Alt for Norge Daily Journal: Day 31 - May 23, 2012 (Episode 5)

Today is “reality day”. Time for some long interviews and then a lot of time off, however, the Skog family and some others are planning on throwing us a party for cast and crew tonight, so it should be a fun finish!

We were supposed to start the day at 9:30 with them filming us having our breakfast, but we were told things have changed. Jessica did a yoga class with Tore Andre and Hanne at 7:00, which was pretty funny to see. Their parents were even taking photos! I skipped yoga and went for a run. It ended up being a pretty short run, since it was all uphill and the road wasn’t very long, but it was still good to get it in.

At 8:00, we sat down for breakfast with Vebjorn and Merete. It was here that we noticed there were a few more interesting tidbits of information about Norwegians that came out. Certain facts just seemed a little forced into the conversation, so it made it pretty obvious that we were supposed to know those things. I made sure to write them down, so I’d be able to remember them better, as soon as breakfast was over.

Shortly after they left, we were greeted by our director Eli at 9:30. She informed us that she thought filming breakfast was boring and wanted to film us taking a morning “bath”. She wanted us to go swimming in the fjord!

We headed back to the crew’s hotel to get our swimsuits. (We had only taken one of our suitcases with us to our family’s houses, as to conserve space, so the other one was still at the hotel.) While there, I was approached by Mama Brita. In short, she asked me to be happier on camera when I lose! It wasn’t that I was mad or anything, but because this is a “happy show”, they would like the losers to be happy for the winners. I told her that they knew I was incredibly-competitive when they casted me and even promoted me to the newspapers as that, so it would be completely fake for me to be happy when I lose. In essence, I told her it wasn’t going to happen, but in a nice way. That also gave us a chance to talk about a couple of other things that were bothering me. I explained several times that we didn’t want to sound like sore-losers and that we realize everything’s more clear in 20/20 hindsight, but the crew is always stressing that we should be as open as possible with them about our thoughts on the show, so I was. It wasn’t anything too crazy, but we talked about our thoughts on the pizza audience from the first competition, consisting of a lot of teenage girls and knowing which team Austin was on. Also, we talked about another incident that happened that day. After our pizzas were cooking, each team was supposed to have set out anything that they were planning on adding to the pizza after it cooked. It was shortly after that and after the Red Team had seen our pizza that we noticed Johnathan approaching our director Eli and asking to get a couple more items to put on their pizza. In essence, they were changing their look, which was allowed to happen. Again, I expressed that we didn’t bring it up at the time, so it’s our fault and not theirs. I was just upset with myself for not bringing it up, since it may have led to our losing. (Again, showing how poorly I take defeat!) There was nothing resolved by talking about this, but that’s one of the beauties of our Mamas is that they are our own psychiatrists and are there for us when we start to crack!

We wrapped up our conversation and left everything on good terms. The great thing about this show and its crew is they really do want everything to be fair and they’ve taken several steps to ensure it is, as well as trying to maintain an open dialogue with the cast to take additional steps, if needed.

After our talk, we all jumped in a car and headed to a spot to do our morning “bath”. We were hoping that it would be a pier so we could just jump in and not have to wade in, but unfortunately, that was not the case. They had us go to a beach that was all small rocks and hard to walk on. We expressed some of our displeasure, which they responded by telling us to stop whining! This was the first time I really noticed some tension between cast and crew.

Jessica checking out the conditions for our "bath".

The Blue Team after our "bath" eating some pre-packaged lefse!

Anyways, they filmed us getting changed and then heading into the water. I decided it was too cold, so I made a mad dash and dove in! Soon after, Alf, Jessica and Barbara were in too! It actually felt really good and didn’t seem as cold as two days prior. In fact, we stayed in for about 10 minutes and of course, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, so I pulled my shorts off, raised them high in the air and screamed, “I’m naked in a fjord!” Next thing I know, the other three were following suit,

including Barbara ripping her shirt off with her back to the camera…….which meant her front was to me and Jessica!! It was really funny and I’m pretty sure will make some great TV! I even did my impression of a humpback whale and quickly surfaced my rump! Ha!

After the swim, we spent about 3 hours doing interviews. When I wasn’t interviewing, I spent my time studying the information that I had gathered throughout the last couple of days. I found a great spot next to a cabin that was right on the edge of the fjord. Talk about the perfect place to study! Along with the information that I had gathered, the other team members and I also swapped info to see if any of us were missing anything important. It was pretty neat to see that we were all going into the same competition, but yet we were trying to make sure we were all on a level playing field!

Taking a little break from studying while waiting for my interview.

The cast, crew, and our host families all enjoying a beautiful day in Stranda!

Eventually, we got back to the hotel and then headed out for dinner. After dinner, our host Dad sponsored a get-together at a local park that had beer and snacks for everyone. I decided that I should abstain from drinking so I could be 100% for tomorrow’s competition. I was pretty good at sticking to my plan until the party moved from the park back to our hotel. Pretty much everyone, both cast and crew, were drinking the night away! As typically happens, there were some very funny moments! I only had a couple of drinks, but stayed to enjoy the show. Barbara and Jessica, who would be in the competition tomorrow, headed to bed pretty early. I made it to 1:00 and then decided to go back to the room and study through my note cards one more time. When I left, Alf was looking like he was feeling pretty good and didn’t seem to have any intentions of getting to bed anytime soon. If anyone can handle it though, it would be Alf!