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Traveling NSW looks so fun [VID]

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YOU’D BE FORGIVEN for thinking Sydney is basically the most envy-inducing of Instagram feeds brought to life.

In Joshua Cowan’s latest film, the energy and flow of the sequencing is unreal as the camera dips and dives through secret sea caves and across endless blue skies. Set to a serotonin-inducing Tycho soundtrack, sit back and enjoy the ride as you get up close to Bondi, the Rocks, and the good life.

Ebola ravaging primate populations

Photo: Bradford Duplisea

The human tragedy caused by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been well documented.

More than 8,600 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been killed by the highly infectious virus, and many more have been infected.

It’s the worst Ebola outbreak in history and it’s far from over.

But humans are not the only victims of this horrible disease, which is spread through contact with the blood, sweat and other bodily fluids of an infected person.

Since the 1990s, Ebola has devastated the great ape population in Africa. It is estimated that one-third of the world’s gorillas and chimpanzees have been lost to the virus, which was discovered in 1976.

The WWF estimates there are around 100,000 gorillas left in the wild, while there are between 150,000 and 250,000 chimpanzees.

View image | gettyimages.com

Scientists say Ebola has now joined poaching and deforestation as a “major threat to African apes” and it has been confirmed as one of the “important sources of mortality in wild gorillas and chimpanzees.”

And while vaccination against the disease has proven to be safe in the laboratory, it hasn’t been deployed in the wild.

There have been a number of particularly devastating outbreaks in recent decades. In 2002 and 2003, for example, an outbreak of the Zaire strain of Ebola in the Lossi Sanctuary in northwestern Republic of Congo killed around 5,000 gorillas, or 90% of the population.

An Ebola outbreak in the chimpanzee population of the Tai National Park in the Cote d’Ivoire in the early 1990s also resulted in significant loss of life.

In the mid-90s more than 90% of the ape population in Gabon’s Minkebe National Park also perished during an outbreak of the disease.

View image | gettyimages.com

Populations don’t bounce back quickly, taking several generations to recover from a single outbreak.

“While the Ebola virus alone does not threaten apes and chimpanzees with extinction, this epidemic has reduced the population to a point where it can no longer sustain itself in the face of poaching and other pressures,” according to a report on AnimalResearch.Info.

The full impact on the great ape population from the current Ebola outbreak isn’t yet known but, if history is any guide, we should probably fear the worst.

By Allison Jackson, GlobalPost

This article is syndicated from GlobalPost.

Why not skiing is better than skiing

Photo: Mt. Hood Territory

My fiancee Steph has been skiing since she was 3-years old. Her family owns a ski house at Hunter Mountain in New York where she spent virtually all of her winters. The girl can rip up a ski slope. I, on the other hand, grew up in Cincinnati, where the only nearby ski slope is Perfect North, a slope that is neither perfect nor north, and is in Indiana, a state which is possibly best known for being flat. So when we started dating, I decided to impress her with the skiing skills I’d learned at Perfect North.

Jack Kerouac once said, “You can’t fall off a mountain.” Jack Kerouac was a moron. Because while you can’t fall off a mountain — much in the same way that you can’t fall off planet earth — you can certainly fall down a mountain. And skiing is basically a controlled fall down a mountain. The more control you have, the less it hurts. My fall hurt a lot. There are a ton of much less painful ways for me to emasculate myself in front of the girl I love, so since then, I’ve pumped the brakes on skiing. I still go with her and her family up to their lodge every winter, but I’m not hitting the slopes all that much anymore.

And I’ve realized something: Not skiing is the best. There’s a whole subculture of people like me — non-skiers who love skiers — who have a much better time in the lodge while skiers are out on the slopes. Here’s why:

Ski lodges are the pinnacle of human creation, and there is no reason to ever leave them.

When I was a kid and it was snowing, I used to go outside in just my swimsuit and roll through the snow before jumping into my hot tub. It felt great. I’m pretty sure that skiing was invented for the exact same reason: to make going back to the lodge that much better. Ski lodges are humankind’s best idea. They are oasis of warmth in the middle of barren arctic tundras. They are full of hearths and hot chocolate and booze. They have big comfy chairs where you can read your book and occasionally look outside at all the poor schmucks freezing themselves to death out on the mountain. It’s how I imagine rich people feel when they look at poor people: “Boy, what I’ve got going on is way better than that.”

We get to sleep in.

