As most followers of the Olympics know, the Olympics are scheduled to be in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, in 2016. I’m looking forward to these Olympics, because I might actually be in a financial position to attend: my husband will have been out of law school for a few years, and I will have been writing for about seven years, and should be making some decent money by then. However, the growing world situation concerns me. Will there even be an Olympics in 2016?

The Olympics have been cancelled three times due to world war (Berlin 1916, Tokyo 1940, London 1944). Today’s world situation doesn’t look very good. Almost every country in the Middle East is experiencing uprising at the moment. In London, rioters were shouting “off with their heads” at Prince Charles and his wife Camilla. There is instability in much of Europe, and the United States, while avoiding actual riots so far, isn’t really in a position of harmony. As Rio 2016 is more than five years away, you have to wonder what will be going on at the time.

We can hope that whatever unrest is in the air will resolve itself by the time the 2016 Olympics roll around. We’ll have to just wait and see what happens.

In 1948, London hosted what would be known as the “austerity Olympics”. The world was just emerging from world war. Simon Jenkins of the UK Guardian argued for a return to the austerity Olympics… way back in 2008. Things have not improved since.

For London, many of the cogs are already in place. But it’s not too late for Rio to host their own austerity games. There are some things that they have to do… they need to make sure that Rio is safe when the world arrives there. They need to have places for the athletes to compete. Even some of the infrastructure needs to be built. However, in tough times, do we really need to try to best the 2008 Beijing Olympics? There are ways to cut costs, and perhaps Brazil should look into that. They have hosted major soccer events in the past, that can be a base for their austerity Olympics. If London can host a pared-down games after coming out of war (where their city was bombed), then Rio can offer a pared-down version of the games.

In 2018 and 2020, it is possible that the games will be awarded to the countries that are performing the best financially. Hopefully we will be pulling out of the economic doldrums by then, but much of the work to build the games will have to come several years before the games are held. Do we really need to spend that much on the Olympic games anyway?

Until the world economy turns around, perhaps we should keep things simple.

If you’re planning on a trip to a future Olympics, money may be one of your top concerns. Another consideration that you may want to keep in mind is the language barrier.

If you can read this blog without the extensive use of a dictionary or google translator, then you don’t really have to do a lot of language study. Most tourist areas have employees that speak at least a little bit of English. If you’re planning on a London trip, nearly everyone will speak English. One of the primary languages used in the Olympics is English. If you’re traveling to the London games, or just want to get to the Olympics, see a few sports and go home, you’ll be okay.

However, if you plan on going to Russia or Brazil, and don’t want to be confined to the touristy areas and want to venture out a bit, you may want to start looking into learning Russian or Portuguese. In particular, the average Russian does not speak English.

Don’t let the Russian Cyrillic alphabet scare you off. While the different letters look intimidating, every Russian letter has an English-sounding equivalent, and you can learn to read it in an hour or so. From then on, it’s like learning any other language (I’ve taken a year of Russian). Portuguese is not the same thing as Spanish, but a background in Spanish could help.

You don’t have to be an expert in a language in order to get by in a foreign country. I lived in Italy for three years, and although I do speak and read some Italian, I am certainly not fluent. I do know enough to go places, order at a restaurant, and leave the impression that I’m at least trying to speak their language. In order to engage in conversations with the locals, you’ll want to learn more; but if your main goal is to get out a bit on a once-in-a-lifetime trip, you’ll want to learn at least some of the language.

My favorite language program is Rosetta Stone. I’m currently using it to brush up on my Russian, in the hopes that I might get the chance to go to Sochi in 2014. It really makes learning any language fairly easy. Even my seven-year-old is using it to learn Chinese.

While knowing a foreign language is not a prerequisite for visiting, it certainly helps. I have seen firsthand how attempting to speak in a foreign language will earn you more respect than just speaking English. While it does take a little bit of effort, it can make your Olympic experience more enjoyable.

While I’m sure that there will be a 2016 Olympics, I found this article about Rio de Janiero’s finances interesting.

It takes a lot of work (and money) to pull off a successful Olympics. Rio de Janiero (evidently) gets a lot of their money from oil revenues. Brazil has recently passed a law that would reduce the amount of revenue that goes to Rio, which could leave the state with less money, making it difficult to fund the games.

The Brazilian president says that he will veto the bill if provisions aren’t made to allow funding for the games to be available. So the Olympics will probably be okay.

There have been situations in the past where the Olympics were relocated because the original host city wasn’t able to host the games. This was the case with the London games of 1908. The games were originally assigned to Rome, but then Mount Vesuvius erupted prior to the Olympics. Italy decided that their money was better off going to rebuild Naples, so the Olympics were switched to London.

While there isn’t a reason to believe that the 2016 Olympics will have to be moved, if Brazil is unable to come up with the funding, it could be.