get off on the 3rd spoke, and our hotel was down the road. Dani and I went to check in, because we had booked a room for only 2 people. The 4 older women in line before us had gotten REALLY lost trying to find Revere, and were also rather annoying and stupid. It took a long time for them to leave, and we were next. Well we were rather early at the hotel (around noon) and the check out time was noon, so they didn’t have any clean rooms yet. So we had to wait for the cleaners to call back and tell the desk people they had a clean room for us. But the cleaners didn’t speak English. So the one desk girl is asking them if room 211 was clean yet, and they didn’t know what she was saying, so the girl goes “dos uno uno,” over and over again, until they knew what she meant. We got our room key and took all our stuff out of the car and into the room. We changed, and got ready to go to Salem (since we were mostly in our pajamas).
It was lunch time so we went to McDonald’s to get food. Jenn and Holly were outside smoking (Jenn was smoking) and some guy was out there and started talking to them. He told Jenn she wasn’t old enough to smoke HAHA. They said he was weird. We piled back into the car and took off for Salem (about 20 minutes away). We drove into Salem, but then didn’t know where any of the stuff was going on. We passed the Salem fire house and Jenn wanted a picture of it. We kept driving, and hadn’t found downtown yet, so we stopped AGAIN for directions to the attractions. They told us to keep going down the road we were on, which was what I said we should do in the first place.
We finally found where everything was going on, but then had to find a parking place. So we drove over a bridge and down that street until we parked in front of someone’s house. We passed another firehouse and took another picture of a few of us in front of it. We walked across the bridge (after stopping at the Unimart to use the bathroom. I didn’t use it, but the rest said it had a strobe light for the light, and was really gross) and got into the thick of things. We walked around for a while looking at the people and stuff going on. There were tents, and food vendors and people advertising their stores and stuff. Lots of people were dressed up as witches, and in other costumes.
We walked to an old cemetery and looked around a bit. We had our picture taken by a gravestone. Then I saw 3 guys dressed up like they were from “Clockwork Orange” so I had Danielle take my picture with them. We went down another street and found a fortune teller. We went in to check prices and decided to look around for others. We ended up deciding to go to the Witch Dungeon. There was a super long line, so we had to wait a long time to get in. We waited about an hour probably. Some ladies behind us took our pictures for us, and finally we got to the front of the line. They smooshed 40 people into their little gift shop in order to get us ready to go in. It was so annoying because everyone was pushing, because since the thing was a live show, they wanted to get a good spot. The people did a live reenactment of a witch trial taken from actual trial transcripts. It was pretty cool. Then we had to go downstairs into the dungeon, which was where they imprisoned the people who were on trail for witch craft back in the 1600s. The cells were SUPER small, and you had to pay for them yourself (even though they were jailing you). If you had more money, you got a bigger cell.
We finished in there and left, and outside there was this 7 foot drag queen dressed up like a peacock. So Danielle and I wanted our picture taken with him hehe. After that, we raced back to the fortune tellers place because Holly and Jenn wanted their fortunes told. We couldn’t stay there unless we were getting ours done too, so Danielle, Dani and I went down to the corner to the Crypt Cafe for food. We had to wait in a line out the door. Holly and Jenn’s readings didn’t take more than 10 minutes, so they got into the line with us. The cafe was really cool. They were showing some scary movie, and playing scary music. The tables were like grave stones and had sayings on them. The walls were rocks, with gargoyles and stuff on them. The owner was dressed up like a genie, and was walking around making fun of people and stuff (the one time he said, “Hey look everyone, we have a celebrity here, it’s that kid from N’sync (he meant Justin, because this kid looked JUST like Justin from the group)” and the kid was so pissed off. There was also this guy dressed up like Dracula who was walking around and would just stand behind people in line and make scary faces until they noticed. It was really fun. Sometimes he’d start knocking and scratching on the girls bathroom door when someone was in it, and make meowing noises in the door. Then when they tried to come out, he’d hold the door shut. So we got food and sat down at a table. Dracula was hanging around, and he hid behind Jenn’s chair. We all saw him but she never did. We were hysterical, and she finally realized it.
