Steven A. Melnick ⁽⁷⁰⁾

Street-side booths selling everything under the sun I'm walking a lot, seeing some of the same faces each day and they are beginning to warm up to me. The Nicos on the street in this area are not as friendly as the Ticos Heide and…

Off again to foreign lands...this time Managua, Nicaragua. I am spending 15 days here to check out another country, it's people and culture, and in yet another futile attempt to learn Spanish. I started my journey on Monday and have been staying in a small…

One of the benefits of retirement is that I get to read a lot more than I used to and not all of it has to be professional, academic journals that are more boring than watching whale snot dry. I get to choose books I'm interested…

The trip to Costa Rica has come to an end. And what an end it was. After a two-hour delay in the terminal before being allowed to board our plane (our flight was to have left at 2:40pm), we had another two-hour wait onboard while…

Last night, in Costa Rica, Heide and I came face-to-face with true poverty...and it broke our hearts. Growing up, I had little idea that we weren't wealthy. But looking back on my childhood, I realize my brother and I grew up in a loving but…