I walked through Fisherman's Wharf to Pier 33 and picked up my ticket and waited for the boat.In the city it was a nice sunny morning, the bridge though was shrouded in fog. I wondered if that would ever change. The boat ride to Alcatraz only takes a few minutes, it's just over a mile.when you get off the boat one of the first things you see is some graffiti on the wharf buildings, left from the Native America occupation of the island. After the prison closed no one was quite sure what to do with the island and so they did nothing. There is a clause in Federal law that states that Native Americans can reclaim native lands that are no longer being used by the government that were originally acquired from them, so a group came to occupy the island. At it's height there were over 500 hundred people on the island, not all of them Native Americans. When Federal Marshal's landed on the island nineteen months later to reclaim the island, there were under twenty left. The government claimed that the island was always being used by the government as there was a light house on it.
The main building next to the pier is the block that housed the prison guards and their families. It's amazing to think that there were families living next to a prison. There is an audio tour and some of it is narrated by some of the children of the prison guards. One comment that was made frequently was how safe they felt on the island. The children stated that they knew where the bad people in their neighbourhood were.There was even a waiting list to live on the island and it seems to have been a very "normal" place to have lived, not at all different from other children living in isolated communities around the world. You just do some things differently.
The centre of the island rises quite steeply,I took it at a gentle walk. You enter the main cell block, which is not very big, at the side through the shower the room. The prisoners would have entered through the administration offices at the front of the cell block and were made to walk down the centre of the cell block as soon as they arrived. The shower room is totally open and totally different to how it was portray3ed in the move "The Rock". I was a little disappointed.Oh Hollywood, you have a lot to answer for!
It was here that the prisoners would get their clothes etc before being taken to their cell. Unlike other prisons all of the cells were individual cells, so you didn't have to share. There everyone started the audio tour,it's really detailed and so informative. I think what makes it even better is the fact that it is narrated by the people who worked there, were incarcerated there or just lived there. It gives a really personal view of the place.The tour also mentions the escape attempts from the prison, which is great as I think, that is what a lot of people are familiar with.All in all I spent about five hours on the island, the thing that struck me the most was not the difficulty of escape but the cruelty arising from it's location.From the recreation area, the library and other parts of the cell block you can see the city. It was also said that if the wind was in the right direction you could the sounds of the parties being held at the yacht club. It gives a whole new meaning to so near, yet so far.
I walked back to the hostel, taking the flattest route possible and picked up my bag. I was moving to a couch surf in the west of the city. Since I wasn't familiar with the buses I decided to walk. It wasn't terribly far but I was very warm and sweating when I got to the address I had been given. Fred, my host, had lived in Japan for a year, has a Japanese room mate and currently had another friend sleeping in his sitting room that had just got back from Japan. To top it all off there was another housemate from Greece. A very multicultural house.Needless to say his apartment is huge and I had his studio to sleep in. That night I stayed in, had a few beers and generally kicked back. I also met Shani from Australia, she would be staying at Fred's the next night. We decided that we would cycle over the bridge together the next day. Cool.
I woke up the next day and got ready to go out. Shani hadn't turned up by 10.30 so I decided to leave without her. I was going to take Fred's bicycle but when I tried to go downhill I got scared and decided that it couldn't be done. The bike is a racer, so I had to bend down over the handle bars to use the brakes, I just couldn't do it. I walked back to the apartment and saw Shani. It turns out that she was right on time and I had forgotten what time I had said! Not surprising really. We went in and sat down while we decided what to do, the weather wasn't great, it was very cloudy and it's difficult to see the bridge at the best of times. Also we though it might rain so we gave up on cycling for that day. I went off to the internet cafe and wandered around the local area.
That night Fred had a few people over to the apartment and we all pitched in to make a dinner. When I say pitched in, I mean that i chopped stuff and washed lettuce etc., after all we all know that I can't cook. It was a nice relaxed night with none of the hassles that had accompanied the previous night as Fred had other people to distract him. He had hit on me the first night and it had made me feel uncomfortable. When these situations arise I always question myself and ask if I contribute to it somehow. I didn't contribute to this, but should never have been put in this situation anyway. Couchsurfing is not a dating website, it hasn't put me off Couchsurfing but I do see it in a slightly different way now. Probably this is a good thing, after all, I'm not in Japan anymore.
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