3rd Day in San Francisco—Eddie's Cafe, Alamo Square, Painted Ladies, Alcatraz, Pier 39

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Saturday, November 21

Saturday was a busy day, too. I was excited about visiting Alcatraz. To be honest, I really didn’t know much at ALL about Alcatraz—I just knew it used to be a prison, it was on an island, and I knew that people had tried to escape from it. Lol.

I woke up probably about 7:30 on Saturday, but Mom was still asleep. I knew she needed it, so I made sure to be extra quiet and just let her sleep however long. It’s not very often that she can sleep later like that…or even get a good night’s sleep in general. I got ready for the day so that by the time she woke up, we’d have a head start. I think she slept til about 9:30, which was great!

We didn’t need to be at our Alcratraz cruise til 1:00, so we had a few hours to spare. First stop was breakfast. I had googled restaurants that were close to a park called Alamo Square because I was hoping we’d have time to check out the area after we ate. Alamo Square is up on a hill and provides the best views of what they call the “painted ladies,” which are 7 Victorian houses lined up in a row. The painted ladies are a very popular tourist spot, AND they are featured on the opening credits to Full House. The Tanners are also shown having a picnic on top of the hill at Alamo Square, with the painted ladies in the background. Actually, now that I have been there and watched the opening credits again, there are LOTS of San Francisco tourist sites that are featured…even the crookedest street, Alcatraz (off in the distance), etc.

So I found a restaurant that was highly rated, called Eddie’s Café, which is like a block away from Alamo Square. We parallel parked across the street from Eddie’s (got this meter thing down now!) and got in the line that was formed along the sidewalk. Because apparently if it’s a good restaurant in San Francisco, there will be a line out the door. I noticed that that seems to be a trend. An Asian lady stood at the window inside the store, holding up fingers and trying to ask us all how many people we needed a table for. The line moved quickly, and then a man asked us if we were ok with sitting at the bar. We agreed to it, but Mom was very uncomfortable; she felt like she was sliding forward. So we switched seats, and it turns out that mine was better, so I let her have it. She was right…it did seem like you were sliding forward a bit. Lol.

I thought it was cool that they had all different kinds of mugs on the shelves behind the bar, which they used when people ordered coffee. It wasn’t just a generic white mug, as so many restaurants have. I thought this gave the restaurant a lot of character. If I ever had a restaurant, I would want to do this, too. As always, the restaurant was very small, and I’m sure it must be difficult to have 3+ people behind the little bar area—1 lady with a turquoise apron and matching turquoise eyeshadow was washing dishes, and a few others were busy delivering food, taking orders, etc. We strategically ordered our dishes so that we could share them, and the food was really good.

We went back to the car, and I checked my GPS to see how close we were to the park. As I was doing so, a man drove by and was honking at us to get our attention…he wanted our parking space. When I shook my head no, he looked kind of exasperated and quickly drove away. I did understand his frustration with parking, though. Once I realized just how close we were to the park, there was no way that I was going to give up our spot, especially since I had like 30 minutes left on the meter. Might as well keep the car there and head on over to Alamo Square. So I turned on my walking directions, and we started walking down the street, amazed by how close the Victorian houses are to each other. They are right up against each other, so your next door neighbor better be pretty quiet if you live in a Victorian home in San Francisco! Something seemed off…we were passing by streets with names I wasn’t expecting, and the GPS said we were getting further away. Ah, I should have learned already from the day before that the walking directions are just not reliable! We were walking in the wrong direction and had lost about 15 minutes and some of Mom’s energy. Man. So we walked back to the car and drove over to Alamo Square this time.

