I left my heart....

In all our years in "The 'Couve", we never made it back to San Francisco. We'd been there once, in 1995, the first time we visited the US, and it was a pretty important moment for me.

Ask any of my family what they most remember about that trip, and I'll give you very, very good odds they'll mention my bad moods. Oh yes, I was a hormonal teenager to the nth. My family had a brief respite from my grumpyness (though that word alone truly does not suffice) while we were in San Francisco.

Mum and Dad wanted a to take a tour of Alcatraz, and I protested heartily... it was a boy thing, not for girls, not interesting at all. They made me do it.

It didn't take long. We each were given a set of headphones and guided on an audio tour of the ghost prison. I was captivated. From that moment on, I was an historian.

I saw it today, Alcatraz for the first time since that lightening-bolt moment. It was just as I remembered it.

Alcatraz