San Francisco: Alcatraz

Apologies for the long absence, the school year is coming to a close and I get busier with each passing day.
 So! We went to San Francisco for a weekend, as my mother had a conference in the area and it always makes a good trip.

 Here's what I wore for day one.

 It was incredibly sunny every day we were there O.O I could not believe our good fortune! I love the normal weather too, but it's been gray and rainy where I live for so long that going somewhere I love and having the weather be super bright and fairly warm was really nice, and made a two day trip feel like a real vacation!

 we stopped at a bayside cafe kind of place and I took a picture of my food because I was amazed. It's a veggie burger, but that in itself wasn't so amazing (though it WAS good), what amazed me was that it was RIGHT THERE for people to order! In my town if you want a vegetable burger, you go dig in the back freezer of a slightly more expensive food store, and then you go home and you thaw it out and cook it yourself. But here, in this innocuous little cafe, I could just buy a veggie burger and it came with deep fried zucchini and everything! It was really a proper meal. I loved that.

 while my mom was in her meeting, my grandma decided to take my brother and I to Alcatraz prison. So we bought our tickets and went to stand in line on the dock.

  there was some sort of boating group out practicing, and I took pictures of the bay as we sailed across it because it was such a gorgeous day and the boats looked like they were having such fun!

Then we arrived at Alcatraz. The fun quickly decreased. 

 The island and the prison are both extremely photogenic, and it was beautiful to be there, but there was an odd air that hung over the place... especially because everyone received a headset for an audio tour, so there was little to no talking, and if you took off your headset at any point, you were stuck by the hanging silence even while so many people walked the halls.

 I took this when we first arrived. It's beautiful, and a wonderful piece of architecture, but... I'm not sure. The place was a prison, and while I agree with keeping dangerous people from hurting others, I have always thought there must be a better way to do so than to lock anyone deemed dangerous in a tiny cell for years on end.

 This stairwell was inside the prison. I thought it, and the mossy wall behind it, had a sort of macabre beauty. 

 A photo from inside the library, looking out into one hallway of cells. I wished there had still been books on the library shelves, because my tour mentioned that most of the inmates were more well-read and had access to more intellectual reading material than ordinary civilians did. 

 There was an information room, with placards and exhibits and explanations and even some corners devoted exclusively to debunking myths about Alcatraz. I learned some interesting facts that I hadn't known before, including the fact that the families of the guards lived on the island too, in little houses with gardens, and the children grew up in the shadow of a prison. There was a memoir from an inmate about seeing some children celebrating the fourth of July from his prison window- hearing the laughter and explosions commemorating national freedom while he was being denied his personal freedom.

I took the tour in French, as I'm a native English speaker trying to learn French, and while that presented an interesting an enjoyable challenge, I do get the feeling I missed some things about the tour. 

In all, it was a very poignant experience, alternatingly beautiful and soul-damping. 

 I took a photo back to the mainland, just to serve as a reminder of the vitality the prisoners witnessed through the windows of their forced entropy.