I temporarily parked the car on the hilly street so I could go take some quick pictures. Even had to use the emergency break, which is not an everyday occurrence! Started taking pictures when I realized that I had parked in an area that had not 1, not 2, but 3 “NO PARKING” signs posted. Not sure why I hadn’t noticed them at first, but I quickly moved the car to a safer and less illegal spot. I gotta say that parking the car in the next spot was even worse and actually a little scary! Had to…you guessed it…parallel park into a tight space, AND at a steep incline. Fun fun! I knew I had to be on my game with this one. Foot had to go directly from the break to the gas in like a fraction of a second as I maneuvered my way into the space, or else I was gonna either ram right into the car below me on the hill or back up into the car behind me going up the hill. It was a bit stressful. You know, another thing that I found a little scary was driving straight up a very steep hill the day before…as everyone knows, there are lots of hills in San Francisco, which is neat, but it also is a bit unnerving at the same time. This is why I purposely didn’t rent the very smallest car they had, because I was afraid of it being lightweight, with a small horsepower. You could just picture the car trying to go up the hill and then flipping backwards or something! Lol. Just made me feel better to rent a slightly bigger car (though still technically a compact).

I left Mom in the car as I went up the hill to get pictures where the Tanners had their picnic. Lol. One thing about traveling is when it’s time to get a picture of yourself, you always have to assess the people around you and figure out which person might be best able to take a picture for you. I noticed that many times throughout the trip, the person I chose had an accent. Not sure where they were all from, but clearly there are many foreigners who visit the city. We were definitely running out of time—by the time we left the area, it was a few minutes after 12:30, and we still needed to drive to and park near pier 33, (where our ferry/cruise was leaving from) AND walk up the pier by about 1:00.

We drove past the piers and ooh, look, a space right up front! As was often the case, I just had to quickly swerve into the spot, as I was in traffic, and there were cars driving directly behind me. I tried to parallel park without doing it the proper way because I didn’t feel like there had been enough room at the time to do so, with cars driving past. So I was just backing up and pulling forward, backing up and pulling forward. Wasn’t working very well, and I was already embarrassed and frustrated, so I finally got Mom to switch places with me so that she could do it. After all of that, this street artist told us that if we parked there, we would get towed. Turns out that the curb right there was painted red (no parking), which meant that we had to go find another spot and start ALL OVER AGAIN. Lol. Ahhhh. By this point, we were really running out of time. So Mom grabbed her stuff, and I left her there so we could spare her the walking. I was now on a mission…mission impossible, really. Where to park, where to park. Saw a parking garage by pier 39 and was going to give that a go when I noticed the prices. $9/hr? Maximum of $45/day??! Thanks, but NO thanks.

If I didn’t get back to pier 33 in time, the boat might leave without us! I already paid for our tickets…would they even let us go at the next time slot?? The ticket specifically said to arrive 30 minutes prior to departure.

Saw a space in front of a hotel, and it looked like it might work out for me! This one didn’t say that you had to be a guest at the hotel. I was about to try to pay the meter when I saw 3 young guys walking down the sidewalk. Figured I better get their opinion before I just left our car and hoped for the best. He pointed out some signs that were at the bottom of the meter, which apparently stated that I could not park there (since I was not a delivery truck). I needed to find a meter with a silver top, he said. This was definitely helpful information, and I’m glad I asked, but I still had no parking spot, and time was running out. Right around this time, I just felt like…you know what…I think I’m going to find a parking spot in time. God always ends up working stuff out, and I just felt like He would again this time.

Drove around a bit more and spotted someone about to pull out of a spot! Wouldn’t you know it, another car got to it before I did. Luckily I got another spot close by, but I wanted to make sure it was ok to park there, so I asked a construction worker right across the street from me lol. Not that he was an expert on parking, but the fact that he thought it was ok made me feel more at ease. And off I went to meet up with Mom!

While I was off on my parking adventure, Mom was having her own issues down at the pier. We had both noticed that there was a dog who was tied up and barking/whimpering over by pier 33, and so while I was parking, Mom went over to the dog to see if it was ok. Apparently its young owner came up and fussed at Mom and told her to leave his dog alone, that he was working and his dog was fine. How rude. Right as I found her, the guy was walking by and apologized to her. I didn’t even know the story yet…the incident hurt her feelings, and maybe it’s better that I wasn’t there when it happened! Lol. I would have been angry that he talked to her like that. But at least he had the decency to apologize later.

