I will introduce various examples of Shimura varieties, and explain what some important classes of their compactifications are like. I will begin with complex coordinates, but when good theories of their integral models are available, I will also explain what they are like. The lectures will be for people who are not already familiar with these topics---for most of them, some willingness to see matrices larger than 2x2 ones should suffice. (I hope to allow simple factors of all possible types A, B, C, D, and E to show up if time permits. Nevertheless, it is not necessary to know beforehand what this means.)