San Francisco – Day 3

Sunday 9/28

I woke up early-ish because I knew I had to be at Fisherman’s Wharf by 10:30 for my 11am ferry to”The Rock.” The first thing I did was to buy a 3-day pass for the MUNI. For $23 I could ride the bus, the Metro (light rail), the street car, and the cable cars on and off with no limits; solid deal. I couldn’t remember how long it took via the cable car to get from Powell street (downtown) to Mason Street near Fisherman’s Wharf. So, being the punctual person that I am, I arrived at Powell by 9am. I wasn’t able to fit on the first cable car that came by but I was able to get on the second. The cool thing was that it was pretty full so I had to ride on the “outside,” the epitome of the San Francisco cable car experience.

As I expected, I arrived at Fisherman’s Wharf much earlier than I needed to. So, I took the time to walk around and explore the more Western part of the wharf. I made my way down to the Hyde street cable car station, just to see where it was, and by the time I got there it was time for me to make my way to Pier 33.

Skyline from the ferry.

The boat ride to Alcatraz was really cool. There were nice views of the skyline and the Bay Bridge as you left the pier and excellent views of Alcatraz as you approached the island.

Alcatraz from the ferry.

The second I got off the ferry I was like a kid at Disney World, I literally could not stop grinning. Again, thanks to my many hours of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 (as well as having seen the 1996 movie The Rock several times), I had intimate knowledge of the prison’s layout. I was impressed at how accurate the game was. I almost expected Bam to come out from behind a rock and give me the shopping cart challenge.

Switchbacks

I continued to make my way up the switchbacks, stopping every two seconds for pictures and going into various buildings along the way. One cool thing was that while I was there, there was an art exhibit going on. I didn’t really care to much for the art itself, but what was cool about it was that it was being shown in buildings that aren’t typically open to the public.

After checking out some of the art, the lighthouse, and the Warden’s house, I made my way to the Cellhouse. This is where criminals like Alphonse “Al” Capone spent some quality time.

“Broadway”

Once in this main building guests could get an audio tour of the prison. I chose not to do this. Not that I didn’t care about all the specific things that happened and where they took place, I was just enjoying going wherever, whenever I wanted to. Eventually I found what I was looking for, an entire row of open jail cells that you could actually sit in.  I purposely wore my black and white stripped shirt in the hopes I would get the opportunity to take a picture in one of the cells. I found a woman who didn’t seem to be busy and asked if she wouldn’t mind taking my picture. She was clearly a photographer because when I got my phone back there were several photos on it taken from various and “artsy” angles.

Me in a cell.

After escaping from my cell I made my way back outside. I went down and around the South side of the island and up a long flight of stairs to the eeriest part of the prison… the recreation yard. For one, as I hoped would be the case, there was no one there. Literally I think it was me and two other girls. But for another, all that was there was a dirt field where the prisoners could play baseball.

Baseball field in the Recreation Yard.

I could go on and keep talking about every little thing that I did and post every single picture I took, but that would take forever, and frankly we don’t have the time. After exploring and taking pictures for about two and a half hours I caught the 1:25 ferry back to San Francisco. At that point I had worked up a pretty big appetite and I knew exactly where I was gonna go for lunch.

I hopped on the streetcar and took it Westbound to the last stop. I then took a short walk to the promised land… In And Out Burger. It was a zoo, as I expected it would be. However, the line moved fast and soon I was ordering a cheeseburger, animal style, with fries and a chocolate shake. While I was waiting, I kept eyeing the paper hats the employees had on. I was planning on trying to ask for one when I was called to get my order but was thwarted (in the best way possible) by a “mind reading” employee who asked while walking by me, “Want a hat?” and handed one to me.

Cheeseburger – animal style

Eventually my order was called but it was so busy that I had to sit with an elderly Asian woman. I didn’t mind but I felt weird asking. Oh well, it worked out fine. Upon leaving I found that there were plenty of free table outside; again, oh well. I walked over to the Hyde street cable car that I was planning to take to the top of Lombard street, only to find that it was closed. This forced me to walk up Hyde, which sucked on the one hand, because it was so steep, but was cool on the other hand because I got to take pictures like this…

Hyde Street looking down at San Francisco Bay.

Eventually I got to the top where I was met with a mass of people all with the same idea as me. I hate that I am a quintessential tourist, but who cares, I like doing touristy things sometimes. I spent a good amount of time taking pictures of, walking down, taking more pictures of, and walking back up the “Crookedest Street.”

