San Francisco

We departed the motor coach deep in the heart of San Francisco at World Famous Fisherman’s Wharf. With no accommodation booked we headed to the pay phone on Pier 39 to make some calls. After calling 5 or 6 fully booked hostels we came across a hostel with some availability for all 4 nights. Following instructions we boarded a tram and headed into downtown. Immediately after leaving the waterfront followed the plush hotels and the high-rise towers of the business district. Following that we slipped through a crack in the space-time vortex and entered hell! In the space of one block the area changed from spotless city slickers to squalid city slums. Drug-driven hoboes and the mentally ill literally lined the streets. High street shops turned into DSS welfare centres, pawn shops and porn shops. As we headed deeper into oblivion the surroundings only got worse. As our stop approached we hatched a plan, this could pretty much be summed up as ‘what ever happens, don’t f**king stop!’
We disembarked on the edge of the Castro, the gay district of the city. Nightclubs and bars aimed at the homosexual community lined the street, our challenge now to navigate past these without being accosted and pulled inside. After a 10-minute walk we arrived at the hostel. A small grotty place which suited its surroundings well; we felt like prisoners, trapped till daylight, our very own Alcatraz.

In the morning we headed quickly out of the Castro and back to the sanctuary of the waterfront. We started by exploring the Ferry Building that was full of shops and market stalls. We moved on then to the famous Pier 39, here we explored the shops, arcades and restaurants as well as paying a visit to the Seals that have become permanent residents of the floating wooden boat moorings. We moved along Fisherman’s Wharf, meandering past the fish markets and seafood restaurants until we came across the Cannery. Here we stopped and listened to some live music performed by local artists, the quality of which was very good.

After more promenade shops inside the converted Ghirardelli’s chocolate factory we made our way up the steep San Francisco streets to Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world. From here we headed to the Cable Car Barn, the home of the machinery that powers the under street cable for the famous San Francisco Cable Cars.

A short walk and we were in the heart of Chinatown, resembling most Chinatowns from any other metropolitan city, the individuality was a little lost, however the wonderful assault on the senses still remained. Hidden deep in the centre of Chinatown was the factory which first created the fortune cookie. Inside two women work continuously in claustrophobic conditions to create the now famous fortune cookie.

That evening we dinned at the Stinking Rose, a garlic restaurant whose tag line is ‘we season our garlic with food’. The restaurant sells garlic soup, garlic wine, and garlic ice cream. I had garlic soup to start, followed by a garlic pasta dish and even attempted the garlic ice cream for dessert. Upon leaving the Stinking Rose we crossed the street and entered a New Orleans style jazz bar. Inside the atmosphere was very relaxing and the music was great to chill-out too, just what we needed before running the gauntlet back through Beelzebub’s forgotten cesspool to our hostel.

The following day we embarked upon a ride on one of the famous Cable Cars, travelling the entire distance between Hyde and Powell. I hung off the front of the car in prime position. It was a nice way to travel. Once we arrived at Fisherman’s Wharf we hired bikes with the intention to cycle the Golden Gate Bridge. As soon as we set off my knee flared up. The pain was excruciating and only got worse as we got further into the ride. Like any good Sid James film I carried on regardless, albeit, to Bens annoyance, at a much reduced pace.

Riding across the Golden Gate Bridge was an exhilarating experience; the bridge is an impressive structure and provided splendid views across the San Francisco Bay. Once across the Bridge we cycled all the way to Sausalito and back. By the end of the trip I was in a hell of a way, unknowingly I had severely burnt my arms in the sun and the damage I had inflicted upon my knee would take me 10 weeks to recover from.

Our final day in San Francisco also marked the final day of the travel adventure. Although we still had New York City to come, the arrival of the girlfriends meant that the rough cheap hostel life style, which we had been living for the past few months, would come to an end, and a more luxurious holiday style vacation would begin.
We therefore had to make it a good day, we had to go out with a bang, do something extra special, something we would never forget, a permanent reminder to the entirety of the trip; so what did we do? We spent the day shopping in HMV!

To lighten the day we were entertained by a very ingenious tramp who claimed to be a lead guitarist from a local rock band and who happened to be invited to a charity pop concert and who happened to have some spare tickets. Ben adamant he had heard of the band was taken in by the hobo’s charm and we spend 30 minutes engrossed in conversation about music and the charity event which included such headline acts as U2, Metallica and Green Day. Ben was sold I was less then convinced in fact I just wanted to walk away. Like a child in some kind of store (reference from The Simpson) Ben couldn’t just walk away in case the crazy fool was actually telling the truth, so we followed him to a phone where he made a call and then to the entrance of a hotel, which he claimed he was staying in. At this point I made the excuse that we had to get cash out and would meet the guy again in 5 minutes. This gave us enough time to log onto the internet at the local Apple store and check out whether what this guy was saying was actually correct.
Needless to say he was Busted, not only could we not find one reference to this guy or his band or even the charity concert but, Metallica were supposedly on tour in Austria that night and couldn’t possibly be playing in San Francisco.

By mid-afternoon we had walked back to Pier 39 and spent time exploring some of the fun and unique shops situated here. For Dinner we ate at an all you can eat Pizza Buffet restaurant positioned at the end of Pier 39.

To conclude the trip we had lined up a real treat; a night trip to Alcatraz the notorious prison facility and civil war fort.
I love Alcatraz; I love the history and uniqueness of this institute. I love the stories of prison life, the escape attempts, and the notoriety of its inmates. I love the fact Nick Cage and Sean Connery have filmed ‘The Rock’ on location here. Now I was like a child in some kind of store.

I have on a previous visit to San Francisco explored the Rock, however that was on a day trip, the night trip is much more exclusive and provides additional talks and tours.
We boarded the boats for the short journey across the bay, we listened inventively to the safety talk “There is no place to purchase food on Alcatraz, it may be a couple of hours before you can eat again! Buy your food here now!”

The boat firstly encircled the island allowing us to get a good view of every part of the facility. We then de-boated, or for those not fluent in American argot, - disembarked. The tour continued up the steep slops towards the prison block entrance, passing through the deadly Guardhouse and Sally Port, the only remaining Civil War feature still standing.

At the top of the island stands the lighthouse, and the charred remains of the Warden’s House, accidentally set alight by Native American Indians in 1970 when they occupied the Island claiming it as there own Indian preserve. The American Government, shortly after the fire, evicted the trespassers and made plans to turn the facility into a tourist attraction.

The Cellhouse, which stands proud at the top of the Island, pays tribute to its time as a prison facility. Firstly as a military prison and later, in1934 as a high-profile Federal prison. The prison, eventually closed down in 1963 by Robert Kennedy after a series of escape attempts, was made famous by the inmates who lived here. These included Robert Stroud the ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’, ‘Machine Gun Kelly’ and Al ‘Scarface’ Capone.

Inside the prison building we participated in the audio tour of the Cellhouse, before being fortunate enough to be allocated two of the 20 slots on the special infirmary tour, in the upper part of the building. This was not only the place where Al Capone spent his last days alive but also where Jerry Bruckheimer filmed a large portion of the film ‘The Rock’. The bath Connery’s character, John Mason, dives into to avoid a grenade explosion, is still situated here. As well as the fake blood of Ed Harris, spayed onto the ceiling of the infirmary, when his own men shoot him.

The tour of Alcatraz marked the conclusion of our trip the following morning we were set to fly to perhaps the greatest city in the world, New York where we would rendezvous with Nicky and Zoe and properly see out our American Journey.

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