Day Eleven … Harvard, ❤️friends❤️ and Salem

Ian had told me last night that we would be able to have a slower start to the day but it didn’t really matter as we were both up and ready to go just after 8.00, so we headed down to breakfast (only a small one today as we were going out to lunch later) and then we headed off to Harvard University to explore yet another Ivy League campus.

Harvard is located across several blocks in Cambridge and is made up of many red brick buildings. They are old (not as in decrepit and run down) and the campus is steeped in history. Many of the buildings have names etched into them over doorways such as “Philosophy” or “School of Physical Sciences”. Access to the inside of the buildings is restricted to students and members of faculty via a security card so we were only able to wander around the outside. There are organised tours run by current Harvard students if you want some commentary but we were happy to just explore.

We did get to wander into one building - Aldolphus Busch Hall - designed by a German architect and built in 1917. It is the Germanic museum of Harvard and is the only museum in North America dedicated to the study of art from German speaking countries. It was glorious inside, had incredible acoustics, a beautiful painted domed ceiling and many gothic traits.

One other building that we tried to get into was the Memorial Hall. This is a massive high Victorian gothic building with a tower. It was built between 1870-1877. From the outside it looks like a church but it appears to hold a theatre and what we believe is the dining hall for the students who live on campus. It is incongruous to think that this grand building is now a dining hall!

We did try to access the library … of course we did … but again were not able to enter … sad face. We did get to go into the Fogg Museum of Art which, from the outside looks very historic, but the inside is more modern.

We came across a family of turkeys hiding out in one quadrangle of the campus. I think they were hiding away hoping they might survive the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday! One did give me a beautiful display of its wings as it stood up to greet us.

Leaving behind our tour of Harvard, we headed back to our car and drove into the wharf area of Boston again (back to the car parking facilities we had used yesterday) … we parked the car and headed into the Bostonia Public House for lunch. This was a very exciting moment for me as I was going to get to meet my dear friend Pam who I had met on a Facebook group (a jewellery page no less) right at the beginning of Covid. Pam lives in New Hampshire and when she heard we were coming to the NE USA she jumped at the chance to come and have lunch with us. (Boston is in Massachusetts, New Hampshire is the state to the north). We met Pam out the front, had big hugs and headed into the restaurant where we were shown to our table and then I had the shock of my life because darling Pam had been keeping a massive secret for weeks … that my other dear friend Dana and her husband Rich had flown all the way from Texas to also have lunch with us! 

So it was tears and hugs all round. Dana had kept that secret for weeks. She had told me ages ago that she would have liked to have come but family circumstances (a new grand baby) meant she wouldn’t be able to see me. So to see her sitting there and for Pam to have kept the secret … oh my heart. I call these two lovely ladies “My US Girls” and whilst non of us belong to that Facebook group anymore we chat all the time. So to be with them in person, to share hugs, to chat and to be together was very surreal. Quite a few times during lunch (and even now) I felt like I was having an out of body experience … I feel so incredibly blessed. We had a lovely time … a beautiful lunch … before we had some last hugs and went our separate ways. A moment I will never forget.

Ian and I decided to head north for the rest of the day to visit Salem. Pam had warned us that it would be really busy (October … Halloween … Saturday) but we thought we would go anyway. She was right! It was crazy! And very strange. Salem Common was like a Saturday market with stalls spread out across the park. If you wanted to by a skull, a witch’s cape and hat, some crystals or gothic jewellery … you were in the right place. For us … it was bizarre. People decked out in full witch costumes, groups wearing screen printed T-Shirts saying “Girls Weekend in Salem” or “They missed one in 1629” (when the witch trials and hangings occurred) or bikers with jackets bearing a tag “Witches Ride on Bikes not Brooms”. It wasn’t what we had expected. We had hoped to go and learn a little more about the witch trials but instead it was blocked off streets, loud music, food vans, haunted houses and carnival stalls.

We wandered up to the Salem Witch Trials Memorial which is described as a “somber memorial” featuring a series of stacked granite stones in memory of the witches hung in 1629. The memorial is somber … but when it is right next to the man on the loud hailer inviting everyone to venture in to the haunted house or the ghost walk it sort of loses some of its meaning and reverence. So we were disappointed in Salem. It had an “ick” feeling about it … it seemed wrong to belittle those who had suffered by turning it into a street fair. Maybe our timing was wrong, maybe we are too sensitive - but it left us both feeling out of place and the location lacking its true meaning.

So we left … and headed to a small peninsula called Salem Willows Park. Away from the crowds, this little area was once a bustling location for summer visitors. We completed an Ad Lab that took us to some of the special sites - an arcade (where I had my fortune read by Zoltan … yes I do need to stop overthinking things, stop worrying about things I cannot change and trust in my true self), an abandoned children’s ride called Kiddieland, a bandstand from the 1960s and a a small shop that has been running since 1897 that sells popcorn, taffy and homemade ice cream. At our final stop on the Ad Lab we came across a couple getting married in a small intimate ceremony with probably only about 15 people. It was super sweet!

Willow Park is lovely, surrounded by water and sea birds. It was quiet and serene. We took the opportunity to have our first ice cream of this holiday … purchased from E.W Hobbs where I chatted with the current family member who is running this place. It has been owned and operated by the same family for 4 generations. Inside it is still original equipment. She was very proud of her business (and the ice creams were delicious).

And so we ended our day … heading back to Boston in the busy busy traffic but managing to navigate it successfully. We ate a late dinner of leftovers from our meal last night, again sitting on one of the beds in the room having a mini picnic. It’s been a lovely day. A special day … one I will treasure.

Today’s tally …

Photos - 314

Steps - 13,195

Kms walked - 10.1 km

Kms driven - 100km (60 miles)

Ad labs completed - 1

Friends finally met and hugged - 2 (and a hug for Rich)