Lombard street

Somewhere during this time, because I had The Rock on my mind, I got the idea that I wanted to visit another shooting location from the movie. The scene/location I had in mind was the area where Sean Connery meets up with his daughter. I didn’t know what it was called but a quick Google search led me to the shooting locations of the movie. The location in question, The Palace of Fine Arts.

Palace of Fine Arts

I then made my way to the #30 bus and took it to the last stop which just so happens to be a few blocks away from the “palace.” Upon my arrival I was blown away by how big and how impressive the columns and structures are. I slowly made my way around the park area just admiring how cool everything was. After maybe 15 to 20 minutes of admiration, I had another realization. The day before I had Googled Industrial Light and Magic (the visual effects company that did all the special effects for Star Wars as well as countless other famous blockbusters) and confirmed my thought that it was in fact located in San Francisco!

This lead to me frantically re-Goggling ILM to find to my pleasant surprise that the PFA (where I was) is essentially located  accross the street from LucasFilm and ILM. I then made my way across the street to the park where I assumed these two icons to be located. As I walked around the park in front of these big, nondescript buildings, I wondered if I was in the right place. I walked around these buildings in search of something that said ILM or LucasFilm, but found nothing. The lack of fanboys as well as the lack of seemingly any security prescense really made me begin to doubt myself.

After walking around the far side of the facility and then back to the park out front, I grabbed a seat on a stone wall at the opposite end. My feet were miserably tired and I was ready to give up, but something told me to give it one more chance. “Use your iPhone Kyle,” I heard a strange ghostly voice in my head say. The voice sounded an awful lot like Alec Guinness, so I listened to it. I looked at Google maps one more time and noticed something I hadn’t before.

Suddenly my feet felt like they could run a marathon. I got up and quickly made my way toward the back of the complex. When I got back there, there was a security booth at the entrance to the parking lot. “Look like you belong, look like you belong,” I chanted to myself. Then, in the distance, standing atop a stone pedestal was the master himself… Yoda.

Yoda fountain

I had found the Yoda fountain, the trademark of this iconic building complex. There was another fanboy, an older man with his wife, taking pictures of the fountain. We chatted for a bit and I asked if he would take a few pictures of me in front of it. He obliged without hesitation. Afterwards I took a few moments to appreciate how far I’d come to be there, before heading back to the MUNI bus stop.

I took the bus downtown to Columbus street. I got off there as I’d seen the street my first day in SF but hadn’t gotten a chance to explore it. It seemed like a cool street filled with shops and restaurants. As I made my way down Columbus I walked past Washington Square Park. Eventually, out of nowhere came yet another pleasant surprise. A little backstory is that part of my goal while in SF was to visit the bars featured in the show Best Bars In America. I was able to find one online before I left (which I will mention in the Day 4 post), but the other was very illusive and the BBA website was useless.

So I’m walking down Columbus and I look up and though I didn’t remember the name I knew I was at the right place. The outside is unmistakable and exactly how I remembered it from the show. Regardless of the fact that it wasn’t that late, I had to go in and get a beer. Entering the bar helped to re-affirm that I was in the right place; here were plaques on the wall that I recognized. But the clincher was when I saw the thing that said “est. 1948” because I remembered thinking that the bar was a year younger than my Mom.

Vesuvio – featured on the show Best Bars in America.

After enjoying a drink, as well as eve’s dropping on the conversation next to me, I made my way over to the California cable car line. I literally had no need to ride it, but a) I had the time and b) I wanted to be able to say I rode every line I possibly could. This time, not only was I haning on, but I was right at the front of the car and got a few solid vids of the ride. Upon disembarking however, I was sort of in the middle of nowhere and it was getting dark and chilly. I took a bus down to Market street and then, after a bit of a MUNI mix up, took the BART to 24th and Mission where I got off and walked to The Royal Cuckoo, a bar that had been recommended to me by my sister’s boss.

The bar, though cool-ish was sub-par. Mostly because I was tired -and the bar was a long walk from the subway- and hungry -and the bar didn’t serve food. After half a beer, I left. I made my way back to the hostel where I asked the front desk if there was a fast food joint or a pizza joint nearby. The woman informed me that there was a pizza joint a block up Larkin. I grabbed a couple slices of Hawaiian, took it back to the hostel, ate a slice, planned my next day and organized my shit, then went to bed.

PS this is my 500th blog post!