What was supposed to be a fun holiday flight from Gatwick to Taba in Egypt turned into a bit of a nightmare for the passengers.
During its take off procedure, the pilot of a Monarch Airbus A300 had to slam the brakes and return to the gate.
Now, I’ve experienced this a couple of time before, and while it isn’t exactly fun, it’s not a life altering experience.
What makes this event different is that the plane went through this takeoff and abort routine another two times.
That’s right – the poor passengers went through the hassle of an aborted take off THREE times!
Each time, the plane went back to the gate, got a part replaced, and tried again. Eventually, after an eight and a half hour delay, the passengers were on their way to their destination.
One of the passengers reported that “People were really scared because we had come so close to taking off, which could have been disastrous”.
You know, I’ve been to England tons of times. I used to live in England. I’m even *married* to an Englishman. So I’ve taken the exact same shot you see above dozens of times. And yet?
And yet, I’ve never been able to capture the detail and the colours captured by skinnymalinki1 above, and shared in our Flickr pool. Really lovely work — skinnymalinki1, you should be proud!
If you’ve got some great travel shots you’d love to share, be sure to upload them to the Gadling pool on Flickr. We might just pick one as our Photo of the Day.
Brits are the best-behaved hotel guests, according to a survey by TripAdvisor. More than 3,000 participated in the study, and the results are certain to reinforce stereotypes. Forty-three percent of hotel guests from the UK make their own beds every morning … which is nothing compared to the 79 percent who put their clothes neatly in the closets.
But, tidiness comes with a price. Travelers from the land of the stiff upper lip are also the most accident-prone. They tend to break things and block up the toilet – the latter distinction shared with the Germans.
Shockingly, the French are the quietest (fewest noise complaints), and those from Spain are most likely to dip into the mini-bar without paying. Italians are both the worst tippers and most likely to leave underwear in the room.
Here’s the best part: 10 percent of all survey participants admitted to replacing minibar items with cheaper, store-bought stuff.
Two Austrian tourists ran afoul of local police when they took pictures of the city’s famous double-decker buses. Klaus Matzka and his son, Loris, were clicking away on the streets of London while on vacation. Shots of a bus station in Walthamstow (in east London), however, got the cops interested.
The tourists were told by local police that they were not allowed to photograph anything related to transportation. They were thanked not only with deleted photos but with the collection of their passport numbers, hotel addresses and other personal deals.
After all, taking pictures of buses and bus stations could be a sign of terrorist activity.
London’s Metropolitan Police Authority says it has no knowledge related to a ban on transportation pictures in the city. Matzka observes, “Google Street View is allowed to show details of our cities on the web, but a father and his son are not allowed to take pictures of London landmarks.”
If there ever was a Global Ambassador of Good Will, Susan Boyle, the woman who has wowed the world from her “Britain’s Got Talent” performance is it.
Ever since I saw the video, I’ve been enamored. First, there’s the song. Who hasn’t dreamed a dream of days gone by? The first time I saw “Les Miserables” I was living in Singapore. That musical seemed to seep into my pores. Hearing Susan Boyle sing reminded me of my first impressions, but more importantly, about what I think most world travelers know.
The world is filled with astounding people who surprise you when you have time to absorb the nuances of their lives. It might be the shopkeeper who puts fruit on a scale with a certain hand movement and a smile–or the way a woman sweeps a sidewalk in the early morning. It could be the way a group of school kids throw their arms around each other and tilt their heads back in laughter when they ask you your name. It could be that woman who could be age 40 to 80 who scoots over to make room for you to sit down on a bench. It’s hard to tell how old she is because her days are spent out in fields in the sun and wind. There’s something about the way she sits and how kind she behaves that is alluring.
Those people that attract us to them might be wearing threadbare clothes, have a tooth or two missing, and not have a decent pair of shoes, if any, but there is an essence about them that travel with us long after our taxi or bus has pulled away. When we go through our photos, we look for them–, and if we didn’t have our camera, wish that we had just in case the good feeling could be absorbed into a photograph so that we would have a prop to help us recall it at will.
Watching an inteview with Susan Boyle is a peek into a normal person’s life–the woman who might live in the house down the block or in the apartment on the third floor. She’s the one with the cat whose life seems to move through days like clockwork. If you stop by, she’ll invite you in for tea and you’ll feel comfortable and sane.
When we get busy about our days with billboards and TV commericals and the marketing of celebrity sameness, and stories about just what’s wrong, we can forget about what’s right. That a person like Susan Boyle can walk out on a stage, belt out a song with a triumphant lift of her arm during the high notes, and remind us just how great we can be. In today’s word, it’s also astounding that such a message can reach millions around the globe almost as soon as the magic begins. What better Global Ambassador of Goodwill is there?
Here’s a video I found with various shots of Susan Boyle in her world
And another one of her singing “Cry Me a River” that was published on a fundraising CD. Her performance wasn’t a fluke.