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Published: November 3rd 2008
I arrived back in San Francisco after a 7 hour bus journey through the desert just in time to go on the pub crawl that the USA Hostel organise. They worked out a deal with each of the bars for half price drinks or 2for1's which to really took advantage of resulting in nasty hangovers for the next days sightseeing.
I have been collecting points from a company called ipoints for a couple of years and I managed to pay for 2 tickets to Universal Studios and 2 Alcatraz/City tours with them.
I think Alacatraz is probably the biggest tourist attraction in San Francisco so it was quite full of people. You can stay on the Island all day if you want, but as we had to get back for a city tour we only had time to do the Audio tour of the main cell house. The tour was quite interesting they tell you about the famous inmates like Al Capone, "The Birdman" Robert Stroud and George "Machine Gun" Kelly. They also tell you about what life was like inside the prison for the inmates, the guards and their families and also a bit about the escape attempts.
The Isolation cells in particular looked pretty grim.
We did the city tour in the afternoon, I wouldn't have done it if it didn't come with the Alcatraz tour, but it turned out to be pretty interesting with the highlight being a trip up to Twin Peaks, massive hill overlooking the whole city. For me, the most interesting part was the drive back to the hotel seeing all the people dressed up for Halloween party's mixed with people on their way home from work.
The Hostel held a big Halloween party that night, they take it so much more seriously than we do in the UK. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves, I can't believe how much effort had been put into some of the costumes. They had free beer on as well which resulted in another hangover the following day for catching the train up to Portland where I am now. It's a hell of a lot colder than California, might have to buy something more substantial than a hoody.
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Tom
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Hiya Doug. Cheers for the birthday message (well remembered for someone half way across the world!) Have been enjoying your blog from the US - reckon you should write a book when you get back. Enjoy the elections! Tom