As anyone who knows me will attest, I am an expert at non-planning.  It was my 3rd full day in the city, and I was due to check out of the hotel that morning.  I hadn’t made any onward plans and didn’t even know which city I would be visiting next, so I needed to act quickly to firm things up for the next few days. Among the few things I had pre-arranged, this morning’s activity was to be an excursion to Alcatraz island, and I didn’t want to be rushing around on my return so I extended my stay at the Fairmont for another day, and decided I would make arrangements for the next few days in the afternoon.

One of my most annoying traits (it depends who you ask) is a solid streak of counter-suggestibility, this, coupled with an inherent dislike of most people, especially crowds of them, should be enough to deter me from a major tourist draw like Alcatraz. However, I was not even slightly put off by the hoards of people queuing for the ferry that I had witnessed on my walk up the Embarcadero the other day.  It’s always seemed such a fascinating place, aside from the movie connections (Birdman of Alcatraz, Escape from Alcatraz, Point Blank and of course, The Rock) I love the atmosphere and look of an abandoned building, especially one on this scale, with such stories to tell.

In my only act of forward planning aside from booking flights and a hotel, I had booked tickets to go to Alcatraz, and today was the day.  A note for anyone following in my footsteps, you really need to book Alcatraz tickets several weeks in advance as they are generally sold out well ahead of time.  Annoyingly, my tardiness meant if I was to come here, I had to source my tickets from one of the resale websites (read ticket touts). With no other option, I bit the bullet and ordered a ticket, paying well over the odds I am sure. For those already here, there are numerous boat operators hawking their trade around the sea front, offering tickets for “Alcatraz boat tours” and “island tours” etc…  These firms turn a good trade at the expense of ill-informed tourists who don’t read the details and end up going on a purely boat-bound adventure, getting as close as a few metres to the island, but never making it to land.  Despite their Mickey-Mouse logo and overt use of Times New Roman on their website, only the state-operated “Alcatraz Cruises” will get you onto the island.

Street View

I had made the short walk from my hotel down to the pier on the Embarcadero from where the ferry transfer to the island was due to depart.  As anticipated, there were massive queues, but it was a very well-organised operation, with batches of people being herded like cattle from a holding pen, via a zig-zag customs-style queue barrier to a stout looking, heavily front-bottomed woman in very tight green trousers, who despite being in the employ of the National Parks service, could not avoid looking like she was fresh off the set of Prisoner: Cell Block H (kids, ask your parents).

It was in this queue as I waited for her to dutifully check my papers, stamp my hand and allow me to board the ferry that I gave my ticket more attention that it had previously been afforded. As a result of its questionable provenance, having been sourced via a tout, I observed that the name on the non-transferrable ticket was Mr Maxwell Lopez Carrozza. I was fully aware of the inherent flaws and fallibility in judging peoples’ appearances based on their name and vice-versa but was less aware of whether the approaching stern official shared my thoughts.  Either way, my pasty northern-European appearance was severely out of whack with my new and immediately assumed name. As the numbers in front of me started to dwindle I may have begun to overthink the scale of the problem and allow anxiety to creep in. What if she asked for ID? Lopez was a Spanish, maybe Mexican name, but Carrozza was definitely an Italian word.  Should I assume the gait of Tuco from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, or maybe more stoic and confident like Michael Corleone?  Hola or ciao?

I need not have worried, Governor Ferguson was a jovial lady, and in our brief exchange, she barely noticed my face nor the name on the ticket, instead relying on her barcode scanner to check its validity.

The last few days had been really nice, whilst it was technically winter time, the local micro-climate had given me a few days of sunshine and cool breezes, the type of weather that Brits rarely complain about, it was neither too hot, nor too cold.  Not today though. The storm clouds were moving in and it was raining hard.  So much so that by the time I had boarded the ferry, I was soaked through, and may as well have swam there.

It only takes 15 minutes or so to reach the island, at which point you are offloaded and pointed in the direction of another Parks Department employee who gives you the welcoming spiel which I promptly ignored and started to make my own way around the island. 

Street View

Cell block B

Much of the island and buildings you are free to roam, at least the ones that are safe to do so. However, the main cell building requires more queuing. Tourists are  separated into sub-queues according to the preferred language of your audio tour headset. The staff who are mostly college-age kids do a fine job of running the show. As you approach the end of the queue there are cries of “three Japanese”, “two Russian”, “four German” and finally “one English” as the kids shout over to their colleagues to prepare your audio tour device. If you are a bored people-watcher, this is a great opportunity to play guess-the-nationality-of-the-people-in-front.  Despite earlier comments about prejudging nationality based on appearance or name, it turns out I was pretty good at it.

The tour is well done to be fair. The voice in your head walks you around the cells, halting you to point out the locations of notable residents and the cells from where the only successful escapees made good their exit into a poorly located service corridor with the help of spoons and a drill under the cover of accordion music, back in 1962.  There is verbal testimony from former inmates mixed with an informative and well-paced walk through the facility.  Whilst the location itself is genuinely fascinating, I do recommend removing your headset for a moment to enjoy the ridiculous spectacle of hundreds of people shuffling around in complete silence looking at broken toilets and holes in walls.  

