There are some things agreed upon by every San Franciscan or anyone who has spent a good amount of time there.  TALK students bound for The City by the Bay should know these 15 important as well as frivolous things about San Francisco.

Fascinating Facts About San Francisco

1. Let’s start off with the fact that it’s NOT Frisco! Call San Francisco Frisco at your own peril.
2. It’s not your standard California weather, and there are microclimates all over the city, so learn how to layer!
3. Tips of 20% are expected, well…everywhere. People work hard to earn their tipped wage, and the city is expensive so unless  you plan on NEVER having a regular bar, or coffee joint, where you’re treated as a valued customer, tip generouslyJ
4. Also, THIS about San Francisco: restaurants close early. Shocker, huh?  Many restaurants close at 10:00 pm.  But don’t despair, there’s plenty of after-hours action in the city.
5. Dogs go everywhere, so I hope you don’t have an allergy or an attitude because every dog in San Francisco is a service dog.
6. It’s steep, there are 50 hills in the city with Filbert Street being the steepest—a 65-foot hill with a 31% grade! Leave your stilettos at home.
7. San Francisco was part of Mexico from 1821 until the Mexican-American war in 1848.
8. The Spanish originally named the city Yerba Buena which means “good herb”—speaking of which, now that marijuana is legal all over California the state, including the city of San Francisco, prosecutors there are now moving to erase thousands of marijuana convictions.
9. There are giant ball bearings under the 267 columns of the San Francisco Airport. If there’s an earthquake they allow for the ground to move 20” in any direction.
10. You can paint anything you want the color of the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s “International Orange” a Sherwin Williams paint color.
11. While on the subject of the Golden Gate Bridge—not so fun fact, it’s the world’s number one suicide location. The bridge has 11 “crisis counseling phones” posted along its span manned 24/7 by trained suicide counselors.
12. Grant Avenue in Chinatown is the oldest street in the city.
13. And, funny enough, Chinese fortune cookies were invented here…by Japanese residents!
14. Levis jeans were invented here too when Levi Strauss saw the need for a durable pant for all the new transplants—the Gold Rush miners.
15. Arg, there be ships buried all over under the city!

There’s a lot, lot more about San Francisco that students and newcomers to the city will come to find out as they explore this famously fabulous city.