Friday started with champagne, just as it should.
Celebrating my 23rd birthday, one year closer to the end of my 25 Things List, was going to be one for the books. Just not the kind, as it turns out, that I originally thought it would be.
Kate and I were headed to San Francisco, the land of In-N-Out and the Golden Gate Bridge, and I’d had the Full House theme song stuck in my head all week.
We arrived at the airport a little early, which was good, because we got to enjoy breakfast and celebratory champagne at one of the airport lounges.
We watched planes taking off from the massive windows of the lounge as we ate breakfast, and talked about our San Francisco plans.
The first sign that Friday wouldn’t go as planned was when Kate handed me my favorite kind of caramel candy, which the lounge had stocked in glass jars all around the room.
Somehow, someway, I choked on the candy, and couldn’t breathe in any air.
“At least Kate’s a nurse,” I thought, as my life flashed before my eyes.
I didn’t die, which was a plus, and we moved forward with our morning. The flicker of a thought crossed my mind that perhaps choking at breakfast was a bit of a bad omen, but I pushed it out of my mind.
Then we received notice that our gate had changed, which didn’t seem odd, until we arrived at one of the international terminals and were informed that they had to change our plane. Instead of flying on a standard domestic plane, with two aisles and totaling four seats across, we boarded a large, three-aisle plane with seven seats across. Needless to say, the plane was mostly empty, as there was no way to fill it entirely.
We waited for everyone to board, and were then informed that another plane had backed out behind us to be de-iced, and we were unable to move. Additionally, the crew de-icing the plane was the same that would be de-icing our plane. We waited for what seemed like forever until the plane moved, and it was our turn to be de-iced. The flight attendants began playing the safety video across the screens on the backs of each seat.
Suddenly, a fire alarm began going off.
The video on the screen began to glitch, and all of a sudden, every screen on the plane went black. Code written in white letters began furiously streaming down each screen in unison.
This seems like a bad sign, I thought, as I watched code stream down the screen in front of me in a manner that looked like a scene from an action/adventure film. I wondered briefly if someone had somehow hacked in the airplane or if we were just in the midst of a series of unfortunate events.
Suddenly, everything went totally black, which seemed better, but was still alarming.
One of the flight attendants announced that one of the plane’s motors wasn’t working, so the pilot had to restart the whole plane, which meant we’d have to start the whole video over again, unfortunately.
Forget the video! Let’s go back to the part about the motor not working!
She stated that as “some of us may have noticed” there was a fire alarm going off in one of the bathrooms at the back of the plane, so a crew would be coming on board to fix that, as well as take a look at the motor. However, we’d have to go back to the gate to do so.
We waited for planes to move so we could return to the gate, and once we did, a few mechanics boarded the plane and stopped the alarm from going off. Awhile later, we were told that they’d fixed the problem with the alarm, checked out the motor, and were confident that the plane was in perfect working order.
I didn’t believe them.
Next, they said they had to fill out some paperwork, and we’d be in the air once they jumped through a few hoops. We waited for them to complete the paperwork, and by the time they had, we were told that we’d run out of fuel. We had to wait for a crew to come by and refuel the plane.
Once again, they started the video, and it began glitching. It skipped ahead spontaneously, and then all at once shut off, and code began streaming again. I might die on this plane, I thought.
Finally, we were able to leave. We inched our way on the runway, and then all of a sudden came to a halt.
The pilot informed us that due to fog in San Francisco, they’d called for planes to halt their take-offs for thirty minutes, which meant we’d be on the ground for minimally thirty more minutes. We waited, watching code flash on our screens, while passengers around me speculated if we were going to die on the plane, and if this was all a series of bad signs that we shouldn’t be on the plane.
We finally took off, and spent a total of six hours on a plane for a flight that should have taken three hours and twenty minutes.
Due to the delay, we arrived in San Francisco in the heart of rush hour. What should have been a twenty minute drive took us an hour, and we didn’t arrive at our hotel until about seven p.m., when we should have gotten there at 3 p.m. Needless to say, I was hangry and irritated.
After having fought through traffic to get to our hotel, we were in no mood to get back into a car and travel anywhere else, and due to my admittedly horrible attitude, we decided to just grab food from somewhere nearby, call the day a bust, and head back to our hotel, where we could go to sleep, and wake up to a brand new day on Saturday.
The next morning, I was still harboring bitter feelings about our previous day’s travels, but was ready to move on and make a better day. At Alcatraz.
We woke up bright and early, called an Uber, and headed toward Pier 32. Our Uber arrived in a Mercedes Benz, which he drove gloriously too fast through town, and we sped to the pier in no time.
We had some extra time, so we wandered around North Beach for awhile, eventually making our way back to the pier to stand in line. I forgot my National Parks Passport at the hotel, which was a bit of a bummer, as Alcatraz is now considered a National Park instead of a Federal Penitentiary.
The boat we cruised on was pretty cool – it was fueled by wind and solar energy, which the hippy in me appreciated.
We saw the Bay Bridge on the horizon, which was beautiful. We learned later that the Bay Bridge is actually double-decker, with one-way traffic flowing on both levels.
