My whole trip to California was amazingly fun, but the best part was visiting Alcatraz, an abandoned, infamous prison. I have always been fascinated by law and crime, but seeing an actual prison where famous inmates like Al Capone were imprisoned definitely peaked my interest.
   

Alcatraz Penitentiary sits isolated on Alcatraz Island. In order to get to the island, my mother and I had to ride in a boat across San Francisco Bay. The boat ride, which we shared with about fifty other people, lasted about fifteen minutes and was very chilly. The mist of San Francisco Bay sprinkled my face and the air smelled of salt water. As we approached the island, I could begin to see the sharp, rocky edges that surrounded the islands and I wondered if they were put there to stop prisoners from trying to escape. The walls of the prison were tan and covered in graffiti.
   

“The walls of Alcatraz have been essentially untouched since its construction in 1963, so all of the graffiti and writing you see here and there was actually done by the hands of real prisoners,” said my tour guide. At first, I thought that this was probably just something they tell all of the tourists, but after getting off of the boat, I realized that the tour guide was telling the truth.
   

Upon stepping off of the boat, the first thing I realized were the very old signs scattered all around the prison. One sign read, “Alcatraz Island. U.S. Penitentiary. All boats keep back 200 ft.”. I remember this sign in particular because when I asked our guide, Tammy, why this sign was put up, she told me that it was because prisoners often tried to jump into passing boats. I also remember seeing red graffiti that read “Indians welcome,” and, “Indian’s Land”. I recall feeling very curious about the Indian graffiti, and I later learned that the graffiti was painted by a group of Indians who lived on Alcatraz Island for almost two years. I remember hearing everyone’s “oohs” and “ahhs” as the tour guides told the story of the Indians on Alcatraz Island, but no amount of amazement could compare to that of when we actually walked inside the prison.
   

The first thing I noticed when I walked through the doors of Alcatraz was the smell. It did not smell bad, but it did smell very old, kind of like my grandma’s old P.T. Cruiser. We were given a pair of headphones and a small device that narrated an audio-tour through the prison. Seeing the actual jail cells, places where real people actually spent most of their days, really struck me. I do not know if I felt sad or if I was just amazed, but it definitely gave me an uneasy feeling (not really in a bad way, though). At almost every jail cell, the audio-tour included a quote from a prisoner who had stayed in the cell. I remember George Kelly’s quote saying, “These five words seem written in fire on the walls of my cell: Nothing can be worth this!” Kelly’s quote in particular planted a thought in my mind of just how horrible the place used to be. I remember touching the bars of the cells, which felt rough and aged, and wondering who else had touched these same bars. I also recall seeing the actual fake bodies made by the first and only three inmates to ever escape Alcatraz. The fake bodies were carved from soap, which the prisoners had been collecting for months, and they even had hair, collected from the prison’s barbershop. I wondered what it must have been like to sit in a place, a place that prisoners described as “Hell on Earth”, while having a view of San Francisco, a loud, beautiful city. This thought alone left me speechless until the end of the tour.
   

Alcatraz Penitentiary was a place for the worst of the worst criminals. In its operating days, it was a pretty nasty, horrific place for both prisoners and workers. Fights broke out everyday, around thirteen people died of either suicide or murder, and everyone on the island had to look out onto the fun, partying city of San Francisco while they were stuck on an island. It may come across as odd that this memory really changed me as a person, but it truly did. Visiting Alcatraz taught me a lot about the law back in the 1960’s, which sparked an interest for me. Visiting Alcatraz also gave me a new perspective on prisons and criminals because I felt like I had a firsthand experience with them (Literally, I got to talk to a former Alcatraz prisoner). My trip to California left me with a lot of memories, but visiting Alcatraz left me with a new perspective and a lot of knowledge, too.