Albert at Alcatraz Island

A few days later... It was a sunny Sunday morning when we got up bright and early to take a trip to Alcatraz -- home of the Civil War fortress turned military prison turned high security Federal prison turned Historic Landmark and National Park. Alcatraz Island is most famous for housing nefarious criminals including "Machine Gun" Kelly and Al Capone (who died in prison of syphilis -- I'm not sure why, but that kinda makes me giggle).

This visit involved a ride into SF on the BART (SF's equivalent of the Metro), then a trip on the Muni (the local trains within SF), then a bus to the piers, and finally, a ferry boat to the island (Yay, ferry boats! I love ferry boats, esp. with that Bay Area wind!):

(waiting for the bus to the pier)

(Yay, the Embarcadero!)

We boarded the ferry, and in no time we were getting farther away from the Bay Bridge (the bridge that you cross to get to SF from Berkeley):



And closer to Alcatraz:

While we were on the ferry, Michael also took the time to show Albert his iPhone.

Needless to say, Albert was sufficiently impressed.

Soon enough we arrived at Alcatraz Island.

We were ushered into the forbidding fortress, where we then proceeded to climb the hill to the prison. With our tape players in hand, we proceeded to walk the halls (following the audio tour).
Albert highly recommends taking the audio tour -- if you can stomach the sound effects for the re-enactments: the squish of the knife during the cafeteria fight, the pop of the gun during the attempted escapes.

As we were leaving, Albert got a little snappy with the guard - who then proceeded to throw us in jail :(
(Errmmm...Michael didn't get the memo that we were supposed to be sad...)

Soon enough the guards got bored of us and let us go...Once we were back on the mainland,
we headed over to Boudin's Restaurant for some yummy clam chowder in a sourdough bread
bowl. MmmmMmmm!!! Classic.

Keep with the tradition of Albert trying to take on animals much larger than himself, we have this:

Yup, that's a sharks jaw...
But all is well. I tucked Albert back into the safety of my purse and headed home.