Friedman's travels

In Serbia we went to a river that was cut off so it has no current. You can swim in the river and there are many shops along it. At the end of the river there is a place where you can do water skiing. The way it works is you have skies then you get in to starting position on a small turf platform. Then they will hand you a bar attached to a rope which will suddenly pull you off the platform very quickly. You are going fast enough that you don't sink then you slowly stand up. You are attached to a pulley system which has five turns and brings you around in a circle. At first you will fall a lot then you just let go of the bar so it doesn't drag you along. It can be difficult to stay on at the turns if you don't know the technique. You have to move away from the pulley at the turns or else the rope will go slack for a second then yank you and you will fall. If you fall on the far side then you have to swim and walk all the way back which takes a little while. Eventually my co...

This blog is about all the foods that we ate in Rome. We ate mostly pasta, pizza, bread products, and most importantly, gelato. Rome is most definitely the hottest place we’ve visited. We also are walking for a verry long time. Gelato is a delicious was to cool down. Rome has the normal flavors of gelato as well as some more… interesting flavors. We always get the small cups when we get ice cream, or in this case gelato. So far, the small cups come with two flavors. I normally get chocolate and something else, I try to get more of an unusual flavor, just to try it. My favorite has been stracciatella. The pasta and pizza are the best I’ve ever had. I can definitely see why Italy is known for pasta and pizza. They also have pizza toppings that I would definitely never thought to put on pizza, but they are all verry good. They have lots of bread products too, mostly croissants and French pastries like that.  

     The Colosseum is a structural marvel. It was built from 72 AD to 80 AD and is still the world's largest amphitheater and the largest structure in Rome. It could hold 50,000 to 80,000 people and everyone could get out in about 15 minutes using the 80 exits. It also had 5 levels and underground passageways. The underground passageways were similar to a backstage they would have lots of elevator and cages for animals.   They could even hoist up sets and features like hills and trees making the battle ground themed for different things. They could make the people and animals come up from the ground. On the playing surface there were nine inches of sand to absorb all the blood. In the seats, the emperor, governors, and senators would sit right next to the playing field.   One row up would be wealthy merchants and higher class people. Up from there, were mostly common people.                         ...

Mark (M):  Peyton and I both contributed to this post.  I'll do my semi deep dive here.  This was a great experience both from a cultural and wrestling point of view.   - Masa, pictured below when he took us to a national level tournament in Tokyo, introduced me to the coach at Iran Wrestling Club and Figure four.  He was awesome and took a lot of time to come with us to various practices.  I'm pretty sure he was "vouching" for us.  He had brought his son to some of my practices in VA many years ago, so he knew me as a coach.   The first time we returned to a practice, Masa would call to make sure the coach was good with us.  Turns out, this is part of the culture.  All of the coaches were more than happy to have Peyton back.  His wrestling, and behavior made him a desired participant.  I'm still so proud of how far his wrestling has come this past year.   - Overall differences between US and Japanese wrestl...