Following the Equator

Meet EF's Olympics ambassador

The Beijing Olympics begin Friday, but EF has had Olympic fever for some time already.

Not only is EF Education First the Official Language Training Services Supplier of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and not only did EF's founder, Bertil Hult, carry the Olympic torch, but EF also has its very own Olympian.

Cristina Teuscher—a New York native who now works in EF's London office—is a two-time Olympic medalist. Cristina won a gold medal in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, and she won bronze in the 200-meter individual medley at the 2000 Games in Sydney.

Lately, Cristina has been traveling the world, promoting EF's role in the Olympics. Cristina visited both our Boston and Denver offices in the past couple of months, and she recently took time to answer some questions for us before traveling to Beijing for the Games.

Travel Tidbits

We've come across some interesting travel items over the past week. Let's share:

• Supersize Dubai: National Geographic Traveler's blog about authentic and sustainable travel, Intelligent Travel, writes about the effects of gargantuan tourism projects, symbolized by Burj Dubai, the world's new tallest building.

• If you're more interested in rugby than football, then check out Lonely Planet's Travel Blog for the best places in the world that you could have watched the Rugby World Cup.

• Lonely Planet's Travel Blog also asks simply: Why do we travel?

• The future of air travel has been a hot topic lately. The Freakonomics authors take a look at U.S. air travel in 10 years on their New York Times blog, while Elisabeth Eaves offers a provocative look ahead to 2017 on Forbes.com. Interesting takes, but Eaves couldn't be further off base about the rise of virtual travel. Nothing could ever replace just going.

• The Los Angeles Times has the details on the Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger plane, which is due to make its first commercial flight Thursday. Most of the tickets on the Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore to Sydney were auctioned off. The cost for a normal round-trip ticket from Singapore to Sydney? About $7,000. … LAT also wrote about the amenities aboard.

• The New York Times, has a piece on the extravaganza that Bangkok is planning for the 80th birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

• And, finally, it's always worth checking out the World Hum Travel Zeitgeist, a tour of the week's most interesting travel tidbits on one of our favorite travel blogs.