Halloween in Salem

Yes, I know it's pretty far past my trip, but it's still worth posting about.

Massachusetts was pretty good.  The conference, at least most of it, was interesting.  There were a few speakers who stood out as particularly dull, and helped me catch up on some sleep.  I presented my research during the poster session, and had a few people come up to ask me questions.  The tried to feed us snacks every few hours, I guess to make sure we weren't getting bored and let us stand up and stretch, and they also fed us lunch.

One night, for dinner, we went to Legal Sea Food with a group from the conference.  That place was awesome.  Very fancy food.  We had crab cake appetizers, and calamari.  The calamari comes in four varieties, with different sauces or cooking methods, and all were pretty good.  I had swordfish for dinner.  That is one tasty fish.  I'm kind of making myself hungry now, so I'll move on.

For Halloween, someone at the airport recommended we go to Salem and see all the stuff that's going on.  Salem has the biggest Halloween party you've ever heard of.  People from all over the state come dressed up in the coolest costumes.  I think some of the people I was with got some pictures, but I'm not sure.  The party is so big, they block off the streets for most of downtown so there is more room for people.  We saw 4 stages for bands to play, not that I recognized any of them, but they were cool.  All the witch museums are open, and I think they sold tickets to spend the night in some witch's house, but it just looked like a really old house to me.  The streets are packed with people.  I saw a lot of Jokers while there.  I also saw a very well done beetlejuice.  It gets pretty crazy, so they've got cops pretty much everywhere, probably not a night most of them enjoy, but it's good to see them around.  Oh, they also get out some carnival rides and food stands for the event.

Since I went there with my professor, we didn't stay very late.  As we were leaving, cars were in standstill traffic all the way back to the highway, and probably farther back on the highway, though I have no idea where they thought they'd park.  People had already filled up any parking lots, most of the streets, and even some small fields.

On Saturday, we decided to go out and do some sight-seeing.  We saw the Old North Church, where the lanterns were hung to signal Paul Revere, the Bunker Hill memorial, and we toured the USS Constitution, the oldest warship in the navy.  It still floats and works.  They even take it out a few times each year, but I think just around the harbor.  

On Sunday, one of the others wasn't feeling well, so we didn't do a whole lot.  We went to church, where I ran into a friend who recently moved to Boston.  That was definitely awesome.  After church, we went to the airport, and I played psp until we got on the flight and finally went home.