San Francisco

On Wednesday we went on a double decker train from Belmont Station to San Francisco. When we got on because there were only one seat on each side except at the back someone moved because we needed the seats together which was very kind of him.

We got off at San Francisco and we walked to the Ferry Building to get lunch and I ate a hotdog. Mum ate noodles and also oysters. We bought Louise some cheese because she said she had wanted some Brie so we bought her two different creamy type of cheeses.

We walked past Pier 14 to look back at the city. We walked past a bridge called the Bay Bridge which is a double decker bridge and in the last big earthquake the top fell onto the bottom and loads of people died.

After lunch we walked to the Alcatraz Ferry and got our tickets and the lady said did we want to get the 12.30 instead of the 1.05 and we said yes but when we got to security she hadn’t changed the time on the ticket, so we had to go back to get them changed. It made me feel bored because we had to line up again and I thought we were going to miss the ferry.

Alcatraz used to be a prison until 1963 and the most popular crimes were tax evasion and bank robbery. One of the famous prisoners was Robert Stroud (or Birdman of Alcatraz) who was in Alcatraz for killing a guard in his last prison. He spent 11 of his 17 years in the hospital wing and he wasn’t allowed any birds. He died on November 21^st 1963 aged 73 in the Federal Medical Centre for Prisoners in Missouri.

Some people grew up on the island because their fathers worked on the island as guards. It was very peaceful to live there because the prisoners would be at work or in their cells but on the night of one of the escapes it was very loud with guns. They had to get on a boat to San Francisco to get to school.

I met a former  prisoner in the gift shop and got the book that he wrote signed. I shook his hand and he didn’t look that much like a criminal. He should have been a guard but he wrote loads of fake cheques. My favourite bit was when you got to stand behind the bars in the cells and favourite story was about the dummy head escape.

After the boat we got a taxi and train home to Hillsdale where Louise picked us up so we could get ready for Kingdom Club in San Matteo in a church. It was crazy hair day and bring a friend night and I met one of Annie’s friends called Charlotte. The grown ups were actually very nice and I did some music, art and games with all the different pictures. It was fun.

Then we went home and went to sleep.