Prager Family Costa Rica Adventures - La Fortuna

Wild poinesittas for all you Christmas fans!

The Prager family just returned from two delightful weeks in Costa Rica. What a trip! It was fabulous. I just love when a vacation goes smoothly and exceeds expectations. Since the trip was long, I am going to write about it in parts...otherwise this would be one very long story. We rented a car, which allowed us to explore three different areas of the country. After flying into San Jose, we traveled north to La Fortuna then to Monteverde. We ended the trip on the central Pacific coast in Manuel Antonio.

Part 1 is about La Fortuna, our first big stop. But before we got on our way, we spent a night near the airport to catch up on sleep and get our rental car. The overnight flight to Miami really did us in. Besides the roads are not lighted or well marked so we wanted to drive in the daylight. Good thing because even with our GPS and a really good map, we found ourselves unsure where to go on a few occasions.

Our hotel by the airport - stayed there coming and going.

Got the tiny SUV...ready to go.

Semira and Lily never pass up a pool...even a cold one when they are are exhausted.

La Fortuna is a town very near the Arenal Volcano. The volcano is typically active so I was really looking forward to quite a lava show. Unfortunately when we got there, we discovered that other than the daily puffs of smoke, the volcano has been pretty quiet for the last three months. The local interpretation of this is that the volcano was either going dormant or was getting getting ready for a big blow. Either way, no lava for me. But it was still very pretty. The rain held off so we had great views all four days.

Above is the view of Arenal Volcano. Below is Arenal Lake.

In addition to taking in the volcano, we did a bit of hiking with a guide and by ourselves on the Arenal suspension bridges. Both were a chance to see some of the vegetation up close. I can't say enough about the forests here. The diversity of plants and animals is simply amazing. And everything is so darn big!

We also found a smaller scale canopy tour that allowed the kids. Many of the canopy tours only take kids 8 and older, but this one was open to smaller kids. Lily was allowed to do the zip lines by herself since she was six. This was a bit nerve wracking for me. I really wasn't up for that since I couldn't see her or do anything if something happens. Lily did the practice run by herself as well as the first little zip line. As soon as she saw the second one though (it was a lot longer), she wanted a guide to take her. This made me feel better! So a guide took both Semira and Lily down the lines together. It was really cute. In the middle of our 12 zip lines, there was the opportunity to experience the Tarzan swing. Lily didn't do it, but super Semira was game. Seriously, the swing was a free fall. It was so much scarier than the zip lines! Since it was so difficult to take pictures, we ended up buying the DVD of all the pictures from our group. Below is Semira on the swing...notice she is totally quiet, a Semira rarity. I think we hit her fear limit with this one. She was speechless!

Lily and Semira getting ready to go. A bit of apprehension below (mostly serious Lily) as they received instructions and had a practice run on the zip line.

Click here for Semira on the Tarzan swing

The rest of our days were spent eating great food, doing a little souvenir shopping with the kids, playing in our hotel pool and hot tub, and enjoying the daily towel animals left by our maid. The food in Costa Rica is right up my alley. I ate black beans with rice and fried ripe plantains everyday for breakfast. It was downhill from there...eating black beans and rice at nearly every meal! I just loved it. The abundance of tropical fruit was also amazing. You can never get enough of fresh bananas, pineapple, papaya, and mango! I got spoiled since having anything but bananas in WY is a treat. The best part is that the fruit actually had taste...go figure when it is ripened on the tree and not shipped three thousand miles, it actually tastes good!

Life is good!

Our Food: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Inside my refrigerator last night. No food stylist and sans cleaning!

Steve and I have been vegetarian for the better part of our adult lives (Steve for his entire adult life and most of his high school years as well). For me, I stopped eating meat during my freshman year of college and never looked back. First it was beef, then chicken and turkey. I did eat seafood for some years after that, but gave it up sometime in my late 20s. For reasons I will get into in a later post, we did start eating some fish about two years ago. Besides seafood, I haven’t touched other meat for over 20 years now.

