Learning about my beloved San Francisco

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I make my love of San Francisco pretty obvious. I've written about it, my Instagram feed often shares things I see around the City on my daily walks. I think it's just about the best city in the world, and I want everyone to know it.

I lived there for a while in college, went to college there, worked (and currently) work there, and have lived with 50 miles of it for my entire life.

In spite of all that, San Francisco is a city of many stories, and I'm always excited to get a chance to learn more about this place that I love so much!

I was thrilled to once again be invited to go on the San Francisco Duck Boat, and this time I got to bring along my sister and her family for fun too! My sister is a new homeschooler, so she was really excited to kick off her first year with an exciting adventure like the duck boat. We had a great time with my parents on this same excursion last year, so I knew it would be fun for my nieces as well.

Even though we'd done the tour before, a different driver makes for a totally different experience! Each captain puts their own spin on the stories, and in our case, a detour due to a parade changed it up too!

Below are some photos relating to things we learned on our tour this year; just roll your mouse of the photo to get the answer!

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So, how'd you do? Did you get my extra-hard final bonus question? (It's amazing the things that you get so excited about when there are kids in your life, it's it?) This isn't everything we learned on the tour… a few more tidbits:

• In 1848, San Francisco's population was 900 people. After gold was found in 1849, the population exploded… an 1851 census showed 30,000 people and another 90,000 transients!
• The Cannery (pictured above) originally canned peaches of all things!
• The Buena Vista claims it took 2 years to “perfect” the Irish Coffee recipe we all now know and love. I totallly would have volunteered to be a taste tester!
• The top part of the Transamerica Pyramid is hollow (the top 15 floors)
• The fortune cookie was invented in San Francisco's Japantown, but the name was changed to “Chinese Fortune Cookie” in World War 2, after Pearl Harbor.
  
• Firefighters dynamited 3500 homes on Van Ness Avenue in the days following the 1906 earthquake, in an effort to form a firebreak and save the rest of the city. It worked.

We had a great time on the duck boat, once again, and like I said last year, it's a great way to see a city, even if you think you already know all about it! Head over to their website to get all the info about booking your own tour, and check out their current promos.
If you're in San Francisco, keep an eye out for the Duck Boat, snap a pic and post and tag it with #SFAmphibian, and you could win tickets!
We made a whole day of our duck boat tour; lunch on Fisherman's Wharf, ice cream at The Cannery, it was a great day to just hang out with family and learn about this city that we love!
Disclosure: I received passes for my family to take the San Francisco Duck Boat tour in exchange for this post. All content and opinions are my own, no further compensation was received.