{"id":2809,"date":"2013-12-17T18:56:50","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T02:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2809"},"modified":"2013-12-17T18:56:50","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T02:56:50","slug":"cell-block-tango-san-francisco-12172013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2809","title":{"rendered":"Cell Block Tango \u2013 San Francisco \u2013 [12\/17\/2013]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brooke-Shaden-photography-22\"<\/a>If you break the rules you go to prison. If you break the prison rules? You go to Alcatraz.<\/i><\/p>\n

It\u2019s very rare that I fly out in the morning, usually they fly me out in the middle of the night and I end up getting to the hotel just in time to fall into a dead sleep.\u00a0 But today they flew me out exceptionally early, which landed me in San Francisco in time to actually see<\/i> some of San Francisco.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t seen Munchkin or her mother in nearly three years, I met them on my very first world cruise what seems like a lifetime ago. But they live in San Francisco, so when I found out I had a day here it seemed the natural thing to do to call. They\u2019ve never been able to come on another cruise after all (at least not yet). Munchkin is of course three years older now than she was when she threw her arms around my waist at the crew farewell, but she\u2019s still Munchkin, and always will be.<\/p>\n

Of course, when you have only one day in town, there\u2019s always the question of what to do.<\/p>\n

When I was just a kid we drove down to California to go to Disneyland, and on the way back we stopped in San Francisco. My father desperately wanted to visit Alcatraz \u2013 why I am not quite sure, but he wanted to \u2013 so there it was. I, however, did not want to.\u00a0 I was not a fit throwing child, but something was telling me that I didn\u2019t want to go to this place, so I sat down in the middle of the hotel room floor and announced that I wasn\u2019t. \u00a0It took dad several years to forgive me but that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t actually think I\u2019d ever set foot on that cursed island. But the friends I was having lunch with today managed to get us tickets \u2013 which is really something because they\u2019re not easy to come by (sometimes you have to book six months in advance!). And once I got there, I wasn\u2019t really certain what to expect \u2013 but there was one thing: I was afraid. Perhaps afraid isn\u2019t the right word, uneasy might be better.<\/p>\n

The energy in that place is\u2026well, it\u2019s not quite as bad as Vietnam. But it\u2026it\u2019s something I can\u2019t quite describe. Like someone \u2013 or something \u2013 was sitting on my chest. Oppressive. Thick. Like there was an underlying sense of panic oozing from the walls, I could feel it just on the edges of my perception, like something hovering there in the shadows. I think what would have been the worst in that place, if you were confined there, would be that the life you threw away would be so close \u2013 less than a mile away, and you couldn\u2019t get there. Time, tides, the frigid waters of the San Francisco Bay, conspired against everyone who even attempted to break free of its grip.<\/p>\n

And the cells\u2026they are\u2026so small. So very small. I could stand in the middle of one and touch both walls. Or at least I could have if they hadn\u2019t been all shut of course. Except\u2026for \u2018The Hole\u2019\u2026we could walk into one of the solitary confinement cells in D-block.\u00a0 Standing in that little dark room, looking out through the barred door, listening to the voices of the audio tour saying that if you closed your eyes and concentrated you could project kind of a movie screen in your head to keep you sane while you were in there\u2026I got, a little bit dizzy.<\/p>\n

It felt good to get out into the clear air again; the San Francisco skyline is slightly obscured at the moment, but the summer fogs are far behind us so at least you can see your hand in front of your face!<\/p>\n

Once back in the \u2018free\u2019 world, we needed food. So I have now acquired another Hard Rock Caf\u00e9 martini glass (what can I say, I\u2019m a sucker for their pomegranate martinis!).<\/p>\n

There are certainly worse ways to spend the day before you start work\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you break the rules you go to prison. If you break the prison rules? You go to Alcatraz. It\u2019s very rare that I fly out in the morning, usually they fly me out in the middle of the night … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,12,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-historical-sites","category-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-Jj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2811,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809\/revisions\/2811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}