Breaking News: 147 People killed in Madrid plane crash

by Abha Malpani on

A Spanair plane bound for the Canary Islands from Madrid caught fire after skidding off the runway killing 147 people; 173 were on board — 26 are known to have survived.

The plane was delayed for an hour because of technical reasons and when it finally tried to take-off from Terminal 4 of Barajas International Airport, it hardly got off the ground before it swerved off the runway as its engine caught fire and blew-up into flames. This happened around 2:30pm this afternoon (Spain time).

“The plane was totally broken apart, it was all full of bodies,” one of the witnesses told El Pais newspaper (as reported by Sky News).

You can see a video post accident here on Spain’s National newspaper El Pais, unfortunately the commentary is in Spanish.

Before the crash, Spanair pilots threatened to strike after they heard of plans to cut the airline’s workforce by 1000 people.

Spanair is one of Spain’s national airlines — the second largest after Iberia, and owned by the Scandinavian SAS Group.

Where to plan your next environmentally vacation: 15 green cities

by Anna Brones on

The good folks at Grist put together their own list of 15 green cities. Although their thought was probably to showcase the green efforts made by local governments and locals to make the cities more environmentally friendly, in reading it I realized it was a great list of places to chose your next eco-vacation.

If you’re looking to take public transportation, play in parks and learn more about sustainability as part of your next vacation, here are the 15 cities that made the list:

  1. Reykjavik, Iceland
  2. Portland, OR, U.S.
  3. Curitiba, Brazil
  4. Malmö, Sweden
  5. Vancouver, Canada
  6. Copenhagen, Denmark
  7. London, England
  8. San Francisco, CA, USA
  9. Bahía de Caráquez, Ecuador
  10. Sydney, Australia
  11. Barcelona, Spain
  12. Bogotá, Colombia
  13. Bangkok, Thailand
  14. Kampala, Uganda
  15. Austin, TX, USA

Some of the selections surprised me; Bangkok for example, but apparently it’s all about the city’s strategy to make things greener. Check out the full list with accompanying explanations here.

What green cities have you visited?

Just how does your national anthem go?

by Anna Brones on

As of Friday, 27 different nations had won gold medals. That means 27 different national anthems have been played in honor of the winning athletes. The New York Times put together a complete list of all 27 anthems, including lyrics, history and music files so you can sing and listen to them to your heart’s content.

Here are links to five of them:

China: March of the Volunteers
USA: The Star Spangled Banner
Korea Republic: The Patriotic Song
Italy: The Song of the Italians
Germany: The Song of Germany

Click here for the complete list and the music files so you can start singing away at the next medal ceremony.

Pronunciation error costs Spanish couple over $5,000

by Abha Malpani on

Whack me but I found this funny more than anything else: A Spanish couple traveling in Norway wanted to go to Olden to catch a cruise they had left to sort out some health issues. Traveling by taxi, due to a mispronunciation of their destination, the taxi driver took them to Halden instead, which is 560km away. Their fare came to 15,000 Kroners ($2765).

Still oblivious to the mistake, they tipped the driver 1000 Kroners ($184!) and spent the night in a hotel, only to find that there was no cruise ship waiting for them — that’s when they realized that they were in the wrong city. They jumped back into a taxi and and head towards Olden which was 610km away and the taxi ride cost them another 15,300 Kroners ($2,820).

So their pronunciation error cost them over 30,000 Kroners (over $5,300), the approximate cost of 2 round the world tickets.

Funny thing is, Spaniards don’t pronounce “h”; so they would pronounce Halden as “Alden” — which sounds more like Olden than Halden. When they try to pronounce the “h” it’s very strong and sounds like a “khhhhh”, so I’m not quite sure how they ended-up going to Halden. Perhaps the driver saw they were rich and decided to dupe them.



Official report encourages drunken British traveler stereotype

by Anna Brones on

While staying with a friend’s family in Barcelona last year I was shocked when they told me about the stereotypical British traveler often talked about in Spanish media.

“They [British travelers] come down on cheap flights and they don’t even make hotel reservations,” said my friend’s father.
“You mean they sleep on the street?”
“No, they just stay out drinking all night and once morning comes they just take a nap on a bench. No need to pay for a hotel I guess.”

He pointed out that obviously not every British traveler behaved in this manner, yet it was unfortunate, because it gave all of them — even those with hotel reservations — a bad name. But apparently he wasn’t all that wrong. According to the annual “British Behaviour Abroad” report by the Foreign Office, excessive drinking has led to the increase in arrests of Brits traveling abroad. In Spain for example, arrests have gone up by 32% to 2,032 in the period reported.

With a powerful British pound, drinking in other countries doesn’t make a huge impact on the average Brit’s wallet, so holidays can easily turn into drinking days. In response to the report, the British tabloid the Daily Mail pointed out that “drunken and loutish holidaymakers have sent Britain’s reputation abroad plunging to new depths.” Again, we should not stereotype — I have met many Brits while traveling that don’t behave in such a manner — but maybe it’s time to consider whether or not to down that last pint. You don’t want to get arrested…