So then the owner genie guy came over and pulled up a chair with us. He started talking to us, and started reading Holly’s palm. He kept telling her things that the fortune teller that she had just paid 30 bucks to had. It was so hilarious. He started stroking her hand and he was like, “How old are you?” and Holly said “19” and he said, “good because if you were 17, I’d be in big trouble.” haha it was so funny. We were all hysterical laughing. Dracula started playing with Holly and Danielle’s blow up balloon hats. I took tons of pictures because it was so funny. Before we left we were waiting to use the bathrooms so we had some people take a picture of the 5 of us and the genie and Dracula. We left and by then it was dark, so all the really cool people were coming out. Holly was so excited because she got to take pictures of freaks. We walked around the streets and took pictures of people we thought were cool. Besides the drag queen we took pictures of a guy dressed up like Tinkerbell and his girlfriend was Peter Pan, a guy dressed like Marilyn Monroe and his friend who was in a dress too, the cast of Wizard of Oz, Gilligan’s Island and Scooby Doo, and some weirdly scary dressed guy. While we were walking we saw tons of police men walking around. There was a really hot one, and one of us said something about asking them for a picture. So I said, yeah let’s do it. No one wanted to, but I went up to him and asked him if we could take a picture with him. Everyone else was laughing and embarrassed.
So someone took our pictures with the police guy Dennis. heehee. I wanted to take a picture of this guy and girl who were really coolly dressed Goth. So I went to ask them, and then felt like a retard because I didn’t have any film left. So I told them to hold on while I changed rolls, but then I realized I brought an empty film canister! So I felt really stupid and told them to hold on while I got Danielle’s camera HAHA. We hung around there some more, watching the cool costumed people walk around. We decided to go back to the hotel cuz Jenn wanted to do some homework (which she didn’t end up doing). I wanted to stay longer, I could have stayed all night (although I wished I hadn’t been so stupid for forgetting more film). So we walked back to the car, a very long walk I might add. We started to leave and we drove past the first fire house again and 3 firemen were outside the firehouse. So I said to Jenn let’s turn around and ask them for pictures. So we did! Jenn parked the car illegally, so Danielle and Dani stayed in the car to make sure it didn’t get towed while me, Jenn, and Holly walked to the firehouse. We asked the guys if we could take a picture with them and instead they said we could climb around on the trucks and do whatever we wanted. So we had one of them take a picture of the 3 of us on a truck. Then they said we could put their gear on, so Jenn and Holly put hats on and I put a coat on, and we sat on the front of the truck with a hot fireman and they took our picture. We talked to them a bit and they probably thought we were insane because we were so excited we got to go on the truck (which they turned on the flashing lights for us too hehe) and wear their gear. We went back to the car, and headed back to the hotel.
We relaxed in the hotel and eventually went to sleep. We had debated going into Boston for a while in the morning, to see some sights, because no one besides me and Danielle had been there before, but then decided against it. Danielle and I slept on the floor, and it was FREEZING. We were so cold (everyone else was too, but we had way less blankets and were on the FLOOR). I slept so bad, because of the lack of heat and pillows. We woke up at 9:30, although I had woken up many times during the night, once because Dani started to talk in her sleep and said “guys, how can I take out my contacts if you’re in the….thing.”, and another time because something was going on in the room next to us, and they banged on the wall twice REALLY HARD, the whole building shook. It sounded like World War 3. We got ready to go to breakfast and check out of our hotel. It took forever to get Jenn out of bed. We packed up and went to the main lobby to eat and check out. We got directions for the Mass Pike back to NY and headed for home. We had to drive through a part of Boston, so we got to see some of the city, and Holly and Danielle took pictures out the window. We listened to more CD’s and took pictures inside the car.
We got into NY and had to eat lunch so we got off the thruway and went to McDonalds. After, we all took our pictures while sitting on a fence in front of the store HAHA. Then there were ducks in the parking lot, so we started feeding them Jenn’s extra hamburger and rice krispy treats. They were eating out of our hands! We finished there and got back on the thruway. We stopped again to pee a while later, and got Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. At some point in the drive home, Dani and I were looking out the window to see if the guy in the passing truck was hot. It was this old man, who turned his head towards us and his tongue was sticking out of his mouth. He didn’t stick it out at us, it was already sticking WAY out when he looked at us. We both went “Oh my god!” and were hysterically laughing at this guy. haha Soon we were back on the 390 to Geneseo, and boring old school again. The trip was tons of fun, despite minor annoyances like getting a bit lost, Danielle’s stupid balloon hat hitting me in the face all the time, the fact that I get annoyed in big crowds because people are so ignorant and the constant stupid Long Island versus Upstate NY arguments haha.