San Francisco

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Today we had the last full day of our holidaying in San Francisco. It took us a while to get up and ready for the outside world after the night before!! We eventually left the hotel about 10.15. It was around this time that i realised my new £60 sunglasses purchased at the airport before leaving that had been a victim of the night before and i'd somehow lost them :-(

The day before we'd been lucky as when we were checking in some people had offered Kerry three bus passes. They were three day passes and they'd used the first day and half then were leaving to go home to LA so we got a bus pass each for free. We decided to go and see the Golden Gate Bridge in the morning then head over to Fishermans Wharf and Pier. 39 before going on our Alcatraz tour at 5.55pm. It was sunny in the morning but as we knew we'd be out all day we dressed sensibly (or so we thought!) After a huge walk we found the right bus stop, and got on the bus, turns out despite us getting on the right number it was the wrong one so the driver said she'd try and catch up to one. She did and told us to jump out and try get on the one in front which was stopped at lights. We ran up to the side and tried to get the attention of the driver to no avail. There was nothing else to do but a very British knock on the door! He then let us on.

We then had to change busses again and eventually got there with all the other tourists. It was very windy there but the view on the bridge was good. We hopped off took some photos and then had a wander in the gift shop. Steph and Kerry debated walking on it as I'd already said I wasn't bothered but they weren't bothered either. Yes it was a great sight but to be honest we joked that people wouldn't fuss about walking over the Severn bridge into Wales!! I'd also read that it could swing by 27 feet to accommodate the high winds in the area so that was another reason not to go on after my bridge moving incident in Chicago! I bought a hoodie in the gift shop with a few more bits then we headed back for the bus.

We found the queue to get the bus to Fishermans wharf and it was at this point Kerry announced she wanted to go back to the hotel to check on her passport as she'd been panicking she'd lost it. So we went our separate ways and me and Steph went for lunch whilst waiting for Kerry to join up with us later. Kerry joined us after putting her hands on her passport which was exactly where she thought it was and we wandered around for a bit as we had a couple of hours to kill. It was getting pretty windy and chilly by this point and we were starting to realise that actually we could have dressed even better or the Alcatraz trip later. Steph had brought a hoodie in her bag and Kerry had her leather jacket. I'd already got a hoodie on with three quarter length trousers and trainers with no socks whilst poor steph had flip flops on. We then spent some time in and out of shops and took up residence in a Starbucks which turns out had no toilet so had to pay 25 cents in a fast food place not far away for the loo! They actually had locks on the front of the doors with slots to put money in!

After that we started to walk down towards pier 33 where we were getting the Alcatraz ferry from. There were quite a few others milling around and some people stood in a standby in line. Apparently loads of people don't pre book and think they can just turn up and get on but it sells out days in advance. We'd pre booked ours a couple of months earlier so were ok. We queued to get on and managed to get seats on the lower inside floor as it was very cold by now. The trip across was a little choppy which made Kerry a bit queasy but we were soon rounding the island after about half an hour. We then offloaded and walked up to join a talk from one of the guides. We then went into the cell house and each got an audio tour. This was pretty good, it last 45 mins and guided you through the buildings. The narrators were people who had been correctional officers and there were also snippets from some ex inmates themselves.

I'd expected it to be very eerie and some parts were but its wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be. I thought I'd be jumpy but it wasn't that sort of atmosphere. We heard about the escape attempts and how for the correctional officers it was a good job, there was a waiting list to work there. Their families including children lived on Alcatraz too being shipped daily across the bay to school and back. I was surprised to learn the inmates were allowed to play baseball and other sports during recreational time. This seemed a bit strange to give a deadly criminal a baseball bat??! Also the guards were allowed watches or belts because they could be used as weapons but they had to wear ties as part of their uniform which again seemed a little weird.

The cells themselves were bare as you'd imagine. But they did have a bed, bedding, metal shelf like table, chair, their own sink and their own toilet. It was one to a cell so essentially it was their own private space. Some of the inmates painted and put pictures up and there was also a radio box in each room where they could plug earphones into one of two channels. Sometimes they could listen to baseball games??! It seemed more relaxed than I thought, I had visions of obituary confinement, no time outside the cell a bit green mile-esque but it seemed if they did what they were told and behaved they didn't have too bad a 'prison life'! Stories you hear about Thai prisons seem far far worse than Alcatraz.

By now it was freezing cold and the sun was going down and there were crows and seagulls circling ominously. All available items of clothing were on and we were counting the time down to getting the ferry at 8.40. We had a couple more talks including a story of the only person charged with escaping from Alcatraz even though he got found and sent back. He managed to get through some bars after using some butchers twine, grease and Ajax type powder over years which got through the bars. He also made it to the freezing cold waters in the bay and climbed out onto rocks by Golden Gate Bridge. Some random teenagers called the military police believing he was a person still alive after a failed suicide attempt off the bridge. He was treated and survived and they realised who he was and sent him back!

We got back onto the boat and once off the other end got a taxi to a FedEx building we'd been told about by the hotel where we could print our boarding passes off. Ironically our hotel looked on their own computer on the Internet right in front of us for where FedEx was and their opening times alongside their own printer. We then walked the ten blocks back stopping on the way to get a slice of pizza which was good :-) as soon as we got back we were tired and went straight to bed.

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