Prisoners

Today, we woke up really early. We had some breakfast and rushed to the cars. One of our cars was in the driveway, the other downtown. Parking in Daly City is pretty impossible.

We drove up to the piers and parked our car. Today it is the day that we will see Alcatraz. Alcatraz, most known for being a prison for a lot of world-famous criminals, actually has had multiple functions over time. It started out to be a military base. The Americans had a strategic, triangle defence plan for defending San Fransisco. Later on, they decided it should be a prison. During this period of time, Alcatraz was home to criminals like “scar face” Capone, Machine gun Kelly and the bird man. Surprisingly, there were not only criminals and guards on the island at that time. Families lived there, children grew up on the island, while up on the hill, criminals were thinking through their escape plans. Weird enough, families did not notice the criminals and all felt great on the island. They loved living there and raising their children there. They never felt unsafe. I think I would have found it weird, living on a deserted island with all kinds of serious criminals. Escaping Alcatraz is not an option, though many tried to. The water is really cold and the stream is fast. People who tried to escape Alcatraz either died or were recaptured. Only three men once escaped and were never to be found (neither alive nor dead). Alcatraz was a real disaster. When prisoners looked outside the windows of the prison, when they were eating or were outside, they saw San Fransisco, just 2 km away. So close, but yet so far. Freedom was right there and that was real torture for them. Furthermore, in Alcatraz, there were no rewards for good behaviour, only punishment for bad behaviour. Alcatraz was not like other prisons.

In Alcatraz, we took a tour through the cells. The cells are small, only 1,5 meters wide, 3 meters deep and 2 meters tall. If you were to move in your bed, your feet would be in your toilet. There was a (rather uncomfortable) bed, a small stool and table, a sink and a toilet available to you in your own cell. These were the regular cells. There also was a block of cells separate from these cells, isolation. The holes, they called it. These were cells were there was no daylight. It was completely dark, night and day. Prisoners were sentenced here if they showed bad behaviour in prison. It was the prison in the Alcatraz prison. Some criminals stayed in here for 14 days in a row. One prisoner said that, whenever he was in the hole, he would rip off a button of his shirt, threw it in the air, waited until it fell down, got down on hands and knees and tried to find it back. And then again. Just to kill time. Another one said he killed time by tripping. “If you try really really hard, you can see things! Things you want to see! You start tripping! That is what I did!”, he said.

After the prison closed, the island was given to Indian protesters. They lived there for a period of less than two years. Now, the island belongs to birds and it is considered a national monument.

It was a really interesting visit. I learned a lot about the American history. And walking down the hallways of this once so strict prison was a really cool thing to do.

When we arrived back on shore, we had some lunch and walked to pier 39, where we saw about a hundred sea lions lying down on the docks. They were tanning, wrestling and having a bath from time to time. They made a lot of noise, as they screamed at each other.

We continued our program, and picked up bikes at a bike rental. We drove our bikes all the way up to the Golden Gate Bridge. We went up the bridge, and all the way across it! There was so much wind there I felt like I was just about to fly away! It was such an amazing feeling just biking there, high above the water, with the entire city of San Fransisco on my right hand side. I realised how lucky I am to be here. I let the wind flow through my hair and as I did, I got back to the other side of the bridge. We cycled back to the rental place, taking a small, apparently not legal detour (riding a bike in San Fransisco is really confusing!) and handed in our bikes.

We walked back to our cars, and drove them up to San Bruno, where Ery treated us on a nice red lobster dinner! It was a really fun (and tasty!) experience!

After dinner we went home, and went to bed. It was a really exciting day! Tomorrow a new location! Cheers!

Driving day!

We slept in today. I woke up at 9 AM and started to pack my bags again. Today we would drive up to San Fransisco! I have been excited to go to this place for a while now! We thought we would have a three night stay at our AirBnB there, however, it turned out we only have two nights! We miscounted a little, sadly enough!

When we all were done packing, we had some breakfast at McDonald’s, and continued our way. First, we drove up to Silicon Valley, where we took a look at Apple, Tesla and Google. I always thought these companies were located right next to each other. In real life, the distances are actually pretty big! The campuses of these companies are big like like little neighbourhoods. Afterwards, we drove past Steve Job’s old home, the place were he invented apple. Then, we continued to our AirBnB in Daly City. It turned out to be a pretty big home, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. A spacious kitchen and living area with a large couch. We cooked ourselves some dinner that night (which took forever since none of us was able to figure out how their oven worked). We all went to bed early, since we knew we had to wake up early the next day to visit Alcatraz! Very excited! See you tomorrow! Cheers!

Yosemite

Today again an early morning. We had breakfast at 7.30 AM. Afterwards, we drove away from Mammoth Lakes. Mammoth Lakes is a place I would much like to visit again, but then for a longer time. There really is a lot to do there. I saw that there are lots of activities, like mountain biking, climbing, skiing and a lot of other fun stuff.

It was a 2,5 hour drive up to the eastern entrance of Yosemite National Park. We got in with our annual national park pass, and drove to the first visitors centre. Here, we got informed about all the nice things we could do. The ranger there really took her time explaining me all the nice and not too crowded activities, so we took all her advice and did exactly the things she had told us.

First of all, we went for two small hikes. One over the meadows, where I spotted some really cute animals, lime some desert rabbits and a deer.

Later on, we did a hike that went straight up a really large rock! The view here was great. By this time, we were still over 9000 feet high.

After the hikes and after we had some lunch, we drove down the valley, and went to the Tuolumne Grove. This is the place where the large, 3000 year old Sequoia trees grow. These trees are insanely large and thick. And some of them have been here for 3000 years! We also saw a lot of wildlife here, like some birds, squirrels, other forest creatures and again a deer. This one was a young one, and let me come very close! Result: some awesome photographs of the little one! (Which I have to upload later, they are still on my camera)

We finished our walk and went to the valley, the most famous part of the park, but also the most touristic part of the place. There are lots of campsites here, as well as cafes, stores, etc. I loved the views in the valley, but besides the views I personally did not really like this place. There were just so many people here. And the squirrels here are very aggressive. They walk on the cafe terraces, bother people who are eating. I think this is a very bad thing, since I know from the ranger at Grand Canyon that these squirrels carry a lot of diseases with them. So we left pretty quick. We drove our way out of the park and ate at one of the resorts just outside the national park.

It was again dark when we drove the last hour to our next hotel, the Travelodge at Angels Camp. This wasn’t easy, since we had to cross some passes still! We crossed a few mountains but couldn’t see any further than 20 meters! Tomorrow, we can finally sleep in and do not need to set an alarm! Let’s get some rest! Cheers!