A rainy day in San Francisco, Alcatraz and No Cabs

The fact that it's December finally caught up with us after spending three straight days here with sun and fairly clear skies. Yesterday, it rained and fogged. I slept in and walked down to the video store with my mom. We intended to rent Escape from Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood in preparation for the Alcatraz night tour, but the video store said the last person who rented it didn't return it. So we settled on, well, Superbad. Also a great film, but for different reasons.

After sitting around for most of the day reading (and then watching the movie), my parents, my brother, my brother's girlfriend, Whitney, her parents, and I took two cabs down to Pier 33 by Fisherman's Wharf to catch the evening tour to Alcatraz.

While people will tell you Alcatraz is the biggest tourist trap San Francisco has to offer, and in many ways I suppose it could be, I have to say it's worth every penny to take the 15 minute ferry ride across the bay to see it. As we rode over on the ferry at dusk, a translucent fog enveloped the island and we could still see the outline of the city in the distance. It felt eerie to climb to the top of the island and then into the prison and learn not only about the escape attempts, but of just what the day-to-day was like for the prisoners who lived there. It must have worn on the prisoners to see the life and vibrancy of the city from the island -- they knew they were so close, but yet couldn't be further away from freedom.

We took the ferry back across the bay. Adam and I decided we'd brave the weather (mostly fog and light rain) on the top deck. We grabbed a couple beers from the snack bar and went up there so I could point to parts of the city and have him explain where each neighborhood ended and the next one begun.

When we got back to Fisherman's Wharf, that's where the trouble began. Adam had made plans for us to eat at an Italian place in North Beach (that doesn't take reservations but where getting a table generally isn't a problem), and called to verify the address. When he phoned them, however, he learned that they were closed until January 9. As a result, and believe me, I felt bad for him, he was standing on a street corner with his parents, future in-laws, girlfriend and his brother with no table reserved anywhere on 8 p.m. on a Friday. We looked for cabs just to take us from Fisherman's Wharf up to North Beach, but none came. Apparently, anytime it rains in San Francisco, cabs become hard to find.

We eventually made it up to a small italian place but ended up waiting an additional hour for a table. My dad, Whitney's dad, Adam and myself ran up a tab of about 15 Moretti's and the women polished off a couple bottles of wine while we waited. Needless to say, we were feeling no pain by the time we finally got seated and ate some brick-oven pizza.