My reasons for initially not eating meat were taste. College cafeteria food used to be pretty nasty stuff. After I hadn’t eaten meat for a while, it just seemed gross to me. Over the years, my reasons expanded. Primarily, I have compassion for animals, and raising animals for meat is an extremely inefficient way to convert the Earth’s finite resources to food.

Overall, I had a pretty decent diet growing up. My family’s German roots influenced my dietary choices. We had plenty of meals with meat, potatoes, vegetables, and salad. I drank my fair share of whole milk growing up. I also ate plenty of cheese. My diet took a turn for the worse when I first gave up meat. In my early to mid 20s, I recall eating a lot of pasta with tomato sauce and vegetarian frozen dinners. Looking back, I don’t know how I survived. The funny thing is I was pretty heavy back then. In 1992 when I graduated college, I weighed about 35 lbs more than I do now!

I have to say, our household diet today is pretty healthy overall. We eat a lot of fresh vegetables (we're members of a pretty good CSA), beans, tofu and other soy products, nuts, and grains. I do eat eggs. My taste for them waxes and wanes though. We dabbled in veganism some years ago, but that effort was short lived due to my love of good cheeses. Today, I eat some cheese, sour cream, and an occasional yogurt. In spite of that, I could never drink cow milk. The thought of drinking milk actually makes me sick. I also have a few vices: sugar (it is addicting), caffeinated tea, and Sabra hummus. Even with the our vices, anyone perusing our cupboards and refrigerator won’t find more than a few "bad" items.

It happens that I am an avid reader about food and food related issues. All of my reading over the years has been very informative, yet sometimes overwhelming. There is definitely a lot of conflicting information out there. Sometimes it is hard to make sense of it all. On the other hand, there are some things that seem so obvious: Americans eat crap, are overweight, and unhealthy as a result. The most recent book that Steve and I read is Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. This is a very difficult book to read even for me. It is disturbing/enlightening on so many levels that I can only read a chapter or two at a time. I plan on writing more about the book in the New Year when I am completely done with it.

While this isn't a full list of resources, here are some links to information about food that that I have found helpful.

Michael Pollan: Author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Both books are good. If you read just one, read In Defense of Food. It is a must read.

Mark Hyman: Author of Ultra-Metabolism and The UltraMind Solution. He also has a blog on his website. Dr. Hyman provides convincing evidence that good food is essential for a sharp, clear mind and, like Dr. Weil below, makes the case that basic dietary changes go a long way for overall health and longevity.

Andrew Weil: Author of Eating Well for Optimum Health and several other books about health and wellness. He is kind of a classic hippy guy. Dr. Weil is a pioneer in merging traditional with nontraditional medicine. He and Mark Hyman above point out that many of our medical problems can be treated by dietary changes instead of pills. It is kind of scary that such simplicity is considered "nontraditional."

Food Inc.: Probably the best documentary on food. Good website on how to take action.

Food Matters: Ok so they get a little crazy about raw food and vitamins, but still worth a look. There is some interesting discussion about treating serious diseases with high dose vitamins and nutrition.

The Future of Food: Watched this before Food Inc. It covers a lot of the same issues.

Happy Healthy Long Life: Great blog from a medical librarian. She follows Dr. Esselstyn's heart disease prevention diet (a pretty strict diet including no oils, which I could never do). The site is full of various summaries of research on food and health issues. No need to read hundreds of books and studies yourself! My friend Kara in Seattle turned me onto her.

Adventures in Veganism: This is a plug for a blog written by Steve's cousin who lives in D.C. He decided to be a vegan about two years ago. The site has great pictures of awesome looking food. The pictures show that vegan/vegetarian food can be great food!

So why am I writing about this? Well, to start, the issue of food is extremely important on a personal level, but also at a policy level. Second, I am often conflicted with some of our food choices for both ethical and health reasons. After reading our latest book, Steve decided that we should go vegan. Following some discussion though, we decided to try something a little different. Instead of just flipping the switch, we are going to embark on a “Family Food Challenge” during each month of 2011. I have no idea what all the challenges will be, but I have ideas for five or six. Our first challenge will be going dairy free. I think the food challenges will a good way to try something without a big commitment. And supposedly it takes a month to form a new habit.

