This past February, we showed you a video of how easily a thief could break into a hotel room, using nothing more than a simple piece of wire. Apparently that’s not the only way. According to a recent video posted at Blackbag, the blog of professional lock picker Barry Weis, a hotel room chain lock can be opened with nothing more than a simple rubber band. Watch in disbelief as a hand slips through the crack in the door, latches on a rubber band, and pulls the chain out of the bolt. It’s an amazingly cunning trick, thought it does raise a few questions. For instance, how would a thief using this trick get the door open if it was locked from the outside?
Before breaking into a state of safety hysteria, remember that not every hotel room is a burglary waiting to happen. Use common sense and don’t leave your valuables lying around when you leave the room. Use the in-room or hotel safe. And if possible, try to stay in rooms with bar-style locks rather than chain ones.
Walking through Antwerp is like walking through a gothic storybook. The colors are bright, but rained-upon, the cobbled streets are haphazard with marble-tiled crosswalks and lined with buildings which seem to lean left and right. The river has a graffiti-emblazoned concrete walkway leading to a castle-esque fortress, and of course, De Kathedraal (below/next page) is an astonishing sight to behold. From museums (with secret gardens) to high fashion and art to super-concept shops and diamonds, there’s a lot to see and do in Antwerp, Belgium.
Yes, I was surprised.
%Gallery-90174%I must admit that, as a traveler, Antwerp was not really on my radar. Because of this, I was pleasantly taken off guard as I rode in on the train and saw the stunning architecture to my left and right — both the decorative columns on the railway itself and the city beyond, dotted with cupolas and giant clocks.
There’s fine dining at restaurants like Dome — Dome is actually a trio of one fine dining restaurant, a more relaxed but similarly elegant cafe with fish in the wall (below), and a bakery — and Le John, where if you’re nice to your host, he might give you a taste of some fine aged Guatemalan rum. Zuiderterras offers a solid menu with killed views of the river, and cheaper options include the market down by the student pavilion and any kind of Belgian frites or Belgian chocolates you can imagine.
Antwerp’s legendary diamond district features more than just great deals on ice: a Diamond Museum as well as Diamondland (my preference), where you can learn all about the diamond trade and how diamonds are made and cut. There’s also a zoo, a World Heritage Site printing museum, The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, which features 20 Rubens and Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Marat, the De Koninck brewery and countless art galleries and monuments. East of the city center, right in the heart of the Diamond District is Central Station (below), a stunning building built between 1895 and 1905 with bling money. Walk south from the city center near the river and you’ll come upon a number of swingin’, happy clubs — keep walking and you’ll hit something that looks like the Sydney Opera House; it’s the courthouse.
All in all, I would say that Antwerp is a wonderful place for those who fall in love with old European cities. There is a strange, common juxtaposition of perfectly manicured buildings and those which look condemned or out of a Tim Burton movie, as well as all the gothic architecture and rainy romanticism a Europhile craves. I didn’t know what to expect from the city of Antwerp, but I now regard it as one of the most charming cities to which I’ve ever been.
My visit to Antwerp was sponsored by Tourism Antwerp and Cool Capitals, but the opinions expressed in the article are 100% my own.
We’ve probably all been there – you get on your flight, feeling so tired that you pass out before the plane takes off.
But in most cases, you’ll be awake right after you miss the drinks service. Air Canada passenger Kris Lines must have had the nap of his life, because he passed out right after taking off, and was awoken by a maintenance engineer inside a hangar at Vancouver airport.
Apparently none of the Air Canada flight crew members took the time to check whether they had left anyone on board, and simply got off the plane leaving Mr. Lines fast asleep.
When he complained to the airline, they offered him a “generous” 20% off voucher for a future flight. Mr. Lines is not satisfied with that offer, and calls it “absolute craziness”. I’m not entirely sure what else the airline could do for him, other than making sure their staff are retrained to check the plane for sleeping passengers. Still, if this happened to me, I too would probably fight for a little more than a useless discount voucher.
