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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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...

The reflection in the water is simply stunning. At first glance, it has a Taj Mahal feel about it.

It is in Barcelona though. Tysonwilliams.com is the photographer and Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya is the subject.

I think I almost like it better in its original black and white version. It is less dramatic, but looks more authentic. What do you think?

***To have your photo considered for the Gadling Photo of the Day, go over to the Gadling Flickr Pool and post it. Make sure it is not copyrighted, otherwise we can't post it here.***

Money is probably the most contaminated thing you come in contact with on a daily basis, just because of the sheer number of people whose hands it goes through every day. It carries virus's and diseases, and even traces of drugs.

Spain is known to the largest consumer of cocaine in the world, so it's of little surprise that the money circulating there has high traces of cocaine. On average, Spanish notes contain 155 micrograms of the drug. The cocaine-money exchange, along with the fact that Euro bills are used to snort the stuff, are the main contributing factors. According to a report in the BBC, Spain has over 1 billion notes in circulation, of which an estimated 142 million have been used to snort cocaine.

Apparently, it's cheap to buy cocaine in Europe (€60 a gram) because of efforts too boost production by Colombian paramilitaries who need money for weapons, and Spain is the main country through which they smuggle the drugs in. In fact, yesterday the Spanish government busted a Venezuelan-registered ship carrying 2.5 tonnes of cocaine and arrested 11 people of which 6 were Spaniards.

U.S. bills come as a close second with the notes containing an average of between 2.9 and 28.8 micrograms; however, in 1996, upto 1,300 micrograms were found on some of the bills.

The bike sharing program in Paris known as Vélib has been so popular that the city's mayor is considering launching the same version with electric cars. Just like its sister cycle program, with Autolib a driver could pick up a car on the Left Bank, cruise the Champs Elysées and return it a couple of hours later with enough money left over for a pain au chocolat.

There is some debate regarding the program, which would launch in late 2009 or early 2010 with a fleet of 4,000 cars. Some -- motivated by high gas prices and the parking nightmare -- love it. Others are less excited, holding that it would lead to more car dependence in a city already packed with vehicles.

Judging by the craziness of Parisian traffic, I would personally stick with the bicycles. Take the metro or a nice stroll and save yourself some stress; leave that to the Parisians.

[Via Huffington Post]