Street View

To the city from the Warden’s house

I got some nice photos, including various shots of the familiar film locations, and a nice view back across to the city. As a prisoner here, the rest of civilisation must have seemed within arm’s reach just across the bay, but the cool waters and strong current surrounding the island, as the waters of the Bay Area funnel past into the Pacific would surely mean an unpleasant end for any would-be escapee.  The three 1962 escapees who spooned their way out of their cells were inventive engineers, and apparently managed to build an inflatable raft from raincoats before setting off into the bay.  Their fate remains unknown to this day, but it has been widely proved that they could have successfully made land if they had timed the tides correctly.

As I shuffled through the gift shop and back down to the ferry, the rain was still sheeting down and my appearance was full drowned rat, having long ago given up hope of drying off. The process of filtering through barriers and back onto the boat was repeated, and a few hours after my little prison expedition had started, I was back at the ferry terminals.  I was planning to head back and get dry, but instead I walked past a nice restaurant called “The Waterfront”, so I headed inside to get some lunch and dry off.

Street View

During lunch, I overheard the adjacent table of native tourists asking the waiter where they could get the best steak in town.  He was honest enough to provide what seemed like genuine recommendations and gave them the names of several places which I would try to remember and research later.  He also raised the notion of paying over $300 for a steak, but it being worth every penny.  Up until this point, I had been ostensibly an occasional fish-eating vegetarian for four years, with little or no beasts of the field passing my lips, with the notable exception of the time when I genuinely accidentally ordered a beef burger (long story, ambiguous menu) and would rather eat it than see it go in the bin.

I had figured that the environmental benefits resulting from my mostly successful meat avoidance had justified a temporary lifting of the meat embargo, and I was going to hunt down this mythical overpriced cut of cow and gorge on it that very evening.  What gets eaten in San Francisco stays in San Francisco.  If you think about it, that’s probably true for the most part. On my return to the UK, I probably smuggled in some quinoa and feta cheese salad. Fortunately, customs didn’t stop me to check.

Back at the hotel, I booked a table a few hours hence, at the 5A5 Steak Lounge, which was not too far from my hotel and takes its name from the grading system for beef, 5A5 being the highest grade. As I waited for my tummy to rumble, I made my plans for the coming days.

I had been considering taking a short flight over to Las Vegas and visiting there, as well as the nearby Hoover Dam.  Whilst I would like to see Vegas, I felt that its offerings were limited, and having never been a massive consumer of gambling, strip-joints and prostitutes in the past, felt it was not for me.  Instead I was to head north out of the city, I would hire a car and follow the picturesque Highway 1 up the Pacific coast, before heading inland into redwood forests and wine country.

With the help of Google and Tripadvisor I found a nice looking place overlooking the ocean, about 2 hours north, which I figured I could drag out to a full day if I kept stopping to admire the views. So that was booked for tomorrow, which was December 30^th, and the following night I made reservations at a beautiful Victorian hotel, further inland, which was taking bookings and even better, serving food for New Year’s eve, which meant I could eat my dinner and at least pretend to be sociable if the urge should take me (spoilers, it didn’t).

I was going to need a car to get there.  Whilst I am quite happy driving in busy cities, a full understanding of the American system for determining priorities at crossroads seemed to elude me. I was mindful of the time I hired a car in New York and immediately after I picked up the car (convertible, roof already down, nowhere to hide), turned right into 3^rd Avenue and blocked the junction, to cries of “nice work, a-hole”.  I had never felt so welcomed.

I thought it better to hire a car from somewhere just out of the city so I could avoid the crossroads of ambiguous priority which, thanks to the grid system, fill the city. There was a branch of Enterprise in Mill Valley, about twenty minutes away from the city, so I reserved a “normal” car off their website, before packing my bags and heading out to eat some heavily anticipated meat.

It was still pouring down, so I took a cab from outside the hotel to the restaurant about ten minutes’ drive away. I think my beef abstinence probably contributed to the enjoyment of the meal, but this frustratingly small piece of apparently genuine Kobe beef provided an amazing experience. It had all the taste you would expect of the finest cut of meat, whilst being so delicate, with the texture of a just-cooked scallop. Also, worth a mention, is the quality of the service you get in even the most basic of American restaurants.  Whilst the tipping practice is ridiculous, they have a culture of service which in my experience, is present only in the more upmarket British restaurants.  Both the guy serving me at dinner, and the waiter for lunch earlier that day, could be described as career waiters.  You get the impression they have been doing it for at least 20 years, and their knowledge and enthusiasm for their menu and wines adds to the enjoyment of an evening out and makes you feel comfortable.

Street View

I should say for the sake of clarification, I am a weak-willed pathetic barely vegetarian dairy-consuming hypocrite.  I greatly admire anyone who can eliminate animal products from their diet.  I have no objection to eating animals in principle, humans are well-evolved omnivores of course, however the environmental impact of farming on the scale that we humans now operate, is not sustainable.  To that end, I would encourage anyone to try and eat less meat.

For now, I skipped the cab and walked back to the restaurant, a decision I regretted as the heavens opened again, and it was a much longer walk that I thought it would be.  Soaked again, I gave up on using the hair-dryer to rescue my clothes and accepted an exorbitant fee to have the hotel clean them and get them back to me the following morning.  I readied myself to leave the city tomorrow and bedded down for the night.