From the Jail to the Olimpics

Day 5: 20th December

Alcatraz

That day I felt I needed to do some healthy, streamlined tourism. Following the advice of several friends and strangers, I went to Alcatraz island to visit the most (in)famous prison in the world. Tickets usually sell out pretty quickly but I was lucky to get one. I guess it's destiny.

The environmental-friendly ferry took us to the island, it had Eolic generators, solar panels, as well as gasoline (no surprise). While waiting in line to get on the boat, a guy took a photograph of each visitor in front of a fake screen, so that you get the photo with the (fake) Alcatraz background. Gross.

The tour was interesting, there was an audio guide that presented the prison areas (it wasn't that big), and played some prisoner interviews. The actual cells were shit-holes (is that even a word?).

Imagine this for a second: you're in this prison, you have no family (or no family who cares about you). You're buried there, without a reason to live for. What are you supposed to do?

For the prisoner, the escape was the reason to wake up each morning. Doesn't matter if you succeed. I believe that a reason to live is a psychological necessity for every human being, pretty much like you need food and water. A driving force.

From the Alcatraz island there are also pretty nice (neat) views.

Fisherman's Wharf

Once back on land, I had to give a shot at this Fisherman's Wharf thing. As far as I know some Italian dudes like me settled there few years ago to make some money, and I guess they had kinda of a cool vibe all around. The name sounds like the place of a fantasy game too, don't know, like Fisherman Horizon.

Anyway, the reason to go there are souvenirs, eating some fish, and observe those motherfuckers bitching with each other making a shitey mess:

I had pretty decent street food there. My favourite part.

Beer Olympics

Ok, let me tell you something more about this hostel. In this hostel there is a culture of free stuff, for example there is a shelf with half-used bathroom products left behind by some guests. That's where I got my shampoo, for instance.

There's also a free dinner three times a week offered by the hostel, cooked by no one else than Egidio. I was alone, so I sat on a free, empty table. After a while this woman in her 50's joins me in the opposite corner of the table. She was a bit shy, but she was looking and smiling at me. After a little while I decided to start a conversation. 

Usual smalltalk soup, "Where are you from?", "What are you doing here?", and only at the end, "What's your name?"—promptly forgotten. She was looking for an house there, because her family (or what it remains of that) lives in San Francisco.

"Are you an artist?", she asked. "No I'm a chemist, and I cook drugs", I said. Then I added, "Just kidding, if I really cooked drugs I wouldn't sleep in an hostel."

She later confessed that I looked like an artist, so Jesus, check. Artist, check. She was actually an artist, like drawing, painting, sculpting, and some music in the free time. And she used a lot the word neat. I like that word, neat.

After a while another guy joined us, he was a PhD student like me. We confessed each other that we looked familiar. Weird, it's impossible that we've met before. But it was nice pointing this out.

The hostel organizes also cool events for its guests. The event on Friday was... Beer Olympics. Oh yeah, it sounds like pretty darn amazing.

Locals and hostel guests gather in a bar for a drinking game competition. Four games. Teams decided at random based on nationality. 5 beers, 10 bucks. Again, neat.

I was in line next to a few Australian guys, and I decided to join them. There weren't other Italians that I knew of, by the way. There were five of us and we sat at a table. After grabbing our beers and taking a few sips, we started preparing for the game. And we did some warm up.

At 9:30 we started the actual Olympics. When we met the opposite Team, we are approached by the 6th team member. Annie, a solid 8 1/2—a gnocca, in Egidio's jargon. She was a pretty fun girl too, and we were funny guys too. Explosive.

We got in the mood, and started doing what every competitive dude does, mocking and humiliating the rival team members. In this shot Luke "Nice hair" is politely enticing the opposing team member to consume his yeast-fermented, hop-flavoured alcoholic beverage.

DRINK, DRINK, DRINK.

Our team was unstoppable, we won all 4 matches. My moment of glory was the last throw of beer pong. I took the ball, closed my eyes, kissed the ball (with the disgust of the opponent).

Deep breath and... bam. Perfect shot. The team exulted. Team D, like ducks, quack quack quack!

Everyone was drunk and we were the only team who cared about winning the Olympics, so we sort-of did a final and we kinda-lost but it doesn't matter.

Time passed and the team evaporated quickly. Annie "Eight and a half" went away—"Don't break too many hearts"—she said when leaving.

The other dudes went to another club in Mission St. I didn't feel like following them. But don't forget this detail, it will be useful in the next post.

Overall this was a great, fun day.