We got the party started at 9:00 and filmed our team getting
intros to the challenge by Henriette.
The challenge would consist of five stations. At each station, there would be some form of
challenge or question. If you did a
challenge wrong or answered the question wrong, a minute penalty would be added
to your total time. That’s about all of the
information that they gave us though. Next,
we drew for our order. By simply putting
all of our names on individual pieces of paper, we would pull them from a
hat. My name was the first pulled, so I
would be going first and would get going immediately following lunch.
After lunch, they put a mic on me and would give me a little
more insight as I approached each station.
I was extremely nervous, but ready to go! The first station involved picking up a box
of fruit outside a local grocery store and having to properly place all the
fruit back in the fruit stands inside that grocery store. They gave me my countdown and I was off. I grabbed the rubber gloves that we had to
wear and tried to get them over my meat-paws, which took a little work and
after snapping one, they told me I could just go. I grabbed the box and speed-walked into the
store (we weren’t allowed to run). I was
able to get the fruit back pretty quickly and even was able to return the one
lemon to its proper place, even though the producers had covered up the lemon
area with some limes, to make it more difficult. I quickly exited the store.
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| Prior to today's individual challenge, the ladies of the crew get caught out director Kristopher as he works off his hangover from the night before! |
The second station was a question at the post office. The question was pretty simple: “What is the most common surname in Norway?” There were five names in front of me and I distinctly
remember my host Mom and Dad talking about this one night, however, I couldn’t
remember what it was. I went to grab
Hansen, but then second-guessed myself and ran out with Olsen instead. (Unfortunately, I learned later that I should
have trusted my first instinct and gone with the correct answer of Hansen. Oops.)
Next, I headed to a picnic table outside of the city center
building. There, I read the instructions
that instructed you to make two “mattepackes” which are common lunch-type,
open-faced sandwiches. There was an
unsliced loaf of bread and five different items to choose from to put on top of
the bread. However, only one was the
right choice for a “traditional” mattepacke.
I quickly cut two slices of bread, and went to put two slices of ham on
them, but changed my mind and used two slices of yellow cheese instead. I wrapped them up and took off. I was pretty confident in that station and
how quickly I moved. (Found out later
that I was right this time in second guessing myself, as the cheese was the
right choice.)
The fourth station was at a bookstore. There were five books on a table and you were
instructed to choose the one that represented Norway’s favorite hobby. I knew the answer was genealogy, but the
problem was identifying which book represented it, since they were all in
Norske. I quickly found one that looked
right, grabbed it, and headed out of the store, keeping my fingers crossed that
it was right. (My one strategy going
into today’s competition was to be quick and decisive and trust your
instincts. I didn’t want to spend a lot
of time trying to figure something out, I just wanted to make a decision and
get in and out as soon as possible! Any
time I added in wrong answers, hopefully I would make up in how quickly I
moved.)
The fifth and final station was at our host Dad’s
restaurant, Matbuda (a really cool local restaurant/grocery store specializing
in local foods and drinks!). We had to
sit down at a table, taste five different ingredients and choose the one that
is most commonly used in Norwegian recipes.
The five choices were 1) lung pâté, 2) ground beef, 3) fish pudding, 4)
blood sausage, and 5) salmon. I took a
bite of everything, grabbed the salmon (the obvious answer) and took off. (Well, as I found out later, salmon was a
little too obvious. The actual answer
was ground beef! Doh!)
I finished by going back to meet Henriette and did some
interviews. I then spent the next three
hours stewing over whether or not I got things right as I waited for the other
contestants to go. I was pretty sure
that I was going to be going home. I
even started planning my exit speech! It’s
pretty amazing, if I do say so myself!
At 4:30, we did the results.
No one looked very confident. In
fact, Barbara was so upset with her performance that it started to give me
hope!
Henriette started it off by announcing that first and second
place were separated by 8 seconds! In
first place was Jessica. She was
safe. Then, she announced that I got
second! Wow, I didn’t think there would
be any way that I was going to beat Alf that day! I was safe for at least another week!
Then, with the typical hesitation, Henriette announced that
Alf earned third place, which meant Barbara was going home! She was pretty good about it and had given a
lot of us hints that she was ready to go.
(Yesterday, during our long interview day, she had met a local with a
kayak who let her go kayaking in the fjord.
She said that it absolutely made her trip! However, she was so content at that point
that she may have not been as focused on getting through the next competition.) We all said our goodbyes and off she
went. Barbara really is a great lady and
I’m glad that I was able to spend so much time with her. She’ll be missed!
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| The survivors of Episode 5 enjoying the view prior to our post-results interviews. |
After the results, we all went back to the “beach” and did
our closing scene for the episode.
Nothing too crazy, just us talking about the week. Also, Henriette handed out the Norwegian
Spirit Award to Johnathan, which I completely agree with! He’s a really good guy and probably the most
deserving of that award! He truly loves
Norway and always has an incredibly positive attitude!
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| Doing post-results interviews on the beach. Basically, a lot of lying around because you have to be really quiet, since those boom-mics pick up everything. |
To end the evening, we went and had dinner with the crew at
a local restaurant, then went back to the hotel to watch a show called “Eurovision”
where all the European countries send one performer/band to perform one song in
a battle-of-the-bands-type show. Then,
everyone watching votes and 30 minutes later, the results are given. No American Idol-type dragging out of the
entire show for weeks on end. Just a
quick few nights of everyone performing and the results! Very cool concept! Norway ended up finishing the night in the
top 10, which means they will advance to the finals in a couple of days!
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| We were able to catch Barbara before they took her to the airport and say our final goodbyes. |
After the show, almost everyone went to bed except for Alf, Jessica and I. We stayed up for a couple of hours drinking a bottle of whiskey that Jessica and I mixed with pineapple soda! It was an awful idea and the Norwegian term for pineapple soda is ananusbrus, or something like that. Pretty fitting! Anyways, since two of us didn’t get to party much the night before, we took full advantage tonight. It was a lot of fun. We just sat there and talked about anything and everything. It was a pretty good time and we’re definitely very relieved and happy we made it through that competition!
Thank goodness you were well versed in speed-walking. I know my years of training would one day pay off for someone!!
ReplyDeleteDevo
Devo, I was going to reference you directly in my blog, but I didn't want the millions of fans flooding your inbox and phone lines with questions about technique. However, seeing that you're opening it yourself, let the games begin!
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