If you’re at the mountain to ski, you need to get up early. First, the afternoon crowds make skiing unbearable, and second, if you’re spending an insane amount of money on a lift ticket and rentals, you’re damn well going to be spending the maximum amount of time possible out on the slopes. Non-skiers have no such worries. We get to sleep in as late as we want, and we’re saving money while we’re doing it.

We get first crack at the booze.

Whenever I go skiing, I come back too exhausted to really get a good party going. The wind, cold, and constant fear for my life has just slurped all of the energy out my body. Non-skiers are a) on vacation, so they can start drinking whenever they want, and b) are well-rested and and non-hypothermic, so they are the ones who start the party and, since the skiers are too tired to stay awake, are also the ones who end it.

We aren’t spitting in Death’s face.

I get why people like to ski. It’s fun. But it is also a pretty dangerous sport. This in itself isn’t all that bad: plenty of fun things are dangerous. But all of those fun little hazards that go with skiing suddenly turns into obstacles between you and the hospital if you get injured. First off, you’re in the mountains. It’s impossible to get anywhere fast in the mountains. Even if the closest hospital is two miles away, it’s going to be a long two miles. Second, you’re probably still going to be halfway up a mountain that was picked as a slope because of how steep and treacherous it is to get from the bottom to the top. And third, it’s covered in ice. Sharp, slippery, too-cold-to-sustain-life ice.

I’ve heard people say, “But the risk and the adrenaline is what makes you feel more alive!”

I can feel alive with a book and a hot chocolate, thank you very much. Enjoy skiing. I’ll have a glass of beer waiting for you when you get back in.

What nationality should you be? QUIZ

Featured photo by Kelsey Hannah

Does being a vegetarian make you a bad traveler?

Photo: Jonathan Lin

There are a ton of reasons to not eat meat. For one thing, most Americans eat 50% more meat than the recommended daily amount, and that much meat can lead to kidney stones, higher blood pressure, and an increased risk of cancer and diabetes. For another, the treatment of animals in assembly-line slaughterhouses is chilling to say the least. And oh, hey, the meat industry’s responsible for just under 15% of manmade greenhouse gas emissions, making it one of the top contributors to global warming.

I have the genuine desire to not patronizingly force my culture’s morality on others.

But I’m a weak person. I’m not a vegetarian. I’ve tried plenty of times in my life to cut meat out of my diet, and I’ve never been particularly successful at it. Usually, I’m able to go a few weeks or months without eating any meat — and usually I lose weight and feel better during that period — until something kicks me off the wagon. There have been a number of things that have ruined it for me.

Once, it was Thanksgiving, my all-time favorite. I love turkey and gravy and stuffing, and not eating it was not an option. Another time, it was because of PETA’s ugly tendency to fight humans treating animals like meat by treating women like meat. Another time it was because I was walking home drunk from a party and passed a shawarma shop. But far and away, the biggest obstacle to my continued vegetarianism has been travel.

Ethics vs. manners

Chef and food writer Anthony Bourdain is no friend to the vegetarian movement. He calls vegetarians “the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit,” while vegans are a “Hezbollah-like splinter faction,” who are “completely self-indulgent.” It would probably offend no one (including Bourdain himself) to say the man’s a bit of a dick, but he does manage to raise one good point about vegetarians:

“They make for bad travelers and bad guests. The notion that before you even set out to go to Thailand, you say, ‘I’m not interested,’ or you’re unwilling to try things that people take so personally and are so proud of and so generous with, I don’t understand that, and I think it’s rude. You’re at Grandma’s house, you eat what Grandma serves you.”

I’m not sure if Bourdain’s had a specific experience with travelers where they sniffed down their nose at some Thai peasant serving them meat, but that’s never been my experience of vegetarian travelers — the ones I know are generally pretty cool about their dietary preferences and don’t shit on the locals. But when I travel, I can’t bring myself to refuse a meal put in front of me, regardless of whether it has meat, and this inability’s knocked me off the wagon more times than I can count.

Visiting carnivorous places

Some locales, I’ve found, are easy places to be a vegetarian in. I grew up in the Midwestern US, where barbecue is an institution, so visiting places like New York or London was a treat. It was so easy to be an herbivore there because there was a community around it. Being a vegetarian in India has to be a cinch because it’s been part of the culture there for centuries. But other places don’t have that culture, and in those places it isn’t even possible to be a vegetarian.

For example, my sister lived in El Salvador for years, and though she was a vegetarian when she arrived she soon reverted to omnivorism. The reason wasn’t any weakness of will but simply that if she told her hosts she was vegetarian, they’d often serve her meat products anyway, either out of ignorance, misunderstanding, or general bullheadedness. Eventually she just resigned herself to eating meat on a regular basis while she was living there, and then when she returned to the US she cut back her meat intake again.

