The joys of travelling… I woke at 2.30am and have tried to sleep but its now 4.30 and I've given up. My roomies are still snoring away so I've dialled down the lights on my laptop and decided to catch up on my diary & blog.
There is always a balance taking photos when you travel; you want to depict your impression of the place you are visiting (which by necessity will include local icons) but also capture the more artistic side of what you are seeing & feeling. Last evening I found myself being drawn to the old fashioned lights and the trees and the detail of the older buildings but I must remember to capture more the essence of the city.
It’s a small world - our breakfast waiter is married to a girl from Porirua and is a hard core Hurricanes fan.
This morning we caught a tram out to Pier 33 and then the ferry to Alcatraz. It was raining and pretty miserable, but somehow that seemed more appropriate than visiting on a nice sunny day. We went early to avoid the worst crowds - unfortunately so did everyone else.
Still, it was a sobering experience & well worth the visit. It's hard to convey the dank. cold, dripping wetness of the older parts of the complex or the depressing, hemmed in feeling of the cells. I went into a solitary confinement cell and it was 6 of my feet wide and 10 long. I do not have big feet. It wasn't emotionally disturbing like Robben Island though. The inmates here were outright criminals, while Robben Island was about being incarcerated for your beliefs and race.
We got pretty cold and damp but Sod's Law being what it is, the sun sort of poked through the cloud as we landed back on the mainland. We wandered down to Fisherman's Wharf in search of lunch. I can now verify that Key Lime Pie is just like Lemon Meringue Pie but made with limes. I overheard someone commenting that the rain was due to set in and get worse around 2pm. And it did, almost bang on time.
So at the moment 3 of us are asleep and snoring and the remaining 2 of us are banging keyboards to the smell of wet socks and wondering if we can summon up the energy to go out in the rain for dinner.
I have seen the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance - maybe tomorrow the weather will be kinder...
There is always a balance taking photos when you travel; you want to depict your impression of the place you are visiting (which by necessity will include local icons) but also capture the more artistic side of what you are seeing & feeling. Last evening I found myself being drawn to the old fashioned lights and the trees and the detail of the older buildings but I must remember to capture more the essence of the city.
It’s a small world - our breakfast waiter is married to a girl from Porirua and is a hard core Hurricanes fan.
This morning we caught a tram out to Pier 33 and then the ferry to Alcatraz. It was raining and pretty miserable, but somehow that seemed more appropriate than visiting on a nice sunny day. We went early to avoid the worst crowds - unfortunately so did everyone else.
Still, it was a sobering experience & well worth the visit. It's hard to convey the dank. cold, dripping wetness of the older parts of the complex or the depressing, hemmed in feeling of the cells. I went into a solitary confinement cell and it was 6 of my feet wide and 10 long. I do not have big feet. It wasn't emotionally disturbing like Robben Island though. The inmates here were outright criminals, while Robben Island was about being incarcerated for your beliefs and race.
We got pretty cold and damp but Sod's Law being what it is, the sun sort of poked through the cloud as we landed back on the mainland. We wandered down to Fisherman's Wharf in search of lunch. I can now verify that Key Lime Pie is just like Lemon Meringue Pie but made with limes. I overheard someone commenting that the rain was due to set in and get worse around 2pm. And it did, almost bang on time.
So at the moment 3 of us are asleep and snoring and the remaining 2 of us are banging keyboards to the smell of wet socks and wondering if we can summon up the energy to go out in the rain for dinner.
I have seen the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance - maybe tomorrow the weather will be kinder...
 |  |
 |  |
RSS Feed