San Francisco, pt.III: Stanford & Alcatraz

On Monday morning, as Ellen went about her chores and prep for class, I took a stroll around the Stanford campus. That campus is, well... something. Quite different from our messy haphazard Leuven campus. Everything is neatly planned out, all the buildings are in the same style, there are statues and fountains and well-tended laws everywhere. It seems like a pleasant place to spend a year.

Mid-morning, I hopped on the train to San Francisco again.

I walked back to the Ferry building where Ellen & I had admired the food on Saturday, determined to get me some fancy foodie lunch.

It was fancy foodie allright... it came from the Japanse deli, and I had NO idea what is was. But it tasted good!

I enjoyed a delicious gelato for dessert while soaking up the sun on the deck overlooking Oakland Bay Bridge.

Then I took a cab over to Pier 33 (with a Brazilian cab driver, who else?) to take the ferry to Alcatraz.



It was, erm, windy.




Alcatraz Island not only hosts the remains of what once was an infamous prison, but also large colonies of sea birds. In fact, May is their hatching season, and parts of the island are closed to visitors so the birds can hatch in peace.








After hopping on the boat back to the mainland, I walked in the direction of Chinatown. On my way there I encountered this friedly-looking hippie bus.
The San Francisco skyline is dominated by the Transamerica Pyramid building. Or the Ku Klux Klan building, as I like to call it.
On second thought, from close by, it looks more like a cheese grater. (For some reason, no matter what I do blogger refuses to put this photo in the right direction. But so long as blogger doesn't eat my blogpost, I won't complain. Not too much, at least.)

Chinatown.





Union Square.


And that concludes my last day in San Francisco/Palo Alto. It's been wonderful discovering a little bit of the west coast, visiting my friend Ellen & getting to know so many new wonderful places & people.