My goal is not to alienate people about their food choices, but to discuss the challenges involved with ethical and healthy eating. Unlike Lily, who is meeting a sheep that became lunch a few minutes later, we are so far removed from our food that we have no idea where it comes from, what is in it, or what bad things result from its production.

Hopefully in the process, the Prager Family can finally purge its remaining bad habits. Cheers to a happy and healthy 2011!

Amazing Israel - Part 2

(My favorite of the Chagall Windows at Hadassah Hospital)

Before I launch into the rest of the highlights from my trip to Israel, I wanted to share some more observations:

What we call the West Bank, Israelis call Judea and Samaria. About 300,000 Jews live in Judea and Samaria in settlements. When I used to hear the term “settlements,” I always thought of very small communities. I never realized that three of them had populations of over 30,000 residents each. In other words, one-third actually live in cities. I don’t really want to debate whether the settlements are legal or illegal, but you can imagine how difficult it would be moving 300,000 people.

Jerusalem is a much bigger city than I realized (about 700,000 residents). It is the capital of Israel, although other countries do not recognize it as such. As a result, all of the foreign embassies are located in Tel Aviv. Obviously Jerusalem is a significant place for three major religious groups: Muslims, Jews, and Christians all have deep historical ties to the location so it is easy to see why everyone is interested in who controls the city. Not that I am an expert on Jerusalem, but I really perceived it as one big city as opposed to a disputed city (whether East Jerusalem is part of the city or not). Again, I don’t want to debate who East Jerusalem belongs to. I just thought this illustrates how complex any peace agreement would be. Think of Berlin when it was a divided city. Looking back on history, I am not sure it worked all that well.

Israel is a small place. There are a lot of people living in a small area and the population is expected to grow rapidly in the in the near future. Peace will depend on people of very different views living side by side with one another. While I want to be optimistic that this will happen, I am just not sure it will (at least anytime soon). The good of all has to be considered over the good of some. Unfortunately, self-interest usually get in the way of this.

One final note… Completely unrelated, but timely given the new TSA pat down procedures. It took Wendy and I an hour and forty-five minutes to get through security in Tel Aviv. We were one of the first two people on line. The facts that our trip involved coming home separately from our tour group and that we stayed with an Israeli family seemed to compel Israeli security forces to take a closer look at us. We spent a considerable amount of time getting interviewed by several people and having our bags thoroughly checked. Interestingly, they cared about checking all the things that don’t get a second look in the U.S. In the end, everything came out of my suitcase. They weren’t overly concerned whether my quart sized bag of liquids was pulled out or if I took off my hiking shoes. And no full body scanners. I guess my point is that they rely on thorough human intelligence procedures coupled with good old fashioned going through your stuff. By comparison, our airport security is pretty lax. I somehow doubt newfangled technology alone will solve our security issues.

Now onto some more highlights:

The forth day was really a Hadassah intense day. We spent the morning visiting with Americans in Hadassah’s Young Judea year course. This is a year-long program where students live in three different places in Israel for three months each. In addition to experiencing life in Israel, they do volunteer work and learn Hebrew. While kids do earn college credit for their work and study, this is more like a gap year program between high school and college. I ended up going to the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo to meet with a handful of participants. Really, we were supposed to volunteer there (I guess do what they do at the zoo). Instead, it was more of a tour of the zoo and chat about the program and what they did at the zoo. It was really interesting to talk with the kids participating. If I have one regret about my college life, it is that I didn’t have an international experience. At the time, I just didn’t see how it could happen. It would be complicated and cost a lot of money. Now I see the immense value of living somewhere else for a year. My dream now is to provide this opportunity to my kids in the future.

We spent the afternoon visiting the Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem Campus. Hadassah is building a new 14 story tower there. Normally I am not very interested in hearing about construction and capital projects, but this was a bit different. In the U.S., we don’t build very many things with serious security threats in mind. In Israel they do, so the first five stories of the new hospital tower are underground. They will contain all the operating facilities for the hospital. In addition, the first two floors are being built to withstand an attack.

