The Proposal and The Point.

On Sunday April and I took a train ride over to Rockport Mass, which is where the film "The Proposal" was... filmed. (That is the reason for my blog title- I am not engaged, contrary to what many facebook hackers would try to get you to believe.) Rockport was such a relaxing place, right on the coast and just full of little shops and amazing views. I had my very first lobster roll at this little shack of a place, but they had a deck out the back that you could just go sit on and watch the water. I am so glad we went there after the craziness of New York. We wandered around for a couple hours, meeting shop owners. We talked to a lady that had just opened up a used book store and was selling her husband's book collection. Every couple days he would come into the store, look around, and usually take back 5 or 10 books that he wasn't ready to part with. We found this cool store with things from all over the world- some really random. They had little noisemakers that sound like a thunderstorm, all sorts of interesting instruments, whistles shaped like owls- you name it! April found some cute earrings made from shells, and I found this awesome ring with a huge turquoise stone- but the stone is lime green instead of the normal turquoise color. The guy bought it last time he was in Nepal. After a relaxing morning we headed off to the train to spend the afternoon in Salem.

Salem was an interesting place. Not necessarily good interesting. Here's how it started- When we were walking from the train station towards the city center, April found this cute consignment store that had some really fun clothes. Well, if you know anything about me, I can only stand clothes shopping for about as long as it take you to read this sentence. Unless you're a slow reader. So as she picked out a few dresses to try on, I wandered down the street. Every other store was either a place you could get your fortune read, Tarot cards or a magic shop. I walked into a shop called "The Black Cauldron" and started looking around, and I immediately regretted that decision. The whole feeling in the place was just kind of dark, and it smelled. But the owners were watching me so I tried to wipe the scowl off my face and silence my screams just until I could make an inconspicuous, albeit hasty, exit. As I was walking around the shrunken heads past the burning incense display, a woman walked in and inquired as to whether or not they needed a Tarot card reader. She was willing to give them a free demonstration. Her name, if you couldn't guess, was Willow. The owner regrettably could not afford one in this economy, but gave her a free sample of some lavender liquid that they were overstocked on, and they sat there for a minute debating the accuracy of Ouija boards vs. Tarot cards. 

After escaping, I decided the only place that was safe to go in alone was the Hallmark store. I bought my usual t-shirt and deck of cards and headed back out on the open street. By now April was done and we could do some real exploring. After stopping by a few museums- each one telling us why the other museum was better and why they wouldn't spend money to take family where there were working, we ditched the museum idea and set off to find the home that House of Seven Gables was based on. We were following signs that led us through town and trying to follow the map so we wouldn't get lost. Well, another thing most people know about me is my uncanny sense of direction. We had been walking for a while and noticed there weren't any more museums, stores, or- more importantly- law enforcement. Also started getting a little nervous after we passed "Lynch Street." After checking the map we doubled back and headed towards the town center again. As we turned around we saw a homeless woman pushing a shopping cart down the middle of the road. She stopped a few feet from us and asked "Are you tourists?" I'm not sure what gave us away, the bags and bags of souvenirs or the map that was never more than a few inches from our nose- but we responded kindly saying yes we were. Her eyes got bigger and she started telling us that this was not a place for tourists. This is "THE POINT" and you can just tell by the name what happens there. After she assured us that we would be gruesomely murdered if we hung around, we decided to high tail it back to the safe zone. Not necessarily because of The Point, but because she was crazy.

We continued on our trek and stopped for some ice cream. The 2 girls working there were really nice, and we mentioned that it was kind of funny that there was a "Lynch Street" and that we met this weird homeless lady.  They both immediately stopped smiling, looked at each other and said "Wait, Lynch Street, isn't that in The Point?"  then looked back at us with wide eyes and said "DO NOT go back there! Stay out of that area!" So now we were a little freaked out thinking that the homeless lady wasn't really that crazy and maybe we had been in danger. These girls verified her story that we would, in fact, have been murdered if we stayed around there. Anything bad that happens in Salem happens in The Point. We thanked them for the ice cream and headed out again. We got to the House of Seven Gables just in time for the last tour, and wouldn't you know it- our tour guide was a medium. April asked if he's had any experiences in the house, and he said he didn't get any reading from the one we were in at the moment, but across the courtyard was the house that Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in- they had moved the entire house so it would be next to the House of Seven Gables. The guide said he had a few 'feelings' in the attic of that house. He told us about the most haunted place in town and mentioned a few things that had happened there- freaky stuff. He then mentioned this creepy cemetery a few blocks away, and for some reason we decided to go see it. It really was a scary little place. The headstones were all crooked and breaking, and the sun was starting to go down so it just added to the overall dark feeling there.

We left the cemetery and headed back to get some dinner. By now most of the stores were closed, and that meant the locals were out wandering the streets, and... I think the nicest way to say this, is it was very obvious we weren't in Idaho anymore. Between the mediums, the wickens and the transvestites April and I felt out of place. We stopped for some pizza at Upper Crust- by now the sun had gone down but we still had about an hour and a half until the train left for Boston, and we were getting a little worried about walking to the edge of Salem and waiting at a dark, empty train station.  After mentioning to the cashier that we accidentally wandered into The Point (and seeing her panic as she flailed her arms and told us never to go there again) we were assured that we would be ok walking by ourselves.

After finishing dinner, we sat on a bench DIRECTLY across the street from 2 police cars, just to be safe, and tried not to people watch because that just made us more nervous, and actually ended up going and talking to one of the police officers to see if he thought it was ok for us to walk in the dark to the train station. He chuckled and said we had no need to worry and that it was perfectly safe. But he also said The Point wasn't anything to worry about, either, so not sure how much stock to put in his opinion. But we did eventually make it back to Boston, so there is that.

Up next- Washington D.C.!