My solution to the ethics vs. manners problem of vegetarianism (you know, when I’m actually being a successful vegetarian) is to simply let the manners win. The vast majority of the time that I’m eating, I’m eating something I either bought from a restaurant or I made personally. If someone places something in front of me that has meat in it, I’ll eat it because I have the genuine desire to experience their food culture as they present it to me, and I have the genuine desire to not patronizingly force my culture’s morality on them.

Because, ultimately, it’s my country that eats the most meat (well, second per capita, behind tiny Luxembourg) and it’s my country I have the greatest ability to change. Like every ethical fight, it has to start at home, and like every ethical fight, nobody’s particularly well served by my being rude.

Rites of passage for Ohio teenagers

Photo: klonoaxero

1. You made your parents drive you out of state to go see a concert.

Nothing ever comes through Ohio. Sure, the occasional show will stop in one of the “big three Cs,” but most of the major tours skip from the east coast to Chicago, so you’ve got to bully your parent into driving you to Chicago, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, or Louisville to get to see your favorite band.

2. You went “Jeeping.”

Maybe you call it by another name — but at some point, you’ve gotten into a friends car, and have just driven around for fun. Maybe you stop at a restaurant, maybe you stop at a friend’s house, or maybe you’ve just cranked up some music and drove in zig-zagging patterns. Regardless of what you called it or did, in car-heavy Ohio, a huge portion of your pre-drinking social life takes place in the back of an automobile.

3. You had to turn down cow-tipping.

As far as I know, no one ever actually went cow-tipping. It always sounded kinda boring and maybe a little bit cruel. But some jackass who was bored of driving around or hanging out in someone’s basement suggested it, and you had to pretend it was a possibility before shooting it down in favor of something else.

4. You partook in at least two illicit activities in the backseat of someone’s car.

One of your first hookups was almost certainly in the backseat of a car — how far it went depends on the person, but cars are probably the only reliable place for teenage privacy in Ohio — and on top of that, you’ve probably driven to rich neighborhoods to smoke pot. “Why rich neighborhoods?” outsiders might ask. Because the police in rich neighborhoods don’t want to pull over teenagers for getting high. Those kids could have wealthy parents who often donate money to the local PD. If you haven’t gotten high in the back seat, maybe you’ve tossed water balloons at passing cars. Maybe you snuck sips of a 40 back there. But you’ve done something wrong.

5. You learned to love drunk food before you learned to drink.

Let’s be honest — most Ohio cuisine that is affordable enough for teenagers is drunk food. Not that BW3’s, Wendy’s, and Skyline aren’t all delicious foods in their own right — but they were clearly cooked for people who are too smashed to care about the presentation. As a Cincinnati teenager, the day that I didn’t spend at least some of my time in a Skyline Chili was rare.

6. One of your teachers came up with a half-assed excuse to take a field trip to a theme park.

Not that you ever complained, but it always sounded a little thin when your physics teacher said that you were going to Kings Island or Cedar Point to “learn about kinetic energy.” You spent the entire day running around from roller coaster to roller coaster, not learning a damn thing, and probably losing brain cells on some of the more rickety roller coasters.

7. You actually hung out under the bleachers at high school football games.

It sounds like an embarrassing Americana cliche — hanging out under the bleachers, maybe making out with someone wearing heavy braces — but it seriously happened. High school football games are major social events, and everyone goes to them — but not quite as many would actually watch the game.

8. You went “cabrewing.”

Not only is it illegal for you to drink underage, but it’s also illegal to be operating any sort of watercraft under the influence in Ohio. Which makes cabrewing complicated. There just aren’t many places to hide a cooler of beer in a canoe if a cop stops you, and it’s not as if a canoe is the most efficient getaway vehicle. At the same time, is there anything better than floating down a river or a stream while having a few beers with your friends?

Argentina truisms

Photo: Oscar Megía

IF, by virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to live a little time in Argentina, you will acquire many exotic new facts. You will learn that it is possible, and economically advantageous, to walk fifteen large dogs simultaneously. You will learn that you weren’t really eating ice cream before, just frozen, flavored milkstuff. You will learn that it’s OK for Christmas decorations to stay up until Easter.