So, next time you feel like you are going to fall asleep on your flight, you may want to ask a seatmate to nudge you awake upon landing. Mr. Lines was lucky that the plane was moved to a hangar, at the end of the day, many planes are just parked for the night.
Chocolate. Bacon. Funnel cake. Three of my favorite things in the world. But is putting them all together too much of a good thing?
Apparently not at Knott’s Berry Farm, where chocolate bacon funnel cake is being added to the menu.
This over-the-top culinary concoction started where all good theme-park food trends do these days, on Twitter.
Meghan Gardner, a spokeswoman for Knott’s Berry Farm, said that the park sent out a tweet asking followers what funnel cake toppings they would like to see added to the menu.
Chocolate and bacon was the winner. So, the Buena Park, Calif., theme park created a funnel cake drizzled with chocolate syrup and topped with chopped bacon.
It was supposed to be a temporary item, Gardner said. But it proved so popular that the new snack has been added to the permanent menu at the park’s Funnel Cake Kitchen.
Nature has the power to amaze. From towering mountains to vast grasslands and immense oceans, there’s a world of natural wonder out there waiting to explore. But sometimes the outdoor world isn’t just amazing – it’s also downright weird. Mysterious sliding rocks, bizarre sinkholes…even lakes where you can float. We’ve put together a list of 17 strange natural wonders around the world. What strange forces are at work here? You’ll just have to read on to found out…
Lake Hévíz – Hungary Lake Hévíz is Europe’s largest thermal lake and a destination for people looking to rest their bones and experience the water’s alleged healing powers. The spring-fed lake is rich in blue and green algae, with good bacteria to aid in curing human ailments. Lake Hévíz is able to keep its own water fresh because a spring cave beneath the lake replenishes the entire body of water in a single day day. The lake’s strong health tourism industry has helped Hévíz continue to thrive.
Stone Forest – China
China’s landscape is rugged, yet lush and full of personality. The Stone Forest is no exception. Tall rocks shoot out of the hills like skyscrapers forming a city skyline. Most of the rocks are weathered to a smooth surface, but some formations look like animals and people. At times the rock formations move seamlessly between trees, blending in to create a scene almost like a painting.
Sarisarinama Sinkholes – Venezuela
The four sinkholes at Sarisarinama are very large and form almost perfect circles on the summit of Venezuela’s flat-topped mountains. Besides the geological abnormality, the unique plant and animal life found on the floor of the sinkholes is an object of much research by scientists – some species are found no other place on Earth.
La Brea Tar Pits – California
In the middle of Los Angeles, the La Brea Tar Pits shelter millions of years of history beneath their murky surface. Tar seeps up from the bedrock to form a pool. The pool is then covered in water, making an attractive watering hole for animals. When an animal fell into the pit, La Brea became its final resting place. The museum at La Brea holds the preserved bones of a stork, a prehistoric wolf and even a mammoth.
Dead Sea – Israel and Jordan
This giant salt lake on the border of Israel and Jordan is unique for two reasons: extreme saltiness and elevation. The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest lakes in the world and the resulting in an added buoyant lift for visitors. Even inexperienced swimmers easily float atop the water. In addition to the salt, a hefty concentration of other minerals increase the therapeutic value of the water, and many visitors can be seen rubbing it on their skin. The Dead Sea is also the Earth’s lowest surface elevation; the resulting high atmospheric pressure is beneficial for people suffering from respiratory illness. Visitors often feel a renewed sense of energy due to the increased levels of oxygen.
Luray Caverns – Virginia
The Luray Caverns were first discovered at the end of the 19th Century and now offer commercial tours. Stalactites and stalagmites form draped curtains throughout the caverns. One drip formation in the cave looks like a pair of eggs, sunny side up. The shallow underground lake in Luray Caverns, called Dream Lake, is perfectly still and creates an immaculate reflection of the stalactites hanging above. This illusion makes it seem infinitely deeper than its actual depth of twenty inches.
