Today's photos (1 new video)
Today we went further afield to Salem on the commuter Rail so it was a short trip on the subway to North Station, then headed round into to the upper level and get the tickets. Salem is about a 35-minute ride and on a mixed single and double-decker train, at $15 return it's not bad value, unfortunately even though this is run by the same company that runs the subway service you can't use your Charlie Card on these it has to be a Charlie Ticket. As far as train travel goes they are fairly comfortable and what is really helpful is that they fit the platform, even on a curve, they also have free WiFi.
Salem is famous for the witch trials where 20 women were executed back in 1692/3 by mad English aristocrats who ruled by fear. Most of the place now has turned into an overpriced visitor attraction, but it does give you a chance to escape the city for a bit and resembles being in a country town.
We didn't get here until 11 and planned on getting the 4.10 train back and that was plenty of time to go around the town, we had a beer in the pub and a cheesy hot dog with baked beans in molasses that made Boston famous (hence the name Beantown), they sort of look like baked beans in curry but taste nothing like it, they were yummy and $10 for 2 meals is good value.
So after a look around the shops, I got myself a T-shirt that Jane thinks is very fitting for me before we walked back to the station. It would appear I may have turned into a bit of a train nerd as well now (sigh) so did some videos of them going in the opposite direction while we waited for our train that was 20 minutes late. Salem is an odd station because even though it's a commuter town there is only line that trains use in both directions. The only reason we wanted to leave at 4.10 was to avoid the rush hour back in the city, but with the train being 20 minutes late, we ended up crammed on a very packed Green Line subway train.
The humidity is still really high even though the temperature has gone down a bit, luckily there is an ice cream van parked up by Boston Common where we come out of the subway station so we indulged in one each.
And the night got lively when the fire alarm went off, but it was a false alarm, somebody smoking apparently then someone else pulled the fire alarm, they only cleared out the rooms but not the building.
