Photo of the Day: Ai Weiwei at Alcatraz
It took me eons before I finally visited Alcatraz. In my defense, my “tourist” visit to San Francisco was around 19981, and I had a limited amount of time. Then, after that, the visits were often mostly to see people. Anyway, about fifteen years later, I finally got to see Alcatraz.
It’s now one of my top suggestions for San Francisco. The National Park has an exceptional audio tour of the jail, and at least in the 2015-2020 time frame, there were often former guards (and the occasional former prisoner) on-site to recount stories and answer questions.
On my first visit, there was an art exhibit in the old prison laundry. I had thought it was something that was done regularly, but never saw another exhibit in my subsequent visits. The exhibit was work by Ai Weiwei, and was a colorful counterpoint to the faded grey around the complex.
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That was the trip where I made the biggest financial mistake of my life. ↩