Sunday 18 March – Springfield, MA

It wasn’t until today that I had my first drive in the US. We borrowed Pete’s car and headed up the coast for 30 mins to Salem. No dramas, apart from the massive red light I went through, the result of a brief loss of concentration while not agreeing with Libe on where we were heading through Salem. Had one of the Boys in Blue (actually, it’s all black clothes over here) seen it and pulled me over, I would have trotted out the ‘foreigner’ excuse for sure.

Salem is famous as a witch country, thus that was the theme of the sightseeing there. Its has a very famous story of witches being tried and punished (sometimes executed) in the 17th century – which was the basis for the movie ‘The Crucible’.

Other movies have been set in these areas – in particular, two real good films ‘The Departed’ and ‘Good Will Hunting’ have both been set in South Boston (aka Southie). Southie was actually my destination for the night. Libe and Shirl set off back to Boston (Libe for the final time) on the Greyhound Bus at 6, and I headed to Berga and Hurley’s place in Southie for a little St Patricks day celebration. Berga was already kicking with the wind, while Hurley had seen better days when I walked in. The night ended with a feed with the usual suspects at Bertucci’s, a sub-standard Italian restaurant (Pete, Alice, Andrew, Becky... very familiar names).