Chocolate Hills – Philippines
Out of a generally flat landscape, the conical Chocolate Hills rise from the floor like their candy kiss namesake. During the wet season, they are covered in a fresh carpet of green grass that looks like moss. When rainfall drops off for the dry season, the grass turns to a milk chocolate brown. The limestone hills were carved by erosion and are known to contain ancient marine fossils.
Arches National Park – Utah Arches National Park in eastern Utah is known for the reddish-orange sandstone rock formations that adorn the landscape. Shapes have been created very slowly over time and the most famous feature at Arches National Park is Delicate Arch. Other arches include Landscape Arch and the Double Arch, branching from the same base in different directions. Surprisingly, Arches isn’t all about the arches. Tall, thin sandstone slabs stick up out of the ground like fins, or blades to form the Organ and Park Avenue.
Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa – California Racetrack Playa is a dried up lake bed in Death Valley National Park. Rocks appear in the middle of the playa with a trail behind them, making it look like the rocks have slid across the surface. There are no animal or human prints around the rocks to indicate they were pushed or pulled. Nobody has ever seen the rocks move and there is no concrete explanation for their movement.
Giant’s Causeway – Ireland
The hexagonal basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway, formed millions of years ago by volcanic eruptions, are a natural wonder of geology and mythological lore. The columns look like prisms rising from the ground on the northern Irish coast. Finn MacCool, a giant of Irish legend, is said to have built the causeway with his own hands to make a bridge to Scotland.
Bonneville Salt Flats – Salt Lake City, Utah
Back before the Grand Canyon was even a blip on the radar, most of the western United States was underneath the Great Salt Lake. Though a portion of the lake still exists (one of the only landlocked bodies of salt water on Earth), most of the lake is gone. Left behind are the Bonneville Salt Flats miles of flat, barren, white landscape. The white dusting is actually salt, left behind after millions of years in the Great Salt Lake.
Penitentes – Andes Mountains, Argentina.
Similar to underground stalactites in caves, the Penitentes are spiky formations of ice and snow formed in vast fields along high-altitude mountainsides in South America. The formations, which seem to look like religious men bent in prayer, derived their name from the Spanish word for “penitent.” Some of the most famous fields cover the high peaks of the Andes Mountains in southern Argentina. Pine Mountain Laccolith – Southern Utah
Dominating the skyline of St. George, Utah is Pine Mountain – the world’s largest laccolith. A laccolith is a volcano that erupts from the bottom. Due to oddities in the sedimentary nature of the rock, the lava spills out of the bottom of the mountain. Though an eruption hasn’t happened for thousands of years, the lava beds still cover this seemingly contradictory landscape.
Molokini Crater – Maui, Hawaii
Millions of years ago, a volcano erupted just off the coast of the tranquil waters of Maui, leaving a moon-shaped shelf named Molokini that’s become a marine-lover’s playground. Cradling a reef just off coast, it’s an ideal location for snorkelers and divers to get a glimpse of tropical sea life – just don’t touch the turtles!
The Grunion Run – Huntington Beach, CA
Each year, the circle of life is on display as the Grunion fish of Southern California come ashore to lay their eggs in the sand. The sardine-like fish ride the waves inland by the thousands giving a silver glint to the shoreline.
Devil’s Tower – Wyoming
Although Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway is a remarkable example of the pristine beauty of nature’s own architecture, the largest group of columnar basalt is Devil’s Tower in eastern Wyoming, a staggering mesa rising 1267 feet above the natural landscape. Though the vertical cooling pattern of lava is the scientific reasoning behind columnar basalt, the Devil’s Tower appears to defy reason.
Red Tides – Florida’s Gulf Coast
Its impossible to predict the exact time and place, but one of the oddest natural wonders in our oceans happens in Florida’s Gulf Coast when dangerous algae “bloom” and expand in the water. Millions of the organisms have to be present for the event to occur, but when they are, they create a mystical wonder of reds, purples, browns, and even greens in the coastal waters.
