We stayed at a hostel called the Green Tortoise which was nestled in amongst the strip clubs, restaurants and hobos on Broadway, actually one of the better areas where only two blocks back large, fancy houses painted in bright colours have rooftop views of the bay.
We took a ferry out to the island prison Alcatraz (which we kept getting confused and calling Azkaban, but there were no Dementors to be seen).
There's a really good audio tour through the old prison covering the history, some escape and riot stories as well as commentary on issues with the current prison system, including the lack of resources for rehabilitation and the privatisation of prisons in the US, how the government ties themselves into contracts with vendors which guarantee that beds will be filled or the government pays a fee. What the hell kind of insane system is that?
The photography exhibition 'Prisoners of Age' was fantastic. A large warehouse room was filled with large scale photos of prisoners, beautifully shot then tagged with the persons name, age and a quote from them about what they'd done and how long they were imprisoned for.
Some of the stories were just crazy and the inconsistency in sentencing bizarre like one guy who seemed to have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and was then locked up for 27 years!
Or the cute little old lady, but she'd been imprisoned for 30 years and said something along the lines of 'they said I hurt the little children, but I didn't. I love the children, when I see them I say 'come here, come to mommy'.' Creepy right?
The exhibition highlighted the massive increase of ageing prisoners in the system and how prisons are not able to support them and their additional needs and the additional burden on the tax system.
Back at the hostel they organised evening events so we went along for a Thai dinner and comedy night. The comedy was a bit hit and miss, but one guy was hilarious when someone in the audience mentioned a 'fleshlight' he lost it, seemed to throw out the rest of his routine and kept making jokes about the guy in the audience and his fleshlight. For those who don't know what a fleshlight is, don't google it a work! I only knew what it was thanks to Cards Against Humanity.
After the comedy we went to a club but it closed at 2am, everything seems to close at 2am except the strip clubs which is a bit crap.
My work has an office in San Fran and I'd heard it was pretty cool so I dropped in to have a sneaky peek. It happened to be the Friday of their monthly meeting so I got to meet a few people, hear about the projects they've got going on, have a few beers and get the office tour which included showing me the disco lights and the smoke machine!
On our last day we drove out across the Golden gate bridge, stopped for the obligatory bridge and fog pics then drove down into Sosolito, pretty little tourist town, the main street lined with arty stores, wine tasting and neat little restaurants that overlook the bay, the cityscape of San Fransisco breaking through the hovering fog at the far side.
We stopped for lunch then hit the road, our plan to follow the coast back to LA.
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