Posts from ‘April, 2009’

When I imagined what walking through a rain forest in Costa Rica would be like, I pictured a lush green area that was teeming with plants, birds and animals. So when I hiked through the Monteverde Cloud Forest, all of the plants and orchids I saw were pretty much just as I pictured them. But [...]

As someone who has  a 10-day vacation planned in Mexico in mid-June, I’ve been watching the Swine Flu coverage as anything but an impartial observer. Amidst the flood of bad news flowing from south of the border, I’ve been clinging to any shred of information I can find that supports the notion this horrible episode [...]

The Swine Flu outbreak drew mixed reactions from the European Union and the U.S. today as government officials around the world struggle to gauge the severity of the epidemic. The Eurpoean Union’s health commissioner today urged against nonessential travel to the U.S. and Mexico, the New York Times reported. But the acting director of the [...]

The World Health Organization declared April 25 that the swine flu epidemic in Mexico constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. WHO issued a phase 3 pandemic alert, which means that “a new influenza virus subtype is causing disease in humans, but is not yet spreading efficiently and sustainably among humans.” Fifty-nine deaths in [...]

When I was in high school working as a busboy at a neighborhood restaurant, there was a waiter who found out about Sade about four or five months before she became famous. He kept talking about her song “Smooth Operator” and telling me to listen for it. After the song became a hit, he’d remind [...]

It’s late afternoon, the morning’s coffee high is long gone and you’re feeling drowsy. Wouldn’t it be nice to take a siesta? For a long time, Mexicans took siestas to satisfy their need for a snooze. But this daily respite is reportedly falling out of practice in some areas of Mexico. Even Spain–the siesta’s birthplace–is [...]

My wife and I visited Costa Rica without our kids. Our daughter and son didn’t seem to mind because they got to go skiing for the first time with their grandparents in Colorado. During the latter half of our trip we  stayed near some of Costa Rica’s most beautiful beaches at Manuel Antonio National Park. [...]

A few years ago, when word got out in our community that my wife was having surgery several people in our neighborhood made dinners for our family. For the 10 nights following her return from the hospital, people on our block prepared and delivered hot meals to our door. My wife recuperated and life got [...]

Nearly 40 percent of U.S. health care consumers said they would travel outside the country to save money on medical care of similar quality, Deloitte found in a 2008 survey. Another Deloitte fact sheet states that: “In 2007, an estimated 750,000 Americans traveled abroad for medical care; this number is anticipated to increase to six [...]

If you’re expecting to read the Mexico version of best-seller Eat, Pray, Love, Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s latest book Mexican Enough probably has more serious social commentary than you’ve bargained for. But if you’re interested in some true tales that will illuminate many of the issues that are driving the recent upheaval in Mexico, this is [...]