The next day started with a speaker named Rena Quint. Rena is a holocaust survivor living in Jerusalem. She brought an interesting perspective as a Holocaust survivor because she was a child who lost her entire family. I never really thought about all the young orphaned children who survived. This was the perfect segue to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Unlike the Holocaust museum in D.C., there is a rather large outdoor memorial as well. The museum is very well done. Honestly, you could spend an entire day there. It was very moving.

We spent the last few hours before Shabbat began at Machaneh Yehudah (“The Shuk”), the big outdoor market. Wendy and I met up with Joel and Ofra, a husband and wife who came to Laramie three years ago to be our camp counselors at Camp Israel. It was great to see them.

After Shabbat started, we returned to the Western Wall to see the celebration. It was extremely crowded with people. It was fun to watch the singing, dancing, and praying. There are no pictures because pictures are not allowed on this day.

Our last day was busy, but not the same busy as the previous days. We went on a walking tour of the Old City in Jerusalem. This was our only time to see it during daylight hours. We walked through the Jaffa Gate then through the Arab quarter. Our tour leader found a perch up high that allowed us to see the four quarters of the old city. We then walked through the Christian quarter to see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the site of the resurrection of Jesus. Needless to say the place was very crowded!

That’s my trip in a nutshell. Again, it was a fabulous trip! I have recovered. I am still waiting on United customer service to answer my nicely worded complaint letter. Good thing I am not holding my breath.

Amazing Israel - Part 1

I am back from my 10 day trip to Israel. Let me start by saying there is a lot to talk about. More than I want to write in one post so I am dividing the trip into two parts. This is Part 1.

To say it was an amazing experience seems like an understatement. My friend Wendy brought up this trip idea at a Hanukkah party last year. It sounded interesting, but I knew little about Hadassah, the organization hosting the trip. I did join Hadassah at Wendy's urging and as soon as the trip details came out, we decided to go. It was a bit of risk buying our plane tickets before the tour deadline, but we found a deal from Denver to Tel Aviv last March that was too good to pass up. One way or another, we were going to Israel. As I mentioned before, I am the serious travel planner, but this time around I planned nothing. Intense work on my dissertation all fall left me little time to think about anything fun. In the end, this turned out to be a good thing. I felt like I was just along for the ride. And it turned out the ride was fabulous!

So how much can one fit into 10 action packed days? Well, the short answer is a lot! I would say the tour and additional days spent with some friends provided a sample of Israel. There is obviously much more to see and do. I did wish we could have spent more time at the various places we did see. I would catch myself saying, "I wish we had another hour (few hours)," at almost every stop. Besides the fantastic places and interesting speakers, we traveled with a group of outstanding women. The combination made for a memorable experience.

In the end, I learned a lot about the great work of Hadassah. The women in the group and the people we met affiliated with various Hadassah projects have a serious commitment to the organization and what it does. Their enthusiasm is contagious and inspiring!

I also learned so much about Israel. There is no better way to get context to a situation than seeing it for yourself. Now things I read about Israel make more sense to me. I left with a new found appreciation of the complicated situation that exists in the Middle East. It is evident that many Israelis feel the (western) media does not accurately reflect what is happening. At the same time, they willingly admit it is not a perfect nation. In the end, it is remarkable that this country developed to where it is today in just 60 years.

My final observation is a somewhat sad one that I continue to experience as I travel. It seems no matter where I go, I have the sense that Americans know very little about the rest of world while the rest of the world knows a lot about us. Yes, I know....the U.S. is a world leader and superpower. Sure, this is a piece of it...but the larger part is that Americans in general are an ignorant, uninterested bunch. This makes me sad and angry at the same time.

Enough personal observations. Now onto some highlights from the first half of the trip:

Thanks to an incompetent gate agent in Denver who managed to cancel the remainder of our plane ticket to Israel, we had the pleasure of spending an entire day in Newark, NJ. The trip wasn't off to a very good start, but we managed to salvage the day a bit by heading into Manhattan to have lunch with my friend Wendy's father and my old college friend Jackie.