You’ll learn that socio-economic crisis is Argentina’s default setting and that things are never as bad as some people make out. That expectations of public toilets must always be low. That not everyone tangoes, in fact only a small minority do. That every foreign sub-editor will at some time in his or her life use the phrase ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ to title an article about Argentine politics / football / whatever.

That the most enjoyable aspect of going to a polo game is telling people that you’re going to a polo game, and that polo as a spectator sport is up there with golf and squash. That the standard way to show your unrelenting passion for your football team (though probably not your polo team) is by jumping up and down on the spot for an unlimited period of time, and that not jumping is a sure sign of Englishness.

That long-distance coach travel at first seems more luxurious than what you’re used to — aeroplane-like and kind of kitschy, what with the coach driver’s mate pulling on white gloves to serve you a glass of sherry by way of aperitif — but that even that doesn’t stop the journey being an intolerable nightmare of cramped legs and bad films. That films on coaches get worse the further north you go, subcontinentally-speaking. That long-distance journeys overland look far more enticing on the map than in their endless fields-of-soy reality. That on long-distance journeys, both tedium and time itself can be reduced significantly by the power of mate.

That cold pizza and mate make an acceptable breakfast under certain circumstances. That the locals will always find it remarkable that any non-Argentine should drink mate, that the drinking of mate automatically makes a non-Argentine Argentine to all effects and purposes, but that no matter how Argentine the non-Argentine is now deemed to be, the Argentine will always be dubious as to the non-Argentine’s expertise re: the making of mate.

That sandwiches de miga are pretty much the same everywhere you go in Argentine territory, as if mass-produced by some huge as yet undiscovered underground sandwich factory, and that the locals are terribly enthusiastic about said sandwiches. That it is often considered rude to take your shoes off in other people’s homes. That it is a widely-held belief that any dish or foodstuff can be improved with the addition of ham and cheese. That writing stuff about being an expat in Buenos Aires gets kind of repetitive and fernet-and-dulce pretty quickly. That at first the whole sobremesa thing will come across as both exotic and real and then eventually kind of dull and finally make you pine for solitude and whatever’s on TV.

That there is generally nothing on national TV, but then at the same time that there is so very much on national TV, if you have a heightened sense of irony.

That self-medication is not a problem. That once you get over all the bullshit about how many psychoanalysts there are per capita, psychoanalysis can be wonderful thing. That the cancellation of internet / cable / phone services is usually the quickest and most effective way of getting the internet / cable / phone provider to fix whatever they were supposed to fix three months ago, and that the phrase ‘doy de baja el servicio’ is the first phrase they should teach you in those intensive Spanish class, along with ‘tengo un novio’, if you’re a woman. That it is impossible to cross the 9 de Julio on foot in one go and that you should stop trying. That secondary qualities such as avenue width can be used as a tourist draw.

That if nothing else, Argentina is water-rich, and that this might come in useful one day, and that on the day when being water-rich becomes a useful thing, Argentina will somehow manage to screw up this once in a lifetime opportunity.

That listening to Aspen Classic for any length of time will inevitably lead to all kinds of reminiscences and embarrassing memories of your teenage self. That this is the only country in the world where Rick Astley can play in, if not sell out, a 3200-seater venue by himself, and that none of the locals will find this particularly odd. That Creedence Clearwater never needed a revival.

That The Simpsons is pretty much an Argentine institution, and that it sounds better in Spanish, primarily because of the Mexican guy who voices Homero. That the locals bemoan the incursion of American culture and that The Nanny was for a long time the most-watched TV show in the country. That some people get really wound up if you say ‘American’ instead of ‘US’ and that the same people then use the term ‘North American’ with complete disregard for Mexicans. That the average social class and education level of the average McDonald’s user is considerably higher than back home, and that some even wear suits.

That winter lasts a week, really, and that you never knew it was possible to get tired of summer. That hyperbole and summertime temperatures are happy bedfellows. That sweating is something you learn to accept rather than combat.

That ‘pelotudo’ is a way, way more offensive term than ‘boludo’, despite their near-identical, big-balled etymologies, and that you can only find this out the hard way. That a surprising number of shopkeepers would rather lose one peso than give you nine pesos in change. That the half-kilo-of-meat-per-person asado rule-of-thumb is nearly always a gross overestimation. That eating choripán from roadside stands in insalubrious areas is fine, health-wise, but not recommendable psychosomatically speaking, and it’s often actually the chimichurri that does you in.

