Escape from Alcatraz...

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Woke up to a grey cloudy day with threatening rain, not the best day for a trip to Alcatraz but the city is so busy the next available trip is not for another 2 days...

Again we managed to pick one of the busiest weeks to visit the city, Fleet Week 2012 where the place plays host to 1000's of US navy personnel and their families, combined with the US ladies marathon, Columbus Day and again President Obama is in town (beginning to think he is following us...) so needless to say, everywhere is super busy.

Boarded the ferry across to "The Rock" and left a foggy grey city skyline behind. Took the audio tour of the cellhouse, narrated by former inmates and prison guards, gave a realistic yet eerie feel to the visit and certainly added an excellent atmoshphere, again a very worthwhile thing to put on the list of things to do here. Did some credit card damage in the souvenier shop and the caught the ferry back to the city.

In order to enhance my blog with photos I decided I needed a camera connector for the ipad, so a trop to the Apple store was in order! Caught the bus again, by this time over confident that we knew this place like the backs of our hands, only to end up in a less salubrious part of the city, complete with prostitutes, vagrants and mad people (or in San Fran "speak" - ho's, "bums" and "crazies)! Got the hell out of there and back on the bus to civilization!

Now I am a bit of a gadget geek and a tech head, so the Apple Store blew my mind, white and blue glass everywhere, 2 storeys of ipods, iphones, ipads and every accessory one could want and more....Alex was quite insistent that I wasn't leaving with a new iphone 5 but at least got to hold, cosset, fondle and stroke one....I think Alex would have preferred to hold, cosset, fondle and stroke one of the staff members as clearly only the beautiful people can work here!

Found my camera connector thingy and looked for the cash desk.....and looked again...and again...eventually had to ask one of the beautiful people where I could pay...right here said the Will Smith lookalike....I looked around for the hidden cash desk....but he actually meant I paid him, right there and then with his clever iphone swipey thing, swiped my card and emIled me the receipt! WTF we must get one of those for the office!

Alex prised me away from the sexy iphone 5 and out into the RAIN! Now I had previously popped into Walgreens for. few bits and pieces and walking to the bus stop my eco friendly brown paper bag started to disintigrate and items falling out the bottom... tried to get cab but the rest of the city had to same idea so that wasn't happening, so shoehorned ourselves on the busiest bus ever, clutching my soggy paper bag and hanging onto Alex for dear life on the twists and turns of the streets back to the hotel, brought a whole new meaning to "bag lady".

I must add a short note here to mention a homeless guy by the bus stop who had the cutest dog, a beautiful American Pit Bull called Mia who was the most gentle friendly dog ever, just emphasised that its the idiot irresponsible owners who give this beautiful breed such a bad name..anyway she was so beautiful, she earned. few dollars for her owner.

Cold, wet and tired, back to the hotel for takeaway food and channel surfing!

No escalators.

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