Alt for Norge Daily Journal: Day 48 - June 9, 2012 (Episode 8)

Jessica, doing some meditating before today's events.

Today is team completion two day and we got started a little later. We didn’t have to be ready until 9:45, however I woke up around 7:00 and couldn’t get back to bed. With that, I didn’t want to go for a run, since today is competition day, so I decide to go for a walk, find a nice quiet spot, and journal. The only catch is that we were supposed to wear the same track suit. (This will lead to something funny that I’ll cover in just a bit.) Anyways, I took my backpack and went for a hike. I found a nice spot out on the edge of the fjord, away from everyone and all the campsites. I spent the next two hours writing in my journal and doing pushups and sit-ups. I returned at about 9:30 for filming.

At our first filming of the day, they had us eat breakfast on camera. Towards the end of breakfast, Eli (our director) whispered in my ear that she would like me to challenge the rest of the group to take a “morning bath”, aka, jump in the fjord. I wasn’t too excited to do it, since I have put a bunch of fat on, due to all the eating and drinking I’ve been doing, but I felt pressured to do it, so I just went with it. I asked around and Johnathan was the only one willing to do it, so we went to get changed.

Johnathan and I made our way in and had a good, long swim. It really felt refreshing, but would cause me issues later. (More on that shortly.) After our “bath”, we changed and got ready for our second team challenge.

Awaiting the introductions to our second team challenge. Mini-Kim, in
front, was in charge of getting Henriette's light just right!

Henriette presented our second challenge. We were to go to Sweden and spend 3,000 Kroner on anything we wanted, something Norwegians do all the time, since it’s so much cheaper there. The problem is that there are limits on what you can bring back, plus you have to figure out the Sweden to Norway conversion rate. There were three grocery stores we had to visit and we would be given an hour and a half to do all or our shopping, as well as getting our purchases back to your car.

After the announcements, we broke for lunch. I immediately grabbed my sandwich and took it to my camper. After jumping in the fjord, I did a quick change, but had been outside since then. All the additional filming and intros took a long time and it was relatively cold that day. I kept waiting for my body to catch back up and to get warm, but it had now been a couple hours since jumping in the fjord and I was still shivering! I was freezing and had no energy, so I ran for the trailer. Even there, under several blankets and with some extra clothes on, I was having trouble getting warm. Mama Brita even had to come in and check on me. Fortunately, we had about an hour break and by the end of it I was feeling better. I was much warmer, but still was lacking the same energy I was used to. All that shivering had really taken it out of me.

Next, we drove to Sweden, which was about 30 minutes away. After some additional details, we got started. Our team went to one store while their team went to a different one. Our strategy was to find an employee that would know the saving percentages, instead of trying to figure it out on our own. Fortunately, we found an employee pretty quickly. He gave us the rundown on all the main things that Norwegians buy, which is typically sweets, meats, booze and cigarettes. However, there are limits on how much you can buy. Then, he took us to the potatoes, onions, and, of all things, Capri Sun. He said that they were having special sales on those that day and you could probably be able to save 75 to 80% on them, plus there were no limits on how much you could buy! We thanked him for this help and then headed to the other stores to see if they had better deals, which they didn’t, except for a really good deal on beer.

After gathering our info, we sat down at a picnic table to figure out our plan. From our info, it was apparent that the beer would probably be 85% cheaper here, so we would buy as much of that as possible. Then, it was the potatoes, onions and Capri Sun. We debated for a while whether we should go all-or-nothing and trust our information that those sales were good deals. If so, we would buy the biggest saver and nothing else. I was all about it, but both C.J. and Amy were hesitant. After talking it through, we decided to split it up. Spend half the money on those three items (onions, potatoes and Capri Sun) and the rest on meat and dairy, which were supposed to offer a 50% savings.

It will be a long while until I'm ready for another one of these!

We made our way to the beer store and bought 5 6-packs, our limit. That was only about 150 Kroner though. We still had 2,850 Kroner to spend. We went to the other store and started loading the Capri Sun. We had about 60 10-pack boxes when we decided we should go get our potatoes and onions. When we got to them, we realized how hard it would be to bag the hundreds of pounds we would need, plus we were running short on time. I made the executive decision that we should just do Capri Sun! We did some quick math and loaded a total of 160 Capri Sun 10-packs in four carts! We went to check out and had a little money left over, so we ran and grabbed some bacon. That left us with 2 Kroner, so we found a gumball machine and bought two gumballs! We were done, except for having to push 4 loaded carts through a parking lot, across a street, and through another parking lot. (I had to push two carts at once!)

We did some short interviews and headed back to our camp grounds for the results. Neither team knew what the other team bought, so everyone was very nervous and/or confident. After some build up, Henriette showed what each team bought…..Capri Sun! Apparently, the other team was told the same deal, so they immediately decided to spend all their money on 164 cases (plus a candy bar with the change). Their total savings were just under 11,400 Kroner! However, because we had an extra 100 Kroner to shop with, we were able to save just over 11,500! We beat them by 135 Kroner! Crazy close and probably not how the producers imagined things going. We won and have moved safely to Episode 9, the Semi-Finals!!

Our excitement was pretty short-lived. We really have grown close here, which was later confirmed by Mama Brita. She said that the first two seasons were nowhere as close as our group! With that, we felt terrible for the other team. They’re so close and in two days, one of them will have to go home. I feel especially bad for Jessica. She has officially been on every losing team and outside of two trolls, will now go to individuals for her fifth time!

Johnathan, Jessica, Amy and I on our post-results walk!
Absolutely beautiful sunset!

After some more interviews, we broke for dinner. (Funny thing from the interviews, apparently, someone noticed me coming back early in the morning, after I was done writing in my journal next to the fjord. Because they had us wearing the same outfit as yesterday, it looked as though I was coming back from partying in someone’s trailer the whole night! I couldn’t figure out why they kept pressing questions about how my night was, until I was able to put it all together when they mentioned something about a walk of shame! Ha!) At dinner, the overall mood was very gloom. Both teams seemed to be pretty down. Johnathan, Jessica, Amy and I decided to go for a walk to liven things up. The area was pretty amazing! A lot like Minnesota, but with a fjord! We spent about an hour out, but then Jessica and Johnathan wanted to go to bed, so they could be rested for tomorrow’s events. We had been told at dinner that we would be doing individual competition tomorrow, instead of a day off for “reality”. We were also told that we would be leaving the campgrounds in the morning and jumping on a cruise ship to go to Copenhagen, Denmark!

When we got back to tour trailers, I went and watched a soccer game in Mama Brita’s cabin for an hour or so, along with C.J. and Amy. After that, I headed to bed. I’m in the semi-finals!!!

Day 48 Over!