Travelling Hopefully - Fire Engines and Prison Islands

I rose early the next morning determined to sample the breakfast delights I had missed out on the previous day.  Full of confidence I strolled down to the diner, it was closed.

After this auspicious beginning I hit the streets of San Francisco, my objective; a fire engine.  Open top bus tours of a city are nothing new but in this case the open top bus was a shiny red Mack fire truck, built in 1955, retired from the SFD in 1989 and now carting tourists with an actual or mental age of six through the Presidio, over the Golden Gate Bridge and back again.  It looked exactly like my childhood impression of what a fire truck should look like, proof that American cultural imperialism is the bit of their imperialism that actually works.

Perhaps there is a goatherd in Tajikistan who doesn't know what the Golden Gate Bridge looks like.  That goatherd is no doubt mocked mercilessly by his fellow goatherds for his provincialism and ignorance.  Suffice it to say that everyone else on the planet including the aliens who secretly rule us and the netherworldly demons who conspire against them know what the Golden Gate Bridge looks like.  And it doesn't matter.  It looks exactly as you think it's going to look and it's still breathtaking.  Sydney Harbour Bridge is pretty impressive but it is, and looks, massive.  Raw power is evident in every hulking inch.  The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a weightlifter, the Golden Gate is a gymnast.  The muscle is there but it's clothed in elegance.

After goggling appropriately at the  bridge we rolled back into town passing real or rather, current fire engines along the way.  Fire trucks are something you can always see in San Francisco for a very good reason according to our guide.  After the last major earthquake trapped a lot of the SFD's engines in their buildings a law was passed stating that a third of the departments vehicles must be on the streets at any given time.

But enough of fire engines, I had other, soggier fish to fry.  Alcatraz beckoned.  Pausing only to eat some chicken fried chicken in a restaurant decked out to be the worlds most implausible rainforest imitation I presented myself at the appropriate pier and was directed to the back of a very long queue.  San Francisco is still a working port (they import a third of their pollution from China for example) and while I was there a monstrous cruise ship turned up.  It's name was the Infinity Explorer which certainly takes flatulent pretentiousness to the level of an art form.

My transport to Alcatraz was a box shaped floaty thing of much more modest dimensions.  It was called the Alcatraz Flyer, a name I was prepared to dispute on aerodynamic grounds alone.  They poured us in through a hole in the Flyer's side and when it was full it struggled gamely off in the direction of Alcatraz.

Alcatraz wasn't always prison.  We are informed of this fact so that the boatload of human freaks with a ghoulish interest in what was effectively a human zoo feel a little better about themselves.  "We are going for the history," we tell ourselves, "part of the rich tapestry of human existence in the San Francisco area and we totally don't wish there were still a couple of prisoners around that we could prod with sticks."

Once there of course the mask was thrown off and we all charged for the cell block as quickly as a pack of out of shape, largely middle aged people could, ie not very swiftly at all.  The actual cell block is right near the top of the island unlike the dock which, for reasons of water accessibility, is located somewhere near the bottom.  Warnings abounded informing us of the arduous climb ahead of us and also mentioning that spaces on the little vehicle provided were limited and should be restricted  to those genuinely in need.  A brutal free for all erupted between the obese, the lazy and the occasionally genuinely disabled.  People who looked like there mere effort of drawing another breath would give them heart failure clawed and bit at each other in an effort to get on board.  I was halfway up the hill when the staff deployed the fire hoses but I believe they got it sorted out in the end.

"You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter and medical assistance, everything else is a privilege."  Thus spake the welcome pack every prisoner received on arrival.  As a paying guest I was also entitled to an audio tour.  The voices on the audio tour were provided by a group of former guards and a group of former inmates.  This led me to conclude that the retirement provision for former guards must be disturbingly close to that for former violent criminals.  The audio tour was excellent and spiced with anecdotes from both sides.  Since Alcatraz, like most disused government buildings, is essentially a series of empty rooms (albeit many of them quite small) the audio tour was essential for adding the necessary colour.

After exhausting the interest value of the cell block (which took nearly two hours) I made my way back down to the dock where I joined another very long queue waiting for the ferry to leave.  Disaster!  There were too many of us for the boat.  If this was West Africa the captain would have pocketed a little baksheesh and let us on anyway but here in San Francisco the captain spitefully adhered to the safety regulations and departed leaving those of us stranded on the dock cursing the Fates (and in one case the IRS but that was because a close friend was gaoled for tax fraud).  Just when all hope seemed lost a boxy, borderline seaworthy shape appeared.  It was the Alcatraz Flyer wallowing gamely to our rescue.  I'm getting rather fond of the Alcatraz Flyer.