Milan Sandhu can now add water polo player and silver medal winner at the world geography bee to his list of accomplishments.

The Bedford resident earned a trip to Mexico City and while his trip culminated with his United States team earning the silver medal on July 15, some of the best experiences came during down time between the competition.

“My favorite part was meeting all of the kids from different countries. It’s fun seeing the different cultures and languages,” said Sandhu, 15. “When we got to Mexico, we didn’t really study at all. We knew what we studied would be good enough.”

Opposing teams would get together to play cards, explore the ancient pyramids and art museums, and one of Sandhu’s favorite events – an east vs. west water polo match up.

Though he had never played the sport before, Sandhu is a swimmer, so he said he was able to hang tough during the competition.

To earn a spot on the United States team, Sandhu thrived at the national competition, and the first part of the geography competition was a written test.

Sandhu said that he and his teammates did not study much while in Mexico City, knowing they had acquired all of the knowledge they were going to get while getting to that level.

Upon qualifying for the finals, which was hosted by “Jeopardy’s” Alex Trebek, the U.S. team did a brief review for the competition to be certain they were sharp.

In addition to the facts he learned in preparation for the event, Sandhu said he also learned a great deal about himself.

“I made a lot of new friends, and I learned how to be more social with different people,” said Sandhu. “I also learned that I do pretty well under pressure. The studying will help me when I go back to school this fall, because it’s going to be a lot like preparing for finals.”

When the team ran into disagreements on possible answers during the competition, Sandhu said they were abl e to work well together to narrow down the choices before making an educated guess.

The cultural differences were evident between the various international teams, and also in Mexico City itself. Sandhu said it was interesting to see how many people there were in the city.

The soon to be Bedford High School sophomore said it’s important for students to focus on geography.

“I know this won’t happen for me again, it was a one-time thing, so I was really glad to be a part of it,” said Sandhu. “It’s interesting to be able to locate major events that are happening, and it’s fun for everyone to know about the world.”