Woman goes down baggage chute with her baggage. Whoopsie daisy.

by Abha Malpani on

I don’t want to laugh but this is too funny: A 78-year old Swedish woman misunderstood check-in procedures at Stockholm-Arlanda Airport and along with her bag, she also stepped onto the conveyor belt and fell down the baggage chute. She was rescued by baggage handlers and taken back to the terminal. The conveyor belt was unmanned at the time so no one was there to stop her.

Luckily, she came out with no injuries and in time to catch her flight to Germany.

Poor lady, such an innocent mistake. I hope atleast she enjoyed the slide down.

Back to school: A photo essay ode to schools around the world

by Jamie Rhein on

Today is the first day of school for my children. My daughter waltzed out the door at 7 a.m. this morning after showing me the piece of cheese she was eating–(she plays soccer and I’m adamant that she eat some sort of protein), to catch her ride. She’s a 10th grader.

For my son, who is now a first grader, the anticipation build-up of last year is much less. We know our routine. Kindergarten left a lump in my throat. First grade is old hat, but he still wants me to drive him and walk him in for the first day. After today, he heads out on the bus.

This first day of school got me thinking about schools around the world and what a gift having a school to go to is. When I was in the Peace Corps, I worked with my village primary school on certain days to do health education. In The Gambia, at the time, most kids did not go to school. The primary school in my village was the only one for miles around.

Amazingly, this shot by tigz pix was taken in N’Jowara where I served. This is inside one of the three classroom buildings. I’m not sure where my pictures are, so I’m happy to use this one. It looks exactly the same.

On this first day of school, here’s an ode to all those parents, grandparents or other caregivers, who make sure their children head to a classroom if they can find one and they have the means, and all those people who have chosen to teach, and all those children who sit in rows or gather in groups, day after day, working to learn–and if not working to learn, have a kernal of hope that life will turn out well once the last bell rings on their last day of school ever–when they head out into the world to see what happens next.

Click on the photographer’s name to go to the Flickr page. I picked these because these are the photos I found with Creative Commons use.

Mexican 2000, who snapped this shot, points out that school kids in Japan were different colored hats in order to show which class they belong to. These little guys are on a field trip to Himeji Castle.

On September 11, 2007, was Read with a Hero Day. Stories of heroism, tolerance and justice were read, according to the photo’s description. This shot by Staff Sgt. Russell Kilkar was taken at East Side Elementary School in Edinburgh, Indiana.

Head to a rural village and pull out a camera to take pictures of children and see how many show up. This photo by OpenDemocracy reminds me of my own experiences. It’s a swarm. For an excellent film that shows what a rural school is like in China, check out Not One Less. It’s about a 13-year-old girl who reluctantly becomes the teacher of a one-room school when the teacher has to leave for some reason.

School girls, in what I assume is Chile. Photographer Angela7dreams didn’t label the specific country in South America where this was taken, but this one is in a group of other shots of Chile.

School kids either heading to school or home in Taxco, Mexico. The shot is by michale.

School girls with their book bags in Bandung, Indonesia. Wouldn’t it be great if all school kids looked as happy as sektordua found these three?

This photo taken at the Khmer Literacy School in Cambodia, and posted by cambodia4kids.org, shows the efforts of a farm project to encourage farmers to send their children to school. You can read about the project, by clicking on the link.

These school kids in France are on a field trip that I would love. This was taken by ConspiracyofHappiness at the Musee Rodin.

A group of school kids in India taken by Tom Maisey.

Man and his son at the opening of Salah Hadi Obid Elementary School in Afak Village, Iraq. Photo by James Gordon, Flickr.

* The first photo is of my son walking into school this morning. He is in good hands.

Emergency landing for Ryanair and 16 passengers in hospital

by Abha Malpani on

A Ryanair flight from Bristol to Barcelona had to make an emergency landing in France because its cabin lost pressure. It had to plunge 8000 meters immediately in order to reach a level where the air was breathable.

The sudden drop scared many passengers on the flight to the extent that they thought they were going to die; apparently they were not informed of what was happening until 30 minutes into the incident. Also, there’s an argument going on between a passenger and Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary about whether all the oxygen masks were working properly or not.

Fortunately, other than the lack of communication and hiccups with the oxygen masks, reports say that the landing was smooth. No fatal injuries, however 16 passengers were taken to hospital complaining of ear problems.

There’s an interesting report in the Telegraph that emphasises how losing cabin pressure can be fatal. Once this happens on board, pilots have 30 seconds to put their masks on to then make the plane land immediately. Any problems with this can lead to the pilots losing consciousness.

This has happened a few times over the last decade, the worst of which was an incident that happened 3 years ago resulting in a Boeing 737 crashing in Greece and all passengers onboard dying. The history of other such incidents can be found here.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s Spain travel show to hit PBS in September

by Abha Malpani on

Gwyneth Paltrow, celebrity chef Mario Batali, food book author and New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman, and Spanish actress Claudia Bassols (who *gasp*doesn’t have a Wikipedia page!) will star in a show called “Spain…On The Road Again”, documenting their travels across Spain.

I like all these celebrities but would watch it just for Paltrow, who by the way sounds like she speaks fluent Spanish. The show is food-centric so they really couldn’t have chosen a better country to start than Spain.

I’m a bit disappointed with the name of the show though: 1) Extremely uncreative (“On The Road” are probably the 3 most commonly used words in travel, and, being a food/travel show, you’d think there would be some reference to that in the title, 2) Why the “again”?

Anyway, what’s in a name, eh? It’s a 13 part series that was shot in 2 months across the country. You can watch a sneak preview of the show here.

Sometimes I wish I was an actor just so I could have my own travel show when I felt like it. No, vlogging is not the same. Sigh.

South Americans in Europe have plastic surgery to look more European

by Abha Malpani on

We’ve written here before about people traveling to undergo plastic surgery, but moving to another country then getting plastic surgery to look more like the people whose country/continent you are living in, is a whole new (not to mention depressing) concept.

An increasing number of immigrants in Europe are opting to change their facial features in order to look more “western”, or less conspicuous on the street. Apparently, the nose is most characteristic of where we come from which is why rhinoplasty is the most popular surgery amongst these immigrants. In Spain, the surgery costs Euro 5000 and takes 20 minutes.

In one of my previous posts I wrote how although Spain can be culturally insensitive, I didn’t find Spain racist at all. But after reading that about 2,500 South Americans (mainly Ecuadorians and Colombians) have nose jobs every year (many of those live in Madrid), it made me think again: Why do these Latinos want to go to such an extent to fit in? What sort of discrimination are they suffering?

How have we let social stigmas in our so-called “multi-cultural-multinational-society” go so far as to warrant reactions like this?