Wednesday 3rd October

Forced ourselves to get up at 7.30am so we don't miss the breakfast again! We had to make waffles ourselves using the waffles maker. Lisa and Daniel managed to make the perfect waffles which put the japanese guy next to us to shame, as his waffles went wrong. It ended up looking like omelette! It wasn't enjoyable eating it as it was too sweet for us! Daniel mentioned that he was missing his cereals! Packing time again(!) but it was difficult again cos of our purchases, more things to carry! The couple we shared with were also leaving on the same day as us. We said our goodbyes.

As we had too many things to carry, we decided to get a taxi to take us straight to the Amtrak Bus Station. Can you imagine carrying the rucksacks along with other stuff up onto the steep hills? No thank you!! Our legs were still sore from the bike rides.

Dropped our bags off at the Amtrak Station, made our way to the Alcatraz Cruises for 12.10pm departure. We arrived in good time as we were at the front of the queue to get onto the boat to the island. Once we arrived, we wandered around the island before taking on the audio tour for the cell house/blocks. Before we proceeded, we spoke to the reception, explaining that the audio tour wouldn't be any good for us and were wondering if we could have discounts for the tickets.

Instead of giving us discounts, they gave us transcripts. It was handy but after reading few lines, Lisa realised that they were mostly the former inmates' and officers' stories. So we decided to take on the headphones to get the feeling of the atmosphere with the help of the transcripts. We were pleased that we didn't give up on the idea of the headphones cos they had background sounds such as the clanging prison cell doors, siren, whistles, riot noises. It was quite difficult to follow cos we couldn't read and look at the displays at the same time. Most of the time, we had to pause our audio so we can take our time to read the display and take the pics etc. It was very interesting but unfortunately we had to rush our tour cos we had to get the boat back to catch our Amtrak Bus. We wish that we could stay more longer to look around properly, especially outside where the inmates did their own gardens. Most of the areas were working in progress so unfortunately it meant out of bounds for us visitors.

On our way back through the gift shop, there was a former inmate doing the book signing at the time. He also came along on the boat that we caught back to the pier!

Once we arrived back to the land, we quickly walked back to the Amtrak, picked up our rucksacks and waited for our bus to arrive to take us to Emeryville before changing for the train to Bakersfield. Then again catching a bus straight to San Diego, arriving at 5.35am! *Yawns*

We forgotten to mention in the previous blog that when we bought the laptop, we decided to buy a Family Guy Season 5 ( Seen it Craig? ;P ) It was 15 pounds. Bargain comparing to the UK! We have seen the first 2 episodes on the train. Now the laptop is coming in very handy to keep us amused on the long journey now :D

We will be in San Diego for 4 nights so we are looking forward to it as our hostel is right next to the beach. FINALLY, a beach to visit after all the cities we have been to in the past month!! We are hoping to visit the famous San Diego Zoo.