Week four: San Francisco

Now I've been here for a month and it feels like 3 days.

On Tuesday, I set out on my own again. I drove to Coit Tower before school in the morning. The way there was beautiful, as was the weather this week 😊.

For $8, you could take the elevator up because there are no stairs. Although I think it's quite expensive, I now believe that it was definitely worth it! I had a beautiful view of San Francisco in every direction on a clear day.

Afterwards, I took the bus to City Hall. Along the way, I made a short stop in a park where there was a very beautiful church. City Hall was incredibly impressive. I was even able to look at the town hall from the inside, but had to go through a security check first.

Then I had class from 1:35 pm to 4:25 pm. I changed my courses this week because the previous level was a bit too low, so I was a bit bored towards the end of last week. Now I am challenged more and also do grammar, presentations, and tests.

I regret a little bit that I didn't change my course earlier because I only have 2 weeks of classes in the new class overall and I like it even better now.

In the afternoon, after school, I met up with my friends at the "painted ladies". Of course, I really like the houses, but I find it a bit funny that you drive so far for a few pictures and a quick look at about 5-8 houses that all look the same 😄. Before I arrived there, I walked around the streets in the area of the painted ladies a bit and saw many houses that I liked even better.

On Wednesday morning, I had school again from 8:45 am to 11:25 am. I was quite excited and couldn't wait for the classes to finally be over because a trip to Alcatraz was planned for the afternoon. We already had to buy the tickets last week as Alcatraz sells out quickly and often. We took a boat to Alcatraz at 2:00 pm. When we arrived there, we could borrow audio guides, which were included in the ticket. I chose the English version because the original is usually better. I was pretty glad that we could use audio guides because I would have definitely gotten lost without them. It was also incredibly interestingly designed. When you stood in front of a certain prison cell, there was usually a story about the person who actually lived in the cell (of course spoken, probably also fictional). When walking through the corridors of the prison cells, you could hear the screams of the prisoners and the rattling of the bars through the headphones. I found it very impressive and even now, just thinking about it, gives me goosebumps.

I also found it incredibly interesting that outside the prison there were other houses where the prison guards lived with their families. I also read that up to 80 children lived on the same grounds as the worst criminals. Alcatraz is not particularly large, so there were only up to 302 prisoners there at the same time.

In the evening, we met up with 7 of us in the kitchen at "the Hub" because we wanted to plan our weekend trip together.

Thursday was quite exhausting because I had class from 8:45 am to 4:25 pm. After school, I met up with some friends at Union Square, which is really one of my favorite places here in San Francisco. In the evening, I enjoyed a bit of time alone in my room because it's also nice to have some time for yourself every now and then. So I could talk a bit with friends on the phone, "study" for my test today, and watch some series 😊.

Today, we said goodbye to a friend from Germany. She was only here for 4 weeks because she is still going to school in Germany. We went to in-n-out, a fast food chain in California, for her farewell.

Now I'm in my room and need to pack my things for our trip, which I'm incredibly looking forward to 😊.

I'll be back after our trip 👋🏻