We started the day at 10:00 after some breakfast and a good
night’s sleep! The cast and one of our
Mama’s walked a little bit from our hotel and found the camera crew setting up
in the middle of a downtown Oslo street.
After another hour of getting set up, Henriette revealed our next team
challenge. We were all really hoping it
was the Russ! It even had the look like
it was going to be, but that quickly change when Henriette revealed a table
full of musical instruments. Our
challenge was to do whatever type of street performance we could, to raise as
much money as possible within 30 minutes (35 for our team, since we won
yesterday’s challenge). Although it
seemed like it would be a lot of fun, we were all pretty disappointed since we
were really hoping for the Russ!
However, for this competition, I wasn’t worried at all! Being in a crowd and entertaining for 30
minutes? Not a problem! I’ve been doing that for the past 12 years!
Both teams were going to work the same street, but at
different times. The Red Team was to go
first and got started after we had lunch (about 2:00). In the meantime, we sat in that same
restaurant and waited. The one catch was
that they didn’t want our team strategizing, since the other team didn’t get
that extra time to strategize, and they want to keep it as fair as possible. (Another dirty secret: Austin, Tara and I just couldn’t do it! We used any opportunity possible to
strategize. Whether it was sneaking off
to the bathroom to talk or whispering things when the Mamas weren’t looking, we
couldn’t help ourselves!)
After an hour or so, the Red Team returned. They didn’t look overly excited, but you
never know. They just finished their
interviews, so they may have used that time to settle down. It was our turn!
We headed out to the designated spot on the street. Once there, they filmed us “strategizing” for
15 minutes. We discussed everything in
detail on camera, but it felt as though our plans were already made. Hmmm.
I wonder why? Anyways, it was on
and the director said, “Your time starts now!”
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| A look down Karl Johans Gate (Street) from the area where we did our Street Performance. Not too bad a view! |
Our plan was to have C.J. and Barbara play some form of
rhythmic, danceable beat. Austin, Tara
and I would gather a crowd and get them to come dance and sing with us. This, of course, would bring in more
onlookers, which we’d hit up for money.
All that with a hope to hit up a big spender to put us over the top!
I got us started with a loud introduction! Quickly, we realized that this wasn’t a
typical American crowd. As soon as I
raised my voice, the crowd backed away!
The more yelling we did, the further they backed. Fortunately, we did find a group of young
African students that came in and danced with us! I thought that this would be the thing to get
us going and the crowd would join in!
Nope.
We were trying everything, but nothing was working. The more noise, the more distant. Plus, any time the Norwegians would see the
cameras, they’d shy away even more. It
wasn’t long before we knew we had to change strategy and have the most basic
performance and just solicit the heck out of anyone that walked by. C.J. kept playing and the four of us hit up
anyone that walked by! We even convinced
Austin to take off his shirt and Tara to kiss random guys (on the cheek)! We tried as hard as we could, but it sucked
and was incredibly hard to get anyone to come anywhere close, let alone give us
any donations. It was definitely the
most frustrating thing we’ve done so far!
When it was all over, we were all exhausted. I wasn’t too happy with how we did, but I was
just hoping that it was just as hard on the other group. The only thing is that the other group had
Johnathan, Amy and Dana, all performers, so who knows.
After interviews, we set up for the results. Quickly, Henriette let us know that each team
had collections in the 3-digit area.
However, one team beat the other by a 3-digit number! Not sure where that put us, but after a
pause, Henriette said, “Congratulations Blue Team!” We won again and would avoid another
elimination challenge!
We found out later how the numbers broke down. Our team had collected a little over 600
Kroner (around $100). The Red Team only
collected a little over 100 Kroner (about $20)!
We destroyed them! I guess the
their team, being filled with performers, were so focused on putting on a good
performance and assumed that it would bring them in plenty of donations, that
they didn’t work very hard to solicit the bystanders for money. We, knowing that we didn’t have any other
performers outside of C.J., knew that we had to do everything we could to raise
the funds. With that, Alf, Amy, Dana and
Johnathan would have to compete in the elimination challenge tomorrow. (Jessica would be immune, due to having the
troll. We also would be doing things a
little differently this week, with doing the elimination challenge on Day 3,
whereas it’s usually on Day 4.)
While doing some interviews after the results, we also found
out some more interesting facts from the competition. Our team couldn’t help but notice that Amy
was in tears and very emotional after the results. Being as close as we were, we all tried to
console her, especially Tara. Amy was
very quick to want nothing to do with any of us, which really upset Tara, who
kept pushing to try to help. Pretty
soon, it was too much for Amy and she snapped at Tara, which caused Tara to
start tearing up. It was a crazy scene
and everyone was extremely emotional!
Soon, we found out what was wrong with Amy. It wasn’t the losing of the competition, but
we found out that she had done some of her belly dancing during their street
performance. Apparently, some local came
up after it was over and got in her face calling her a whore and a slut for the
way that she was dancing in public! He
continued to berate her until Johnathan got in his face and told him to
leave! Understandably, she was very
upset! (By the way, this response was
very unlike the Norwegians that we’ve met.)
Once the scene calmed down and we wrapped up our interviews,
we had a little downtime before dinner.
Most people used that time to catch a quick nap, while Dana and I headed
to the pool for a quick swim. Pretty
refreshing and much needed after today’s competition! Next, we headed to dinner at some Indian
restaurant. It sucked! From the very get-go, with sitting all of us
at an incredibly tight table, to my food being forgotten and the mix of
terrible service throughout the entire meal, I was steaming. All of these competitions, the traveling, the
inability to ever get any alone time, missing my family and my best friend in
my wife, and now, something as simple as a bad meal, I was ready to
explode! Fortunately, after dropping a
few cuss words and getting some ice cream, I quickly calmed down. We followed dinner with a nice walk around downtown Oslo and got to see most of it for the first time, so all is
better…for now.
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| Great photo of six of the remaining contestants during our walk around Oslo! |
I’m in the top 9!
Austin standing with the statue that almost
cost us a victory in yesterday's competition.
J-Rich doing his thing in front of
Oslo's City Hall!
This was a very cool building with
some really neat art.
J-Nation and I have become good buds
as the show has progressed!
the brown building is oslo's city hall :-)
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