Exploring California’s City by the Bay, San Francisco
By: Paula Wallis Sitting in Vesuvio Bar, off Jack Kerouac Alley, sipping on a pint of Anchor Steam, one could almost believe they’ve traveled back in time and are sitting in the San Francisco of yesteryear. You expect to turn to the barstool next to you and see the man himself, Jack Kerouac, drinking off last night’s hangover, as some famous beat poet or another rails against humanity from the dimly lit corner of the room. To me, this bar truly felt like the San Francisco I had long imagined. But it’s not just funky retro bars I came to see here, although San Francisco has more than it’s fair share of them. I wanted to see the whole city; tourist traps and local haunts alike. It would be easy to spend a week or two in San Francisco, enjoying that west...
Read MoreAlcatraz – Visiting America’s Most Infamous Prison
By: Eric Alexander Hamilton Would you pay to go to prison? Believe it or not, many people do when they visit San Francisco, California. Their destination is Alcatraz, America’s most infamous prison. With its isolated setting and violent history, Alcatraz has become San Francisco’s number one tourist attraction—over one million people visit it every year. You may even recognize the place from some of the movies filmed here, such as The Rock (Nicolas Cage) and Escape from Alcatraz (Clint Eastwood). Touring this prison is like visiting hell in the midst of heaven. Strangely, it was purposely set up that way, a symbol of the government’s attempt to restore law and order in the midst of the Great Depression in the 1930’s, an era of gangsters and...
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