So after all that drama, we got in line at pier 33, joining a bunch of other people who were waiting to get on the ferry. Yay, we weren’t too late! I don’t think either of us had been on a ferry since we rode one in Liverpool, on a “ferry cross the Mersey” haha. Funny thing was, though, that her experience was in 1973 and mine was in 2009. We have a bunch of weird similarities like that, where our lives have mimicked each other’s. Or should I say my life or circumstances have mimicked hers, since she’s older.

Anywho, we arrived at Alcatraz in about 15 minutes, and I already knew we would be taking a little cart/train/tram/whatever that was for people with physical limitations. See, walking up the steep hills at Alcatraz is the equivalent of walking up a 13-story building, which Mom is not able to do, so luckily they have that option. We got our little headphones for the audio tour and mostly walked around what they call the cell house, where all the old prison cells, library (yes, they had a library), administration office, showers, and dining hall are located. Some of the people who narrated it were either former prisoners there or worked at the prison back in the day.

The island started being used as a military fortress in the 1850s, and military prisoners were housed there. In the early 1900s, they tore down some stuff, and the current prisoners at the time built a new prison on the grounds. Imagine building the prison that you know you will be housed in. Kind of weird. Doesn’t seem like you would have much pride in your work. Or maybe you would so that you’d have a nice place to live. In any case, from the 1930s-1960s, it was used as a federal prison. Basically the worst criminals/inmates were sent there, those that wouldn’t behave at other prisons or who were violent or “escape risks.” Al Capone was probably one of the most famous, if not the most famous inmate who was there. And there were quite a few attempted escapes at Alcatraz. They told the story of 3 men (2 of them were actually brothers) who had escaped…they actually used materials to make fake heads to put on their pillows, making it look like they were really in bed, but in fact, they had pried the vents open with spoons or something and got out that way. They were never actually seen again. Some say that they probably died in the water while trying to swim, and some say that they might have fled to South America. Apparently they had all been trying to learn Spanish for a while before their escape. Who knows. There was a bunch of other stuff that happened there…maybe someday I will read some books about it.

And there are way more buildings on the island than just the cell house. There was this mansion (that partially burned down in the 1970s) where the prison wardens used to reside, there’s a lighthouse, a military chapel, etc. Back in the day, some of the correctional officers’ wives and kids used to live on the island, and people didn’t lock their doors! You would think with hundreds of prisoners on the island, they would have wanted to lock their doors. Lol. But yeah, some kids at least partially grew up on the island. Visiting Alcatraz was something I really looked forward to, so I’m glad we went.

We were there for a few hours, and by the end of it, Mom was very tired and dehydrated. Things pretty much just went downhill from there til the rest of the trip, as far as the way Mom was feeling. I had been searching and searching for a place to eat on my GPS, some place that was very close by and reasonably priced. Didn’t seem to be having much luck. Finally decided on this one seafood place, and I didn’t realize it was almost all the way down pier 39, so it was a good little walk. Mom wasn’t in a good way by this point, and so had I known it was that far down, we would have gone somewhere else. I was trying to stick close to pier 39 because there was going to be a Christmas tree lighting that night, and I thought it would be cool to see. We ended up eating at a place called Swiss Louis, and the entrée was pretty good but still expensive (thank goodness we split it). I knew Mom would get a little revived after eating, so she was somewhat better after that. As we were walking down the pier, we saw the pretty sky during sunset, the boats, and the sea lions (barely noticed them, though, since it was getting dark). And we did end up seeing the Christmas tree all lit up. There were tons of people out there.

Even though it was further to walk, we ended up going to the car together. First of all, my phone had just died, and second, it would not have been an easy task to come back to the pier area and pick her up...due to the traffic, the pedestrians, and the darkness. Fortunately, the car was still where I put it! Lol. This concludes our 3^rd day in San Francisco.

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