That clubs don’t really get going until 3am, even on a weeknight, and that a large swathe of the under-30s survive on pretty much no sleep whatsoever. That ‘torta’ (‘cake’) is a non-offensive slang term for ‘lesbian’ and that no lesbian can tell you why this is. That this is a country forward-thinking enough to legalize same-sex marriage but still backwards enough to continue outlawing abortion under practically any circumstances. That there tend to be more Argentine women marrying foreign men than foreign women marrying Argentine men, and that you think this might say a lot about the failings of Argentine men but would prefer to sidestep any controversy.

That a disappointingly high number of Argentines will take offence to this innocent article, which is more about the narrow experience of an expat in Buenos Aires than Argentina itself, and let their country down in the comments. That no matter how much you love Argentina, you will eventually leave it for a country with a higher GDP and more developed attitudes towards litter, and then pine for Argentina at various unexpected moments for the rest of your life, but that if you stay you’ll always wonder what might have been, if you hadn’t been chicken.

This article was originally posted on DanielTunnard.com, and has been re-published here with permission.

10 reasons to study abroad in Chile

Photo by Andreas Nilsson

1. There are plenty of English teaching jobs and internships.

Chile is a great place to work, especially in Santiago where there are numerous English teaching opportunities. Though many adventurers have signed up with an institute before arriving, there are plenty of opportunities to snag teaching positions once you get settled.

A few of the more well-known institutes in Santiago to consider include Norteamericano, Fischer, and BridgeLinguatec.

2. There are plenty of Chileans and gringos.

The Chileans I’ve met have welcomed me and befriended me quickly, in spite of my inability to understand them or communicate with them very well. They have extended incredible courtesies that I can only hope to repay when they come to visit me.

On the other hand, everyone needs a little familiarity in a foreign country, and that’s what your ex-pat gringo friends are for. They are the lifelines when Chile becomes a frustrating and intricate labyrinth of cultural cues you don’t understand. Plus, you occasionally need someone who can sing the theme song to the “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” with you.

3. It’s fun learning Espanol-po.

Chilean Spanish takes a keen ear and the patience of Buddha to master. It is filled with modismos, or slang, an accent that lops off the ends of s’s and d’s, and a new way to pronounce the “you” form.

In spite of the challenges, it can delight you when you least expect it. For example, the word for boyfriend is pololo, which means a type of small fly that buzzes around your face. What a word!

Photo by Claudio

4. Chile has diverse terrain to explore.

Why visit a bunch of different countries when you can see everything in one? Chile’s got it all. Visit the Atacama Desert, ski the Andes (the longest mountain range in the world), surf the Pacific Ocean, walk the forests around the Lake District, catch a glimpse of a glacier in Patagonia, or climb volcanoes and paddle world-class rivers in Pucon.

5. Chile’s hot…and cold.

The Andes run down the eastern side of Chile and are home of some of the best skiing in the world. From Santiago, you can take a weekend trip to Portillo, the practice site for many professional skiers.

Two hours outside of Santiago to the west are beaches. There are some of the biggest, most uncrowded points for surfing on the whole Pacific coast, as well as chill beach towns.

6. Santiago’s art and culture.

Not only does Chile’s capital have an incredible set of museums like Bellas Artes and the Pre-Columbian, it has a vibrant street art scene withnew murals and graffiti as well as events like those put on by Mamut Collective Theater. I highly recommend their Teatro de Gorilas, an improv show much like Whose Line is it Anyway?

Photo by Nati Lafuente

7. Who can resist an Independence Day celebration that lasts a week?

Chileans celebrate September 18, their independence day, by staging a week of fondas (street fairs), where you can play games, eat lots of food, and watch the cueca, Chile’s national dance.

After the fonda, you will most likely head to someone’s house for a fiesta that lasts until the sun rises. Then, you’ll go home to sleep it off and get up to start it all over again.

8. Chile has a stable economy and government.

Chile’s stable economy and government make it a good choice for solo travelers, especially women looking to move to a South American country on their own. Certainly, there are dangerous areas of any country, and Chile is no exception, but a gal on her own can get along very safely here.

9. Ice Cream.

Places like Emporio la Rosa and Bravissimo can become a favorite corner of the world for the foreigner in Santiago. With flavors like nueces (walnuts), miel (honey) and manjar, you won’t want to return home.

10. For all the familiar, Chile still feels foreign.

For all its safety, Chile is still a foreign country. From having to throw your toilet paper into the trashcan by the toilet to the water heater that must be lit every day to take a shower to the stray dogs wandering the streets, Chile is nothing like home. And that makes it all worth the adventure.

This article was originally published on February 24, 2009.

