San Francisco - Part 2 -Alcatraz

Out of all the places in San Francisco, there is really none that are more infamous than Alcatraz.

If I am being honest, I had been to SFO five or six times before I got a chance to go.  One of the biggest problems for me was that the tickets are hard to come by if you don't book them ahead of time.  On previous visits it was always too late...heck this time when we got there on Saturday, they were selling tickets for the next Wednesday.  If you do choose to go, be sure to book early.  For me this trip was my second time going and it was still as awesome as the first.

When your time is called you board the boat and are ushered across the bay to the island.  After the short boat ride, it lands on the island and proves to be one of the most awesome views that I have seen of the city of San Francisco...

Once on the island, you can see all the old buildings and the prison looming above you.  It is actually kind of eerie to see this place and to think of the history behind it.  You end up walking a lot up hill (and back down after you're done) to actually get to the prison, but you get to see the supporting infrastructure and birds on the way.

When you finally get to the top there you are ushered into the prison processing area to get your headsets.  The audio tour is included and has people who worked and were housed there doing the narrating.  You go through the different cells and areas of the prison and a story is told about the history.  It is really a good listen.  It always gets me when I see how small the cells were.  

The other thing was the yard where if they were good they could go outside to exercise etc.  It was tiny but anything is better than nothing if you are stuck in your cell for the majority of time.

This is definitely an amazing attraction and I would highly recommend that anyone going to San Francisco, does the tour.

Next up, talking about the different things that we did on the hop-on and hop off tour of San Francisco, also highly recommended.  They take you to most of the major areas, including one of the most iconic sites in SFO, the golden gate bridge:

San Francisco - Part 1 - Here we go again!

For anyone that doesn't know, VMware is the stereotypical company in Silicone Vally, in California. I personally love the history of this area and after having travelled countless times. When I say San Francisco for the most part, I really mean Palo Alto because that is where VMware head office is located. It is funny the first time I was here VMware had rented buildings across the road from the 4 main buildings that we had at the time in the Xerox Parc complex.

Now if anyone is familiar with the History of the Personal Computer, Apple really comes to mind. We are talking way back....in the days of the first Macintosh computers, where the first interfaces for computers were really being thought of.  Well it was in these exact buildings that Steve Jobs went to talk with Xerox (a huge player at the time) about the new fangled pointing devices and GUI interface that they were developing.  Long story short apple ended up "using" the PS2 Mouse and Graphics based technology which we have come to take for granted today.  

This is the type of history that I think is really cool, to know that this is where the blood of the modern computer was born.  Some day I may post a blog on Machu Picchu, where Audrey was continually making fun of me because I was obsessed with the engineering that went into it....i mean seriously Machu Picchu (and other Inca towns too) had running water...on the top of a mountain...some of it still is perfectly active today that is how precisely it was designed.  

Anyways I digress.  Aside from Palo Alto, I have stayed right downtown as well on countless occasions, normally for conferences such as VMworld.  So when I was asked to come down for two weeks for meetings, I thought it would be a perfect time to bring Audrey down.

Now I have done most of the famous touristy stuff, Alcatraz, the golden gate bridge, China Town, Lombard Street, pier 39 (for the Arr Arr's) etc. it was always on a whim when we were there.  I have never actually come here for "vacation" doing the full tourist thing.  San Francisco is definitely an iconic place where the skyline can be identified almost instantly if you have been here before:

We are definitely going to be hitting up Alcatraz, as well as many of the other attractions here this week.  Thus this posting will be a series on the stuffs that we do over the next couple of days. Hopefully it will help anyone thinking of coming down here to see exactly how amazing this city is. 

Next up, in Part 2, Alcatraz, one of the coolest sites in this area!