Then – Alcatraz in the distance.
WARNING: Persons procuring or concealing escape of prisoners are subject to prosecution and imprisonment.
Atop the hill, the deteriorating warden’s house still kept watch over the island.
The island was jarring in its juxtaposing beauty – the island itself was gorgeous, but speckled with the decay of imprisonment past, as well as buildings still being preserved by the National Parks system.
The view of San Francisco was spectacular; on the audio tour, one of the past prisoners commented that the view was part of the experience at Alcatraz – getting to see what you could have had, just out of reach.
Life was moving on without them, just beyond their grasp.
They mentioned later in the tour that the windows on one of the cell blocks was positioned just so that sounds carried across the water and into the cell house, so prisoners could hear the sounds of people partying on yachts as they drove by – music, laughter, chatter, all becoming sounds of a foreign world they no longer belonged to.
We took a short tour that explained the history of the island, where we learned of yet another circumstance in which the United States government broke a treaty promise to a group of Native Americans. The land on Alcatraz, like all else of the United States, was taken from the Native Americans. Alcatraz Island, however, was promised back to them in the Treaty of Fort Laramie. In classic U.S. government style, they went back on their word, and in the late sixties and early seventies, thousands of Native Americans occupied the island in protest.
After the tragic death of the leader’s daughter, as well as an outbreak of fires on the island, people slowly left. Less than twenty people remained on the island when the U.S. government arrived on the island to re-reclaim the land. Now, the island stands as a National Park.
We entered the cell house to begin our audio tour, which came with our tickets. The cell house is one of the buildings currently being preserved. Inside, rows of cells lined the main guts of the building, three cells stacked one on top of another.
It was astonishing to see in person.
Even more mind-boggling was the solitary confinement block. They allowed visitors to walk into the cells, and it was bone-chillingly creepy.
Knowing that someone lived their life in the pitch black of that cell sent shivers up my spine when I entered the dark nothingness of solitary confinement cell number eleven.
There was so much to learn, both about the U.S. and Alcatraz, during the tour. It was spectacularly done, and I would highly suggest visiting to anyone who’s considering going.
Once our audio tour was over, we headed back to land, and walked to the Ferry Building Marketplace.
The place was hopping. Outside, various farmers had set up tables with their fruits and vegetables, and different vendors had set up food tents or trucks. It smelled amazing. Inside, shops lined each side of the halls, and people were packed in the building. The ceiling was beautiful, and kind of reminded me of Grand Central Station for some reason. Maybe it was the windows.
We perused the vendors outside, before deciding to stop at BiNi’s Kitchen for lunch.
I was pretty stoked, because as you can see, BiNi’s is Nepalese cuisine from the soul. Even better, they were selling Momos! Momos are super delicious little stuffed dumpling creations that are covered in a tomato-cilantro sauce.
I chose the turkey Momos, and they were so. Damn. Good. As Mount Everest is in Nepal, I’ve heard about Momos many a time during my Mount Everest research, so it felt fitting to have them for lunch.
I also tried mango lassi, which was super delicious. It all got me pretty pumped for Everest.
Also all of their containers were eco-friendly – as was mostly everything in California, which I appreciated.
Next, Kate and I walked to Pier 39, which was excessively tourist-y, and I only forgave them for it because they are the proud home of one trillion sea lions.
We watched the sea lions for awhile, and mulled over how weird nature is as we watched them flop around on the pier.
We moved on to Fisherman’s Wharf, which was equally as much of a tourist trap.
They had a plethora of ugly vacation shirts (you know the ones) and the largest Applebee’s I’ve ever seen. However, it was really next to get out and walk in a place where it was not -15 degrees, and the palm trees didn’t hurt either.
We had one more stop before the Golden Gate Bridge. We had to ride a cable car.
I made sure I got a Polaroid. The cable car ride was super cool – definitely not the most reliable form of transportation, but an interesting tourist activity. It was interesting to see how it interacted with traffic – stopping in the middle of random intersections to pick up or drop off people, and nearly hitting approximately 100 pedestrians. We rode the car to the end of the line, without any idea of where it went, and then called an Uber to bring us to the Golden Gate Bridge.
It felt a little strange to finally see it in person, but it was beautiful. We walked out onto the bridge, about a quarter of the way, just to experience the bridge, and to see the city from its perspective.
Fun fact: 80,000 miles of wire were used to create the bridge.
After getting our fill of architecture for the day, we headed back to Fisherman’s Wharf, because it was also home to the closest In-N-Out.
It was Kate’s first time going to In-N-Out, and I was a little worried that I’d built up too much hype about it – however, In-N-Out did not let us down. It was super delicious in a way that Midwestern fast food will never be.
Oh, In-N-Out.
To further send ourselves into a spiraling food coma, we headed to Ghirardelli Square, which is exactly what you’d think it is.
It’s a square composed of several Ghirardelli stores, all selling various chocolate confections and ice cream treats. Since it was getting a bit chilly, I bought a hot cocoa, and we walked around the square for a bit.
Exhausted and still running on Minnesota time, we headed back to our hotel for a solid night’s rest before conquering San Francisco again the next day.
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