A very easy but long and tedious journey of over 10 hours landed us at San Franisco International airport. The only odd occurrence during the trip happened at the lounge at Heathrow. We ate our lunch and a middle aged guy sat down at the adjacent table. He had a case of verbal diarrhoea and we soon found out that he had a Greek father, where his children lived and his politics. I don’t know if the MAGA movement has a scale of devotion from 1 to 10, but I would place him as a high 9. A conspiracy theorist, who told us that we didn’t know half the truth that he did.
We made our way to the Avis counter and picked up the car very easily, however we didn’t want a 8 seater van. I returned to the desk and asked if I could change it for a smaller car. We moved our gear into the new auto and discovered we had competition for the motor. A very nice young lady said this car belonged to her. Together we returned to the desk and sorted the joint booking out. I again asked for a small vehicle but found we had a much bigger one than I would have liked. We drove off.
The Hotel
We had no difficulty in finding our hotel, Riu Plaza at Fisherman’s Wharf. A pleasant but slightly austere receptionist checked us in and we made our way to a comfortable room on the 3rd floor. We have two queen sized beds plenty of space in the room so all appears ok.
I turned the lights out at 9:30 as my eyes closed despite my efforts to keep awake for as long as possible. I spent the rest of the night sleeping fitfully. Maggi and I both desired that enough was enough of trying to sleep by 5 am and we rose.
Wednesday
We joined a busy breakfast buffet at 6:45. I’m sure if we had arrived at 6:30 we would’ve had to queue to enter. Instead we queue for access to various dishes. I started with some fruit and unfortunately vanilla flavoured yogurt. I then tried the cheese and ham which both tasted of old shoes. I wonder how they manage to drain out the flavour from cheese. The buffet offered plenty of choice but very little quality.
To Alcatraz
We walked towards the pier from which the Alcatraz boat leaves and became distracted by the sound of the harbour seals who sound like a group of hounds. You could see them quite clearly playing in the water.
On such a beautiful morning it felt such a pleasure to be wandering along Fisherman’s Wharf looking out at San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz. Bright sunshine and the cool autumn sun made this a lovely experience.
We crossed the bay and arrived at the island Here one of the National Park Rangers stood on a small stand and microphone in hand gave a presentation of the do’s and don’ts of visiting the island.
The buildings on the island have slowly fallen apart and many of the paths are closed for safety reasons. Given the number of visitors that arrive each day I’m sure they could have afforded to spend more money on the infrastructure. The island closed as a prison in 1962 and the local first nation tribes made several sit-ins and protests on the island. I’m not sure how they eventually benefited from this activity.
We climbed further up to the top where you are given a headset to listen to a commentary as you wander around looking at the cells and trying to imagine how awful incarceration would feel like.
One of the final displays refers to the change since Alcatraz closed. One SuperMax prison existed now the US has 35. The US locks up a higher percentage of their population than any other country.
Back at the shore we walked further along Fisherman’s Wharf but then decided to head to Chinatown. On the way we climbed up Greenwich Steps. By the time I arrived at the top my heart bp had reached 120 and Maggi’s stood at 140. It was quite a climb and we really didn’t get to appreciate the view. The steep descent put pressure on the knees which made it uncomfortable. Don’t think I would like to live around this area, too much like hard work going anywhere.
Both of us had become thirsty and we popped into an Irish Bar and became the first customer’s of the day. We started chatting to the manager/barman who ended up showing us pictures of his wife and wedding. It made the time in the bar more than a place to quench our thirsts but somewhere we connected to another human being.
Our next stop was the left bookshop just down the road. I toured and looked at a few tomes but decided to pass. Hunger began to set in and I asked an AI bot the best Dim Sum restaurant in Chinatown. It suggested 3 possible choices and I picked one called Lai Hong Lounge. Luckily we had a nice tasty meal. Chinese people dominated the clientele which both of us thought of as a good sign.
They had a unique menu with the food pictured on a laminated sheet. They gave you a pen and you marked the how many of whichever dishes you wanted. We chose five things, dumplings, spring rolls, etc and we couldn’t finish all the food.
Both of us felt tired and we walked back to the hotel for a break.