Saturday started at like 7am. We were going to take the trolley ride to Pier 39/Fisherman’s Wharf, and see how we could fit Alcatraz into our day. The line at the trolley was way too long due to the SEA OF CRIMSON all over the freaking place. Yup. USC at Cal Saturday around noon. I could not believe the number of Trojan fans in SF for the game. No wonder the flights were booked, hotels were booked, and the traffic was horrendous. We ended up walking to the edge of Chinatown and grabbing a taxi to Pier 32. The line for Alcatraz was hideous, too. They were booked up all the way thru Monday, despite the fact that a ferry leaves for Alcatraz every half an hour. But here’s what we discovered. We can get a stand-by ticket, get in the very short stand-by line, and be on the very next ferry. Must be a well-kept secret. Of course, there were the usual disclaimers of “seating is not guaranteed,” etc.

Alcatraz was actually very interesting and pretty. The audio tour of the jails was pretty good. I guess. Except that I still feel “turn left and keep walking” is confusing because “left” is so subjective, and they should’ve stuck to “walk down the aisle toward the clock.” For those who have never done the audio tour or know anything about it, you wear a headset that plays a tape of the tour, and when you get to a particular spot in the jail, you press “play.” The tour begins to play and has really cool interviews with former inmates and sound effects of the jails, with some trivia information as it tells you where to walk and where to look as it introduces the jail to you. I found the escape attempts particularly engaging.

After Alcatraz, we explored Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. We walked by an oxygen bar place where for $20 you suck up scented oxygen for 10 mins as someone gives you a backrub, head massage and heated shoulder wrap (with props they sell and try to peddle off on you), and 10 minutes in a water massage chamber. I can’t say I felt much different after the oxygen, altho I hear it’s great if you have a hangover (which I still have never had). I didn’t buy any of the products because I have most of the stuff they sell already, or some version thereof.

We walked to a meeting spot outdoors by a giant Xmas tree in an open square closer to our hotel and met up with Diana and The Same Mystery Date from the nite before, but they were wearing different clothes, so I assume nothing inappropriate happened when we left them. =} Mr. W and I got to watch these 2 attorneys bicker about some insignificant thing that they’ve apparently been bickering about for the past 2 days, and then The Date was excused to attend his own dinner as we had dinner with Diana at an outdoor French restaurant called Cafe Bastille. Excargot, more wine, good entrees. Diana then gave us a car tour of the city. Mr. W’s camera snapped away at the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts (a gargantuan Greek-inspired structure with lots of pretty Corinthian columns), and we ended up at Diana’s favorite dessert place, a gourmet bakery-restaurant called Citizen Cake. There, the Mystery Date returned and Diana and I shared stories of our years living together, over dessert. Diana and Date shared, again, the same bickering argument they had earlier over the same topic. The bartender and I shared a conversation about how freaking cold it was for me in SF that weekend with the drizzle on Friday that we walked in, and the sunny but clear but cold low 60F weather on Saturday and Sunday. They all laughed at me for monopolizing Mr. W’s giant heavy coat all weekend, and the bartender (who was from Pasadena) said sympathetically that it took him years to adjust to the weather up north, too, altho this weekend was considered “warm and nice.”