Traveling abroad With Evan

Well, we made it to our last day in Europe. Smile because it happened; don’t cry because it’s over. Sports media is vastly different from what we see in the United States. Over the past month, my eyes have been wowed by how other media companies do their business here. First, you have Eurosport, which, in my opinion, does it best here. I say this because of the business model that sports directly to the consumer. Essentially, name the sport, and they have the rights to it. Okay, maybe “who is the strongest” isn’t the correct way to do this. Each company or person we talked to has one thing that stands out over its competitors. AFP is astonishing at fact-checking and giving hard news. L’Equipe stands out in its ability to deliver both television and newspaper content. CNN does a great job of doing international reports. I could keep naming positives, and that’s what I will do. Washington Post does a great job at covering the news here and giving their readership eyes into what’s happen...

  6/24. TGIF. Meals that changed me for good.     Happy Friday, readers! Before I get going with today’s blog,  I want to take the time to thank those who have been giving me words of encouragement and sharing their thoughts in the comment section about what they just read. Today’s blog will be a bit of a throwback to the last night in Paris and the meal that changed me.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------     It was our last night in Paris, and we went to a place where the only option on the menu was steak and fries. The waitstaff only asked, “How do you like your steak?” and “What do you want to drink?”. You might look at me funny, like, “How was this the meal that changed you from Paris and Rome”? Well, let me explain. I am a very picky eater, and I can think of one time before this when I had a steak. The taste of the steak was something extraordinary....

  Since I’ve been in Rome, seeing the Colosseum has been something I have been looking forward to. It's such a historic venue, but I think it’s fair to say a lot of the concepts of the stadium are just about what we see today.     Walking around the place was hard just because there were so many people there. But the steep stairs I walked up to the next level reminded me of back home at Little Caesars Arenas steps. I finally reach the top, with a great view of my surroundings. The first thing that caught my eye was below the setup where animals were lifted by platforms, or fights would happen. What surprised me was no matter where you were in the stadium, you were bound to have a decent sightline from your seats. That is very different from what we see in stadiums today; sometimes, you are better off seeing it from home if you are too high.     But what is it about the stadium that resembles our sports culture today? You may ask. I think it’s a lot of the same s...

         It’s been a day since the class got to interview former Italian Olympian Elisa Blanchi, so now I want to take today to reflect. For me, it felt bizarre when I do interviews at school or talk to people on the radio. I feel like I don’t have any pressure. Yesterday, however, I felt a bit of pressure to ask a question because I couldn’t think of how to word a question so that both the translator and she would understand. I asked one question about her Olympic routine, and I wish I had asked a feel follow-up about how that very routine is impacted by the weird times the events for the Olympics are. I failed to do that because I couldn’t think of a way of making that a simple question to spit out of my mouth. If I were to talk to her again, I would fill in the missing details, like why she chose to retire or seek more information about her routine. When I returned to type that feature story, I knew I had other source information to help me. There were questi...

  Meet former Italian rhythmic   Olympian G ymnast  Elisa Blanchi. Elisa is 34 years old now. She started when she was just three years of age. To her name, she has 100 international medals, including five gold results at the world championships. She has appeared in three Olympic games: Athens when she was just 16, Beijing in 2008, and London in 2012. Her training is no joke. She would wake up, train for eight hours, and then go to school.     In these types of competitions, Routine was essential to Elisa, especially on the day of the competition. It would start early in the morning with makeup and some good food; she then would head to the SportsCenter, where she gets some training and relax before the match. After that, the team would huddle up about 5 minutes before the competition to motivate one another to prepare for the game. When performing, the audience gives her the power to do her best. This routine was a constant cycle. Luckily, in this process, inju...

  Out at dinner the other night, and to my right, I see a bunch of kids playing the 5,000 football game we play in America to stall time. For those who don't know what 5000 is, here's an example: I shout 400 alive and throw the ball in the air. If a person catches, they get 400 points, and so on. All of this adds up to 5,000. Once an accumulated score of  5,000 hits, you change throwers.   After a kid catches it, someone at the table next to me cheers because the kid is finally caught. This feels much like an organized game I would play at camp between periods. The cool thing about it is everyone seems interested. It's in the park. Everyone’s having a good time. They are civil about playing, but my memories back home recall that everyone starts a fight over the point value or who caught it, often causing fights. The kids are entertained, and I guess it keeps them available; that will do. Here, what a f...

  Introduction:  Today’s blog is focused on memory; in part one, I’ll be talking about an image I saw today from my memory, and in part 2, we will see how we did. First, before I get into that, let me explain the adventure of getting to class today. trams decided to go on strike this morning, so it was time to stretch out and walk the trains for  45 minutes in 89-degree weather. It was kind of terrible, but it taught us that sometimes things don’t go our way, and we must be flexible. At least it was only a short-term stoppage because, after class, things were back up and running again. Today’s class was an informative lecture, preparing us for what we will see on Tuesday at the Vatican. Alright, without further ado, now on today’s task memorization   Part 1, bringing the photo alive:   Near the bus stop, behind some beautiful flowers, was a statue of a man (the name I don’t know) looking down with his hands on his hips. He reminded me of the Abe Lincoln monument...