Visiting old Laramie friends (Omer and Shiri Choresh) in Tel Aviv


Our friend Omer was kind enough to take us to Svat (Safed) - the birthplace of Kabbalah and third holiest city in Israel for Jews. We had a terrific day driving up north. After walking around the very scenic Svat, we took a drive around the Sea of Galilee.


Thanks to Omer and Shiri's hospitality, Wendy and I met up with our tour group fairly rested and in a good mood. On the first day of the tour, we were treated to lunch at Dr. Shakshuka in Old Jaffa in Tel Aviv. It is the only kosher restaurant in Old Jaffa. It was an Israeli restaurant pick in Food and Wine magazine...needless to say the food was fabulous.

We also visited Independence Hall in Tel Aviv, the birthplace of the state of Israel. After leaving Tel Aviv, we drove north to Atlit Detention Camp to learn about Jews immigrating to Palestine (pre-Israel) at the end of WW II. It was fascinating to learn a bit of WW II history that took place outside of Europe. We ended the night at Meir Shfeya Youth Aliyah Village - a Hadassah affiliated residential school for kids.

We spent the first night in Haifa, the largest city in the north. It is a port city nestled up against the mountains. It is home to the world headquarters of the Bahai Faith. The gardens below and the covered up tall structure (evidently it is being redone, but is supposedly a beautiful gold dome) belong to the Bahai.

In Haifa, we heard from a couple of speakers and visited an integrated elementary school and preschool where Jewish and Arab kids attend school together. We also heard a bit about the bombing Haifa sustained in 2006 as a result of the war with Lebanon. We then headed to the Oketz Army Base where there is a special unit training dogs for military and search/rescue operations. We saw a few demos and heard about how the dogs are used. The base even has a special cemetery for dogs killed in the line of duty.

We then visited the Israeli Museum to see the Dead Seas Scrolls and an amazing model of Old Jerusalem. This was the perfect context for our first of four nights in Jerusalem. We ended the night with visit to the the Western Wall (Kotel) and a tour of the Western Wall tunnels. It was quite a sight witnessing religious Jews saying their evening prayers both at the wall and inside the tunnels.
Day 3 took us south to the Gaza Strip. We were right there, overlooking what has become a very contested place. We then proceeded to the city of Sderot, a city of 23,000 people and only one mile from the border, to visit an indoor childrens' playground and recreation center. Evidently, the non-stop bombing from rockets launched by Hamas (from Gaza) since the early 2000's has left many of the town's children in various states of psychological stress. Hence the need for such a facility. When the sirens go off, kids have 15 seconds to get to safety. Needless to say, you don't see any kids riding their bikes around town. We also got to see the rather large collection of old missiles and rockets at the local police station.

After Sderot, we headed to the Dead Sea where we visited Masada, an ancient palace perched high up on a hill overlooking the desert and sea. When the Romans were poised to invade, the Jews living there committed mass suicide. The place is pretty well preserved. In addition to the dozens of buildings at the top of the mountain, you can see the outlines of the Roman camps below.
A dip in the dead sea was the perfect almost end to a busy day. The water is thick and kind of oily. You definitely float. And don't taste the water. It is absolutely disgusting salty! Really, a drop of water on your lip is all it takes to start violently spitting. I must say my skin felt very exfoliated from the mud by the time we left...exactly what I was told!

Our evening was to end with a camel ride and dinner at a Bedouin village. Let's just say it wasn't the camel rides everyone was expecting. I thought we would be riding camels at the village under the stars. Instead we pull up to a gas station and visitor's center with a big gift shop to find a couple of guys and two camels waiting. It was the equivalent of some sort of weird pony ride you would take your kids on. Three bucks to sit on a camel, take two laps around the parking lot, and pose for a picture. I have this thing about riding large animals...I don't like it! And I was really not going to subject myself to this type of ride. The experience did however give me with a good laugh. My friend Wendy went for a ride and all I got was a few dark or blurry photos. Still, it was priceless! At least the dinner afterward was fabulous!

Stay tuned for Part 2!