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Salem, Mass and what turned out to be the worst ghost tour in the history of ghost tours

On Friday I hopped back on the T and ventured up to meet NPW for lunch.  Oh my goodness, people, I was SO excited!  I absolutely adore her and couldn’t wait to bask in her geek-loving ways.

She is just as fabulous in real life as you would suspect form her blog.  Seriously.  Delightful.  We laughed and chatted over burgers and sweet potato fries–something I feel I need more of in my diet.  We wandered around Chinatown and Bunker Hill for a while and then went to meet OPH at the train station.

First order of business, after a general squeeing-ness from all parties involved, (ZOMGoodness!!  NPW!  OPH!  NPW! OPH!  Squeeeeeeee!!)  was to meander down to the North End, the Italian District, for a cannoli from Mike’s Pastry.

Now, I feel I need to stop for a minute here.  Just the night before Janssen, Bart & I had gone to Mike’s Pastry.  We had both hear from various sources that Mike’s Pastry was the place to go in Boston for dessert.  On Thursday night we braved the cold and rain and traffic and crazy Boston streets for pastry.  That’s right, pastry.  But not just any pastry, Mike’s cannoli’s are little pieces of heaven that are wrapped up in boxes by frightening looking employees and the whole store is general chaos surrounded by neat piles of chocolate covered this and ricotta stuffed that.  People–Mike’s Pastry will change your life, my favorite is the Ricotta Florentine dipped in chocolate.  Get ye hence and pastrify!

Ok–enough about the girly, frilly “squee” events and the dessert…let’s talk about Ghosts.

Salem, Massachusetts.  Home of hundreds of ghost stories, creepy history, witches, warlocks, probably a were-panther or two…ya know, Super Creepy Haunted Stuff.

Apparently, our tour guide either a) didn’t know a thing about Haunted Stuff or b) cannot tell a ghost story to save his sorry life.   People, there is a ghost story and then there is dry, unrelated facts being cobbled together to pass as a cliff’s notes version of a kindergarten ghost story complete with insane hyperboles and completely bogus claims.  Just because every Sheriff of Salem has passed away from heart-related problems does not mean Giles Corey’s death-bed curse came true…but it may have a lot to do with the fact that heart disease is the leading killer in the nation.  I dunno, maybe I’m way off base here.  Anyone else see an undeniable correlation between “Damn you Sheriff I curse you and Salem!” and heart disease?

…I didn’t think so.

At any rate, back to the tour.  We were supposed to bring our cameras, turn the flash on, and magically ghosts would appear in our photos.  Something about orbs being the haunted spirits of Salemites of old.  Okay, so Tour Guide Jeff would provide the haunted places and the stories and my little Cannon point-and-shoot would provide the rest.  I kept my camera in-hand ready to shoot.

No Ghosts.  I got nothin’ except Tour Guide Jeff’s shiny mug.  Quite disappointing, really.  I tried again at our second location, determined to capture a ghost.  When I first looked at this pic I was ecstatic that I had caught three ghosts on film!  Or, pixels, rather.  However, on closer inspection this whole “orb’s are ghosts” thing turned into a complete hoax, as I have carefully and scientifically detailed here for your perusal and judgement.

I was sorely disappointed.  After this point OPH, NPW and I got really frustrated with Tour Guide Jeff’s lame analogies, bad story-telling skills and all around lack of creepiness.  We were in Salem, Massachusetts for heaven’s sake!  Wandering around the cemetery!  Where was the scariness!?!  All three of us had the distinct impression that our $13 dollars for, and I quote, “The Third Best Ghost Tour in the Country, featured on The Travel Channel” was a bit of  a waste.

Tour Guide Jeff told badly correlated stories about the cemetery, the quasi-catacombs that we couldn’t see, the areas of town he wouldn’t take us to, the people we’d never heard of, and the curses that never could be verified.  It was an evening of “never’s”, quite disappointing.

We actually left early…I couldn’t handle his blatantly wrong information about vampire’s a second longer.  Firstly, the only reason he’s talking about vampire’s is because of the Twilight/Vampire craze…there were no vampires in Salem.  Ever.  Talk about a bad case of capitalism.  Secondly, he got the whole story wrong to start with.  Bram Stoker probably rolled over in his grave, several times.

Tour Guide Jeff made sure to let us know that all the pictures of ghosts taken on his tour on their free website.  He really drove home the fact that the website was free.  Frankly, I was offended that he thinks I’m the type of girl who always pays to see pictures online.  Hrmph.

Moral of the Story:  Salem is full of cool, creepy things.  But make sure you DO NOT go on the Vampire & Ghost Tour from Spellbound Tours, it is a waste of money, boring like you could not believe, and not a single ghost to be seen.  Maybe try the candlelight tour, or just wandering around in the dark by yourself.  I’m sure you’ll have a better scare.

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