Witches, Broomsticks & Pirates....oh my!

This year was the first time in 10 years that I had the chance to take my birthday off from work. Before this year, we just didn't have the office coverage in the summer to be able to have such little perks, but this year we do and I took advantage (Thanks Char)! I didn't HAVE to take the day, but I chose too.

Since I declared to my boss that I was taking the day, the next step was to figure out what to do. So, I called my mom and asked her if she wanted to head to Salem, MA for the day? We were suppost to go last year, but never got a chance.

Yesterday morning, we hoped in the car and started our adventure. Then just under 2 hours we arrived in the town that put witches on the map.

Our first stop, the Witches Dungeon. It was there we took advantage of a package deal to see a few "museums" in the area that spoke about the town's history. It was a little building that held a little stage for a live reenactment of a witch trial and then a dungeon in the basement. The dungeon was filled with wax figures, but we got the idea. Here's an interesting fact....people who were imprisoned had to pay to be there, their food, their shackles, their buckets to relieve themselves, etc. If they couldn't afford to pay and it came upon their release date, the prisoners were kept there until their families paid for them or they paid with extra imprisonment time.

Lock her up & throw away the key (Just Kidding Mom)

The next stop on the tour was the Witch History Museum. This was a walk through of witch hysteria history that started in Salem. The story was told by wax figures in a 1600's setting in a freeze frame of each important detail.

The cheesy rendition of the Salem hangings of innocent people

The final stop in the tour package was the New England Pirate Museum. I don't know why this would be in the package of museum tours because the town is all about witches, but maybe since we were by the water or there was some sort of theory during the coordination of the tours that they were connected, but who knows. Again, this was another walking guided tour, but with pirate wax figures showing the history of pirates not only in New England, but in the world. *Each museums wax figures were very weird and hokey looking, but they told the stories just fine*.

I was told this wasn't Johnny Depp, dang it!

Between each museum stop we also did some shopping. They have the cutest and quaintest little shops in that area. They have shops ranging from serious witch supplies for potions all the way down to souvenir shops for the area.

Also, while we were walking around I noticed a store front offering tarot, psychic, crystal ball, aura and many other readings. I looked at my mom and said, since I'm here there isn't a better place to get a reading done. I never had an official reading done and of course no idea what kind I had wanted. So, over the next few hours I had decided to go with a tarot reading. After searching for a shop that had a "reader' in for the day, I found a cute little shop called Angelica of the Angels and signed myself up.

I borrowed this picture since I couldn't take photographs during the reading.

I'm not going to bore you with all the details of my reading, but it was pretty interesting. I tried not to give her too many details so she couldn't feed off my answers, but on several occasions she brought things up that were true and I hadn't even said a word about the situation. For instance, she saw in my cards that I was getting a raise and it was quite sudden. So, I thought it was pretty interesting for my first reading.

If you are ever in the Salem, MA area and is interested in the town and the history of its people, definitely stop by. We did it in a day, but we could have stayed longer to see everything the city has to offer (and not just witchcraft stuff either).