Signs you were raised in Houston

Photo: Mark Taylor Cunningham

1. You don’t go to the Galleria.

Unless you enjoy ice skating and falling on your ass in front of a huge crowd, there really is no reason to go anywhere near this massive three-story mall. The Galleria is where you send your out-of-state visitors when you want some time to yourself. You do your shopping at local shops in Rice Village or the Heights.

2. You hesitate when a friend invites you to someplace outside of the Loop.

For you, the I-610 loop is a circular boundary that divides the hip inner city from, well, everything else. Everywhere you want to be or who you want to meet is inside the Loop, so there isn’t much motivation to leave. Also, you’re not ashamed to admit the only reason you never went out with that guy you met at the bar last week is because he lives outside the Loop.

3. …but you probably grew up in the suburbs or Katy.

Yes, it’s true. Most of us were raised in the suburbs outside of the city, which is why the moment we could move out, we flocked towards hip studio apartments in Montrose or the Heights, never once looking back. The rent is worth every penny more than living five minutes away from your parents’ house.

4. You’ve been to NASA only once, and it was probably for a school field trip.

Yes, we’re proud to call Houston the “Space City” but don’t ask us anything more about NASA’s mission control unit, which is actually a 30-mile drive to Clear Lake, which means going outside the Loop — hence why we never go.

5. You hate Dallas and you don’t know why.

It’s either ingrained in us from the moment of birth or there are just too many reasons we don’t even know where to begin.

6. You’ve spent at least one of your pre-18 Friday nights dancing to ’80s music at Numbers.

When you drive by this dark, seedy, warehouse-looking dance club on Westheimer in Montrose, you can’t help but reminisce about your high-school days, when you’d caravan with your friends to Numbers on Friday nights to dance (sober) with a bunch of creepos to ’80s music.

7. You’ve crowdsurfed at Fitzgeralds.

Old two-story house turned music venue, Fitz is where you go to see your favorite indie and punk rock bands perform rowdy shows. And if you’re a true Houstonian, the bouncer has kicked you off the stage at least once for crowdsurfing amongst the sweaty crowd.

8. You know what a feeder road is.

The access roads that run along an interstate, commonly known as frontage roads, are known as “feeders” in Houston. Maybe it’s because of the massive amount of freeways that wrap around and along our city that require constant merging, I don’t know, but we’ve aways called them feeders. You can’t even keep track of how many times you’ve been “corrected” by out-of-towners. Your only response is to politely ask them to go back to where they came from if they don’t like it.

9. Houston Restaurant Weeks excites you almost more than the holidays.

For one month, five-star restaurants all around Houston open their doors for the general, non-wealthy population to enjoy a three-course meal at an affordable fixed price. However, you learn to ignore the annoyed looks of the hostesses when you tell them you want the HRW menu instead of the full-priced menu and proceed to order the cheapest wine they serve by the glass.

10. You have an old Oilers jersey in your closet.

Even if you weren’t alive yet when the Houston Oilers were playing AFL games in the (now abandoned) Astrodome, you still keep their legacy alive. You may even be lucky enough to still have a foam finger or two, or a jersey one of your parents scored at a game in the 1970s.

11. Galveston will always be your favorite beach.

Yes, it might smell bad, and the water might be as brown as a mudslide, but Galveston will always be our favorite beach weekend getaway. Its quirky vibe, Strand Historic District, and the rows of beautiful Victorian houses will always make you defend this little island when out-of-towners have nothing better to say than, “It’s dirty.”

12. You’ve used “Westheimer traffic” as an excuse for being late.

Say it’s your first day of work at a new job and you accidentally snooze your alarm a few too many times. You throw your clothes on and rush out the door and show up 20 minutes late. The only sure-shot way to get your ass out of trouble is to blame the traffic on Westheimer. However, a true Houstonian knows about every side street and shortcut in this city to avoid driving on Westheimer, so if you’re new to town, you have at least a few months to use this excuse for being late. After a year, though, people will just start thinking you’re plain stupid for taking Westheimer in the first place.

Canada's passport looks incredible

EVERY COUNTRY TAKES STEPS to protect their passports from forgery. Many countries have started putting computer chips in the passport to insure that they are identifiable, and others still have started hiding images in the pages of the passport that only visible by black light. But only one country has decided to turn those black light images into some pretty beautiful art.

Canada’s new passport looks amazing under a black light. Check it out:

All photos via Architecture and Design

Well done, Canada. Anti-fraud measures should always be this beautiful.