Wikipedia has EVERYTHING

Seriously.

Reading Wikipedia articles is one of my favorite pastimes, and it never ceases to amaze me how much information is out there. Some of my favorite topics to read about are airplanes and airlines, the British Royal Family, Orders of Precedence, natural disasters, and small towns that I've been to.

Last night, while reading about the first topic mentioned above, I stumbled upon this fascinating image. It shows basically all of the commercial airline routes for the entire world. Who sat down to figure that out and make a map of it? I'm not sure, but it's pretty awesome.

Gibraltar Airport

Whenever a plane lands at or takes off from Gibraltar airport (GIB), the city's main road must be closed. This is because the airport's runway intersects the street. Pretty crazy, if you ask me. It's kind of like a raising bridge in a sense; the bridge in Charlevoix, Michigan is the only way to get around or through the city, so when the bridge is up to let boat traffic through, cars are stuck on either side.

Check out a few pics of the Gibraltar airport and the raising bridge in Charlevoix below.

Gibraltar airport info and pics via JustWhatever and Wikipedia.

If you're a nervous flyer...

...then please don't watch the video below.  

A Lufthansa Airbus A320 airliner came *this* close to having a tragic landing in storm-force winds, but thanks to a talented pilot, the plane ended up landing safely.  Truly amazing footage...   

This brings a new meaning to "hope you can hold it!"

European no-frills airline RyanAir, which I have had the pleasure (?) of flying myself, is known for it's bare-bones ticket prices.  On their website, you can find flights for under 1 Euro, though with taxes and fees, tickets are usually somewhere around 25 Euro.  Not bad, really.

In order to increase revenues and keep ticket prices low, RyanAir has come up with a plan to begin charging travelers a fee to use the on-board lavatories.  Wow.

Read up about it here, and check out the video on the bottom of the page in which the owner (or someone important) explains RyanAir's plans to begin offering "special features" for their upcoming Transatlantic flights.