Laura Enridge Zera's Blog, page 7
February 25, 2014
Travel: My Cup of Wild Civet Coffee
While I once pooh-poohed the notion of poo-poo coffee (and any other delicacies that passed through the digestive system of a civet or a beaver) in “Say, Did That Strawberry Flavor Come From Beaver Butt?” it seems that back then, I didn’t know my head from my ass. A well-connected friend hooked me up with …
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February 17, 2014
Travel: ChickyBus’ Lisa Egle Explains Her Adventure Style
Are female solo travelers crazy? No!* In this interview with travel expert Lisa Egle, she soundly puts all lingering speculation on that to rest, and might very well light the solo-travel fire in you! Lisa is the author of Magic Carpet Seduction, a memoir of off-the-beaten path travel that takes ‘riders’/readers on unique journeys to China, …
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February 11, 2014
Mental Health: The Mysterious, Malleable (and Mini) Brain
Before you get depressed over not understanding why your noggin is prone to depression (I’ve been there, have you?), take some comfort in the fact that the human brain is the most complex computer in the world. The Universe, even. Neither Intel and AMD nor the Martians have come even close to developing anything as …
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February 4, 2014
Two Travel Tips To Keep You Safe and Save You Money
This week’s post contains practical travel tips for two things commonly encountered on business and holiday trips: escalators and car rental agencies. It’s my husband Francis who has been traveling for work in the past couple of weeks, and he shared this information based on first-hand experience. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates more …
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January 28, 2014
Mental Health Takes Center Stage at Davos in 2014
World leaders and change agents from the business, environmental, health, and other sectors met last week in Davos, Switzerland for the 44th annual World Economic Forum (WEF), but this time, mental health occupied the agenda like never before. Roughly 10 percent of the more than 200 sessions were devoted to topics such as mental illness, …
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January 21, 2014
Travel: Lazy Days in Antigua, Part II
The goal for our December trip to Antigua was to do as little as possible, and Francis and I were exceptionally successful at achieving it (see Lazy Days in Antigua, Part I to read about how we sat around all day, mouths open, spittle running down our chins). Let me tell you, though, there were …
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January 14, 2014
Mental Health: Mobile Technology Use in Developing Countries
In developing countries, almost everybody has a cell phone, and sometimes two or three to take maximum advantage of network coverage across different carriers. Not all phones are operational all the time; the predominant use of prepaid plans means that sometimes people let their minutes run out until they can afford to reload the phone. …
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January 7, 2014
Travel: Lazy Days in Antigua, Part One
There are beaches, and there are beaches. And then there’s Antigua, which has a beach for every day of the year. My husband Francis and I spent 11 days in Antigua at the end of December, so while we didn’t have enough time to see all 365 bits of coastline, we managed to make it …
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December 19, 2013
Happy Holidays, Thank You, and See You Next Year
I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, or Kwanzaa, or “a few days off work,” depending on what you celebrate, as this will be the last blog peep you hear out of me for 2013. I hope the remaining days of this year allow you time to spend with …
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December 10, 2013
Travel Survey: The Results (and Winners) Are In!
First off, thank you to all who completed my travel survey. There were 61 respondents, and, quite frankly, some answers and trends that I did not expect. I guess that’s the whole point of doing surveys, though, hey? The reason I asked this particular set of questions is that I’ve been playing around with the …
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