Summer is a time for vacations. My favorite vacation destination is my home town: beautiful San Francisco. I recently spent a lovely, long vacation in the city by the bay.

There is a surprisingly easy way to tell if someone is from San Francisco. Using absolutely no statical evidence, I would say it is 96% effective.

Tell me what this is:

What’s that? Did you say it’s a trolley? Then you are not from San Francisco, dear reader. You didn’t say that? You said it was a cable car? Then, chances are, you hail from the San Francisco Bay Area! …Or you know someone from the Bay (maybe me) who has scoffed at you for saying “trolley car”.

Ah, the cable car. Perhaps even more iconic than the New York subway. Unlike the subway, they are not the preferred method of transportation for locals. Currently costing $6 a ride, one takes a cable car for the experience, not to get from point A to point B. A decade ago, when I was in high school, the unlimited ride metro pass included rides on the cable car. I often took one home from school, a much more relaxing ride than powering up five blocks of steep hills. Being able to say I took the cable car home from school makes me feel every inch a San Francisco native.

 There is always a line for the cable car, as pictured. Natives, however, know you can wait 2 blocks away, at the first passenger stop, and board one in a fraction of the time. I stood gawking at the cable cars, snapping pictures, and even raced one to get a good picture of it going up SF’s notorious hills. I must admit, I’ve never felt more like a tourist in my home town. Part of me felt ashamed, another part of me felt I had earned the right. Besides, had anyone rolled their eyes at me muttering “Tourist.” I could have knocked them dead with, “I took the cable car 2 miles home from high school! In the rain! During an earthquake!”

Not exactly true…but I am nothing with out dramatic license!