Cabin pressure drop sends Brits to Athens, not Egypt

by Tom Johansmeyer on

A charter flight bound for Egypt made an emergency landing in Athens when cabin pressure dropped. The flight originated in Manchester, England and carried 192 passengers. Five passengers complaining of ear pain were taken to a local hospital as a precaution, according to the Greek state television station. No other injuries were reported.

Jet2.com, the low-cost carrier operating the flight, has said through a spokesman that it was sending another plane to Athens to pick up the stranded passengers and complete the journey. When’s the plane coming?

“Sometime during the night” …

Reports have included no mention of whether the passengers received free meals, like those aboard a flight that crashed at London’s City Airport last month. One can only hope that stomach contents lost are going to be replaced.

Another awesome reason to visit Greece

by Brenda Yun on

The devastating Greek riots that took place two months ago could very well be history now that there is something worth going out in the streets and celebrating. The latest news from the birthplace of modern mythology is that Zeus’s birthplace has been uncovered on the slopes of Mount Lykaion.

It has long been contested exactly where Zeus, the god of Greek gods, was born, as theorists have debated between the island of Crete and Mount Lykaion. The recent discovery was made at a site where ceremonial relics that are the earliest known to reflect that of Zeus have been found. Based on my reading of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” I imagine offering libations and drinking was involved even 4,000 years ago. The report claims that more than 50 drinking vessels were found at the site.

We all know his birth story, don’t we? Zeus’s mother Rhea gave birth to her son, but to keep her husband Cronus from eating him, Zeus was sent to a cave and raised by a shepherd. He was hidden from Cronus’s knowledge until he was old enough to contest his godly right.

The coolest thing about this new finding is that the ritual worship of Zeus likely began in this same place where he was born.

While the only ancient wonder of the world is off the coast of Rhodes, where the Colossus once stood at nearly 110 feet high above the sea, this new discovery could be a great reason to add a new/ancient Greek site to the list.

[via LiveScience.com]

Travel Read: 100 Places Every Woman Should Go

by Brenda Yun on

I never knew there could be a book so thoughtful and inspiring for women as this one. Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s second travel book, which lists far more than just 100 Places Every Woman Should Go, is truly an encyclopedia for women travelers. It’s the kind of book that could never have existed fifty years ago, but is so refreshing that free-spirited, female travelers should feel grateful that it exists now, and fully prepared for that next trip into the wide, wonderful world.

Griest’s great book is packed with helpful historical information, inspiring stories, and travel tips. It’s broken up into nine sections — my favorite being the first: “Powerful Women and Their Places in History.” There’s so much worth digesting in each locale described. For instance, I had no idea that the word “lesbian” came from the birthplace of Sappho (Lesbos, Greece). Griest fills each description with great travel tips that often include specific street addresses for particularly noteworthy sights.What I like most about the 100 places she chooses is that she shies away from identifying places that every woman obviously dreams of traveling to, like Venice, Rome, and Paris. Instead, she paves a new path for women, encouraging us to visit Japan’s 88 sacred temples or stroll through the public squares of Samarkand, one of the world’s oldest cities in Uzbekistan.

Griest does not limit her list to concrete or singular places. Sometimes, she finds a way to take us to virtual spots like the Museum of Menstruation or creates lists like “Best Bungee Jumping Locales,” “Sexiest Lingerie Shops,” or “Places to Pet Fuzzy Animals.” These 100 “places” are really all-encompassing, and Griest manages to take us on an imaginative journey around the world, packing all her feminine know-how into each description.

I did find, occasionally, that there were some places missing from some of the identified places in her list. For instance, I was baffled as to why two Russian writers were on Griest’s list of “Famous Women Writers and Their Creative Nooks,” but Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, and Jane Austen were absent. I was additionally confused that cooking classes in India and Thailand were not on the list of “Culinary Class Destinations.”

Griest’s opinions of places are somewhat biased, too. While she does a fairly good job covering the globe, a single locale in French Polynesia or the South Pacific is missing, and some places like Oaxaca, Angkor Wat, and New York are mentioned several times. Her college town of Austin landed on the list, but places like Budapest and Cairo are never acknowledged.

With every list, however, there is bound to be some bias and some personal flair and choice involved, and Griest’s original and creative sensibilities are still well-worth reading about. The great thing about this book is that you can flip to a place description, be perfectly entertained and inspired, and then tuck the book away until the next time you feel compelled to read about the places you can go. Or, you can read it in one sitting like I did and be completely blown away by the amazing places in this one world that it’s hard to imagine why we live in one city for so long and not just pack our bags and get out there and see some if not all of it.

Click here to read my review of Griest’s first travel book, “Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana.” My review of Griest’s third travel book, “Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines” is forthcoming, along with my interview with the author in early January. Feel free to jot me an email (Brenda DOT Yun AT weblogsinc DOT com) if you have a question for Stephanie.

Click the images to learn about the most unusual museums in the world — featuring everything from funeral customs, to penises, to velvet paintings, to stripping.


Greek air traffic, transportation frozen after day of riots

by Jeffrey White on

Boy, now would not be the time to be in Athens, or anywhere in Greece, for that matter.

After a day of crippling strikes and protests in the Greek capital, air traffic and public transportation have ground to a halt, says the BBC.

Thousands marched through Athens today, clashing with police over a government proposal to limit salaries and reforms to the country’s pension system. There were no reports of injuries, but police in several instances had to fire tear gas into mobs.

What’s complicating matters is that some of Greece’s biggest labor unions have gone on a nationwide strike.

The BBC reports nearly 200 domestic and international flights have been canceled, as has national train service and ferries.

The strike is said to continue tomorrow, and authorities do not know, right now at least, when travel in Greece will be back to normal.

Travel, summer, rock walls and rasberries bring bittersweet reflection

by Jamie Rhein on

I’ve always loved reading Ellen Goodman’s columns when I’ve come across them. Yesterday, was another. Her recent column’s theme is one that anyone can reflect upon to divine the relationship to ones own life.

Goodman, while on vacation in Maine, notices the rock walls built in the 19th-century and wonders about the people who made them. She wonders if they knew they were done with a wall when putting one last rock into place. The walls are now in various states of remains. Seeing them prompts Goodman’s reflections on permanence and transience.

The walls are a symbol for our own lives. While thinking about Randy Pausch, the professor who recently died of cancer, but before he did, he created the video and book, “The Last Lecture,” Goodman sees how people have an urge to create permanent markers in their lives. But, the permanence, as seen by the walls, will eventually give way to transience.

She offers up taking pictures of grandchildren as an example. As if snapping a picture of a six-year-old will somehow hold him or her in place.

Along crumbling walls, though, Goodman notices, are sweet berries to be relished. That’s where the bittersweet comes in. With loss, gain can be seen, often in the same moment. Goodman points to a recent birth in her family that has happened at the same time a beloved family member is dying.

So, what have I reflected on through Goodman’s reflections?

I’m thinking about how when we travel to places that we will never see again, as long as we remember them, they will forever stay that wonderful find, that glorious meal, and a sky that was a vibrant blue when we sat at the beach looking out to the horizon.

(In particular, I have a certain few days in Skopelos, Greece the summer after I graduated from college in mind.)