Today we're back in the states
We weren’t able to get spots on the tour we wanted so we had the whole day to ourselves and we did the tour on our own. Before we could get off the ship or participate in anything we had to go through an immigration checkpoint. We had until nine to get it done but like I said, we couldn’t really start our day without completing the checkpoint so we tried to get that done early, before breakfast. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea, the station was packed and customs was running late so we left for the coffee bar near by. Everyone also had that same idea, the coffee bar was packed too. We got a text that the rest of our group went to the buffet so we left the coffee bar for breakfast. I had suggested that earlier but nobody listened to me. The buffet was practically empty!
After breakfast we went back to customs to check in. I’ve done this before with other companies and it always took forever. You would line up according to last name, they would check your documentation and asked you a few simple questions and off you went. This time the process was a lot simpler. The line was long but it went quick. We shuffled through as a single file line, scanned our room cards and showed our passports. We were in and out in minutes. Super simple, super easy!
Since we weren’t able to get on the Salem Witch tour we decided to do it on our own. We took the shuttle off the pier out to the wharf near the aquarium and ordered an Uber. I checked the prices with Lyft and it seemed to be super cheap and I had credits so I ordered a car. Turns out I had entered the wrong address, the fare quadrupled when I edited it so I canceled it and was charged a cancelation fee. We explored other options like a rental car, taxi or public transit. We ended up grabbing an Uber. It was the quickest and most economical way to get out there.
The Salem Witch Museum is a renovated church building and seems to be a very popular spot out here. It was packed! Their tour is split into two sections the first was a very dramatic theatrical presentation using intricate dioramas to tell the stories of the affected and the accused. Both men and women were accused of being witches. We weren’t able to get seats in the middle of the room so we had to sit along the wall facing inward. I feel like we missed out on half of the show because the dioramas surrounded the room and we weren’t able to see the ones behind us. Before the second part of the tour they split us up into two groups, one went to the the second exhibit while the other hung out in the gift shop. The gift shop was packed and it was hard to move around and look at everything. The second part was a walk through exhibit that explained witches in movies, books, media and current day Wiccans. Elphaba is green in The Wizard of OZ because Warner Brothers wanted to show off their technicolor technology. This had such a big influence that witches became associated with the color green. This is quite an interesting spot and worth looking up online.
The shops around here remind me of some of the shops we have in Old Sacramento and San Francisco but with a lot more spiritual merchandise. They also had a crazy amount of Harry Potter and Hocus Pocus merchandise.
We did a little shopping on the way back and ended up taking public transportation back to the wharf. It was way cheaper than any other way back. I had come out here before with my grandparents and we walked part of the freedom trail. My grandma wanted to go back and walk the whole thing but we didn't get around to it. Maybe we'll come back on another trip.
When we got back, we had a late lunch at the grill and lounged around until dinner. Because we had lunch so late I would’ve liked to have a little more time in between meals but we have an extremely early day tomorrow.
Today was a lot of fun. We walked a lot.
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