1 degree of separation

I've gotten a couple of hits recently for people doing searches for Richard Engel and AFS. Now both do happen to be mentioned here, but not in relation to one another. But there is a connection.

I always thought Richard Engel looked familiar. Then Jack Bauer happened to be watching the Turino Olympic coverage when he heard Richard Engel say that he had been an exchange student. In Italy. About the same time I was there. I tried to find my list of AFS participants to Italy for 1990-1991, but it is lost to me at this time. I tried google searches and turned up nothing.

Then a few days ago and again yesterday, I happened to get a google search for "richard engel afs." One of the other search results was this document from AFS with an interview of Engel. Low and behold, I do believe that Richard Engel and I were in Italy at the same time.

So yep. The short, blond kid named Richard who went to Sicily from NYC that I remember is NBC's Richard Engel. Fascinating. I only remembered him because I thought he was really cute. :D