Day 4 - San Francisco

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Well, today didn't start out the best. Bren had the toothache from Hell and it was pretty clear that she had to visit a dentist. Fortunately we found one close by that could see her at 9.00am. Whilst she was in the "murder house", Steve took the girls window shopping downtown. They managed to find the one and only Halloween shop in SF and wanted to spend all their money in one hit. The masks and props were simply amazing - almost like those in the movies. The Americans are so into Halloween! In the meatime, the dentists did their magic and Bren returned with a smile on her face and a tooth in her pocket.

After lunch we made our way on foot into Chinatown to catch a bus to the Expolartarium out in the Marina District. This hands on kids science museum is housed in a beautiful round old Roman style building and is really huge. We managed to spend a few hours playing with black magnetic sand, huge bubbles, learning how we hear and feel, how a motor works etc etc etc. Jordi was in her element!

Caught the bus back to Fishermans Wharf and had Hotdogs and Chowder for tea before joining our night time cruise / tour of Alcatraz Island. Luckily we had bought our tickets online about a month ago as there were lines and lines of people waiting and the tour was sold out. Before boarding we were herded like sheep, yelled at for looking the wrong way, had our tickets checked three times before getting on the boat at 6pm. We had an easier time going thru customs in LA. When we arrived on the Island, we were again herded into groups of about 50 "guests" for an all-American presentation on the history of Alcatraz by Park Ranger John. Very sterotypical of me - but it's true.

The best part was the audio tour included in the ticket price. We all got MP3 players and headphones which had ex guards and prisoners talking about their time at Alcatraz, about the living conditions and one of the daring escape attempts. This lasted about an hour and was really worthwhile and interesting. We also got to see an amazing sunset over the city of San Francisco and hopefully the photos will do it justice.

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