When my sister came to visit – June 2016

After three months of living in California, I finally had a visitor, my sister! Hope she felt special because she was my very first visitor (also guinea pig). We decided to do Alcatraz while she was here and I organised the tickets three months in advance. On the day, we got up ridiculously early for a Sunday and took the train to the city. On our way to the boat, we stopped for coffee at Fisherman’s Wharf.

It was dead. I’ve been here before when there was a mosh pit outside the coffee place you see on the left. From there, we went to meet the Alcatraz boat.

The boat ride is so short, I think about 12 minutes? Enough time to get some pictures of the view.

The funny thing is that the previous three pictures were taken within seconds of each other. Can you believe the fog on the Golden Gate bridge but it’s absolutely clear across the city. Welcome to San Francisco!

Here is my first look at Alcatraz.

We docked the boat and got a talk about the facilities and tours available. At which point I saw this sign.

Personally I felt that there were a whole lot of mixed signals. But it turns out Alcatraz was first used as a military post during the civil war. It was then turned into a prison during Prohibition. After it was closed down, in the 60s, Native American Indians occupied the island for two years in protest against the American government. This I learned in a video however when they started talking about the gardens and the unique ecosystem present on Alcatraz, we took it as our cue to leave.

However, on our walk to the Alcatraz prison building we saw..

Arriving at the prison, we got the free audio tour and set about learning about the prison. First prisoners were stripped down and showered.

The stalls in the shower were removed for safety reasons (Ugh!). Then you get dressed.

The tour then takes you around the prison showing you all the cells and features of the prison.

Along the tour you learn that no guns were allowed on the floor of the prison. They were all kept in the gun gallery.

Not sure if you can see in the previous picture, there is a key that hangs down from the gun gallery. This is the key to open all the cells.

People in the gun gallery would pass the key to the guards below and when finished, it would get passed back up. Story goes, prisoners made a makeshift bar spreader, scaled up the wall to the gun gallery, got through the bars and overpowered the guard. They got the key and attempted to escape. I think several guards and prisoners died that day. Those in the conspiracy who still lived were put to death.

Next we saw how the prisoners tried to make their cells more homey. Some took up knitting.

Some painted.

But they were always faced with this view.

Meanwhile outside the building, near where the offices of the guards were …

I think it would drive me crazy if I was a prisoner and saw how close I was. They said that regularly throughout the year, they would be able to hear people partying, for instance on New Year’s Eve.

We finished the tour and decided to head back to the boat.

On the boat going back to the mainland, I just had to get another picture of the Golden Gate Bridge under fog.

Once on the mainland, we had to hike to lunch. Another word to describe San Francisco, steep. Very very steep.

We managed to find a lovely Italian place in North Beach. And boy did we need those carbs.

Once we were fortified, we decided to get our tourist on. We weren’t far from Lombard St and so we decided to walk there. Now that I’ve done that, I’m never doing it again.

I learnt recently that the reason Lombard street is so crooked is because decades ago, residents on this street couldn’t make it up the hill without their cars stalling. So they changed Lombard street and made it more manageable. Nowadays though, since becoming a tourist attracting, going down the hill is a nightmare anyway.

The view is great though.

Once done, we walked a little ways away to catch an uber to our next tourist destination. The following picture is me trying to convey how steep the streets are.

We decided to see the 16th avenue tiled steps. However, I think we had put the address in wrong and so it took some wandering to find the steps. While we wandered, I managed to take some pictures of the fog coming into San Francisco.

Okay, those were absolutely the last pictures regarding the fog. And yes, we managed to find the steps.

At this point, we decided that we had done enough sightseeing and headed home (thankfully!).

We were exhausted but we had fun. I should also note that my calves hurt for four days after this . THAT is how steep the hills are in San Francisco.

Talk soon,

Sim