Portuguese flight attendant says yes to inflight marriage proposal

by Scott Carmichael on

Portuguese flight attendant Vera Silva got the inflight surprise of her life when her boyfriend picked up the P.A. microphone to propose to her. While Ms. Silva was busy preparing drinks in the back of the plane, her boyfriend told her that he was on board because he loves her, and because he wants to “ask her a question”.

With the help of her fellow crew members and the pilot, the proposal entertained the whole plane – and with an embarrassed “Sim”, the 80 passengers celebrated the moment with loud applause.

TAP pilot Pedro Matthias told ITN reporters that this was the first time he’s experienced this in his 35 years of flying. After the proposal, Ms. Silva told reporters that she was so embarrassed that she wanted to hide in the bathroom.

Congratulations to the happy couple – this is one story they’ll probably be telling for years to come.

Lisbon airport brings some Christmas joy – flashmob style!

by Scott Carmichael on

Christmas time at the airport is usually a time of doom, gloom, pushing and waiting in line. Portuguese airline TAP and the Portuguese Airport Authority decided to spice things up at Lisbon airport with a massive dance and music show. Bonus points for spotting the dancing Santa.

Watch for yourself, and see the joy this brought to the passengers. How do you think this would go down at your local airport? Would the TSA have the happy people shot, or just tasered?

(Thanks Rita!)

Tourists in Venice urged to drink the water

by Katie Hammel on

Collecting the trash in Venice is no easy feat. After all, it’s not like a garbage truck can just drive down the street – there aren’t any. Garbage is collected by workers with wheelbarrows and then loaded onto barges and costs about $335 million per ton to remove (compared to $84 million per ton on the mainland of Italy).

In an effort to reduce these costs, the Venetian government is asking locals and tourists to drink water from the tap instead of buying plastic bottles. The city’s tap water meets the highest purity standards, but many people are still buying bottled water from stores and in restaurants. To help promote the tap water, officials have started calling it “Acqua Veritas” and selling glass bottles labeled as such. The hope is that the fancy bottles will encourage people people to drink from the tap, reducing trash and the cost to remove it from the island.

With tourists outnumbering locals 100 to 1, visitors to Venice may have the greatest impact on the trash situation. So when in Venice, forgo the plastic and drink from the tap instead.

More about bottles – stainless wins over aluminum

by Iva Skoch on

I found out more information about reusable water bottles since there seem to be more questions than answers regarding that issue. They would make such good holiday presents…if only one knew which one to get!

I asked a biologist (who just happens to be related to me) about the bottles and he essentially discouraged me from getting one with aluminum or one without a wide mouth. Sorry, SIGG. He doesn’t seem to be as skeptical about Nalgene, as some people are.

Here are some points he made about water bottles and water in general:

  • Why use aluminum when they make bottles out of titanium even lighter and stronger than aluminum and, perhaps, could be better choice.
  • As far as the sport bottles buy only wide-mouth stainless or Nalgene, which can be washed in a dishwasher with high temperature water or hot tap water with a detergent and bristle brush every day. This will prevent contamination with bacteria and viruses. Soap and water is a marvelous way of keeping healthy without sanitizers (sort of like brushing your teeth to prevent tooth decay).
  • There is NO good answer as to the safety of the water bottles. The plastic used in bottled water is basically the same as used in any food and also in hospital materials.
  • The purchased water is usually slightly more pure than tap water, if it originates from distilled tap water as is used in the soft drink industry (Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola make their own purified tap waters).
  • It contains no chlorine as in tap water, thus will not leech any plastic chemicals into the water. However, if you refill with tap water, you are introducing any materials found in your municipal water supply into the bottles and could, perhaps, maybe leech some plasticizers into the water.
  • More concerning is bacterial contamination from your initial use and an inability to properly clean the bottles after the use. So reuse more than a couple of times is not a good idea, some folks reuse bottles once and never let them dry out or leave open for a period without the cap on.
  • If you want to refill the bottles, use distilled water, not tap, and refill only once or twice.
  • The amount of dangerous chemicals (eg. carcinogens) is probably less than you intake breathing the air in New York or other big cities. The biologist I talked to said he was more worried about the junk in food (preservatives and hormones and pesticides) than in a little contamination from a plastic bottle of water.