Birthday in Salem: Friday

Every year I like to celebrate my birthday by visiting a new place I’ve never been to before. Sometimes it’s a grand trip to a new country. Sometimes it’s just a road trip to a new town. This year (since we’re actively shopping for a new home), we kept the budget and scope small. Mike and I picked a city we’ve stopped in but never really fully explored before: Salem.

I’d been to Salem maybe 15 years ago, with friends and family. We’d done a bunch of the silly tourist bits like the Witch Dungeon and wax museums, plus a few souvenir shops that sold kitschy tees and magnets bearing every imaginable pun involving the word witch. And Mike had been to Salem a number of times, usually to load in and out of a club with his band when they booked a gig there.

So neither of us had really explored the actual city. The one outside the tourist maps and stage doors. So we booked a cool boutique hotel for the weekend in the city center and hopped in the car.

FRIDAY

The weather upon our arrival was bright, sunny, and unseasonably warm. Like 50• and no earmuffs warm. We dropped our bags in the room and made straight for the waterfront. Sunny February days are rare, especially in New England and you take full advantage of them when you can.

Because it was so beautiful out, we chose Finz for lunch. It offers a fantastic panoramic view of the ocean and you kind of want to get as much blue into your eyeballs before you return to the dead and desaturated landscape of winter. We kicked off our meal with martinis. Classic for Mike. Blueberry for mine.

Then a boat full of sushi because that’s always a thing I’d wanted to have delivered to me.

After lunch was more walking around absorbing the sun light a dehydrated sponge.

Salem is full of awesome charcoal matte black houses with bright colorful doors. Many have tiny little hidden gardens too. I want to buy them and live in them all.

Speaking of black houses, one of the things I’ve always wanted to see was the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion. It’s more famously known as The House of the Seven Gables, named by author Nathanial Hawthorne who wrote a famous ghost story set there.

Mike and I walked over and took some photos around the grounds. Then we strolled up to the visitor’s center and found by perfect timing, that a tour of the house was departing in five minutes. We hopped right in.

The House of the Seven Gables is so awesome it deserves its own post. I’m working on that post now and it will be up shortly. Moving along…

Post-house tour, we continued our exploration of downtown. There was supposed to be a Chocolate and Ice Sculpture Festival occurring but we saw no signs of it anywhere. Plenty of witch shops though. And crystal shops. Vampire shops. More witch shops. An Army-Navy supply store. A Harry Potter witch shop.

And then, in the midst of all the occult offerings, a cheese shop! If I can choose what form heaven takes, it will be The Cheese Shop of Salem. We perused. We sampled. We got recommendations from the cheese experts. Then we loaded up a basket and made our way back to the room for a Hotel Room Picnic.

We held our first HRP back in France where we raided a Parisian cheese shop and had an absolute feast in our room. Probably the second best meal we had the entire vacation. And now it’s becoming a fun tradition. We chose two cheeses, some olive oil crackers, a salami of some variety I don’t recall, chocolate, and a bottle of my favorite wine. Our room came equipped with a wine opener and some very fancy glasses. Couldn’t have planned it better.

Post-picnic we headed back out into the streets and into some more weird antique shops. After a time we were in need of a proper meal, so we made our way over to our favorite spot in the city: The Olde Main Street Pub.

You could probably Yelp a fancier restaurant or a hipper gastropub. You could make reservations at some white linen tablecloth establishment that requires a jacket. But none of it will beat the warm, cozy comfort of a small British pub with a cheery fireplace, old velvet pillows, and well-worn barstools. Especially on a winter’s night.

Mike ordered a pork dish, if I recall. I went with the classic steak tips. Add in a few pints of Guinness and some steak tips, you’ve got my definition of perfection.

With dinner wrapping early, we concluded our first day in Salem with a visit to Koto. Koto is a fantastic place if you are somehow torn between going out for sushi, going to a fancy cocktail bar, and watching a hardcore rock show. Here you can accomplish all three simultaneously. You can even have a scorpion bowl, because it’s your birthday after all and you deserve it.

And now, enjoy some bathroom graffiti from the Ladies room in Koto.

Then, after you’ve had your fill of liquor and death metal, you should definitely drag yourself back to your hotel room and have a lie down for a while.

Next up, Saturday, ice sculptures, and a trip to the Satanic Temple!