How to cheat about serious stuff ?

To pass the TOEIC exam, I had to find an article on the Web, read it, understand it and show how I did. The article had to be about the travel. It’s an interesting topic and it shouldn’t be easy to find anything about this.

I remembered a website about people who use to go in uninhabited houses and disused factories, asylums, hospitals, underground mazes and other wasted and forgotten buildings in many parts of the world.

If it’s easy to me to remind what’s the name of this website (http://www.forbidden-places.net), it’s quite harder to find an English article about these guys who take pictures of places hard to figure.

That was disappointing. The Internet wasn’t able to give me the information’s I need in Shakespeare’s language. The topic seems great to me though. Actually, I like it so much that I do prefer to write my own article about this website, even if I’m away from the point of the exercises. If the article doesn’t exist, let’s create it! Let's talk about urban exploration.

On their website, we can read :
"- No breaking and entering. This does not mean that every urban exploration trip is legal, but we never break anything to enter a site, locks included.

We try to sneak in without any damage, much like a stealthy ninja.

We also ask permission to visit places via their owners as often as possible and we are usually accommodated and allowed to enter.

- Respect the places you visit. No tags, no vandalism, no senseless destruction, no theft. Do not forget that people will visit the place after you do, so let them experience it just as you did! We always try to leave the place untouched and use the motto: "take only pictures, leave only footprints..."

- Safety: urban exploration can be a very dangerous hobby. Whether you are climbing a crane, walking on a rotten and fragile floor, or wandering near barrels of toxic waste the risks are everywhere. Good knowledge of the environment you are in is absolutely necessary and specialized equipment adapted to the conditions is often required, such as: helmets, climbing gear, respirator, gloves, lights, ..ect. We strongly recommend not practicing urban exploration unless you are trained by a professional."

To me, the members of forbidden-places show us that we can travel close to where we live. This is a way to discover much about our area that we think we know it by heart, that can conceal lost treasures of our urban patrimony. No need to go through the Earth to find new things, sometimes, it’s just better to take the time for it. Our environment can worth.

By the way, they like to show us how amazing this kind of exploration can be. Here you discover a picture of a gigantic fresco from an old asylum, elsewhere you can find a weird room from another abandoned building. The feeling of visiting a place which used to be a living place, with its history – sometimes as freaky as we can devise it – is pretty terrific! I do prefer these lost places than others like crypts and the insides of bridges.