Alt for Norge Daily Journal: Day 49 - June 10, 2012 (Episode 8)

Today will end up being one of our coolest days here! With that, it will be a sad day and bring us down to 5!

Our boat and home for the next 16 hours!

The first part of our prize for being on the winning team, we got to have
one of these rooms all to ourselves! Not too bad at all! However, it is
interesting to see how the water from a shower has a hard time getting
to a drain when it's on a boat that is constantly rocking!

I got up pretty early this morning. I’m having trouble sleeping in these trailers. Not only do you hear every move that any of us make, but the whole trailer shakes when you move around! Instead of tossing and turning, as I did all night, I decided to just get up and go for a run. It was 7:00 and I was ready to get this day going. I ended up running for 30 minutes, but then went hiking/exploring the coastline for an hour after that. Eventually, I got cleaned up and we headed out at 9:30. At 11:00, we were filmed

boarding this large ferry/cruise ship.
The boat was absolutely huge! After the initial filming, they took the Red Team away to start their individual challenge. It turns out that Norwegians love to take this cruise as a form of a party. Basically, the ride is about 15 hours long and a lot of them will just use the ride as a means of getting drunk! Then, they shop in Copenhagen for a few hours and then just come back and party again. With that, there’s a lots of entertainment on board and that’s what the competition would be. Each person will have to sing a verse and chorus of a famous song with some old celebrity guy named Sputnik! For the next four hours, they got their introduction and then spent the time rehearsing their parts. During that time, we had nothing to do, so I spent my time journaling, touring the ship with Amy and having a good talk with C.J..

C.J., Amy and I enjoying the second half of our reward for being the winning
team, a 6-course meal in the ship's best restaurant! Very nice, but
very out of place for the three of us!

After relaxing for a little while, at 5:00 p.m., they had our team get dressed in our best outfits to go to a special dinner. Our reward for winning was a 6-course amazing dinner! It was incredibly good and also consisted of 6 different glasses of wine! We were all feeling it by the end! Immediately, after dinner, we went to a bar to watch the Red Team perform. After some build-up, out came Sputnik! A 70-year old Norwegian cowboy! He started the song and then came the Americans. Johnathan went first and did okay. He was pretty entertaining, but forgot one of his lines. Then, Jessica went. She did a really good job. Finally, Alf wrapped it up. He barely moved and even read his verse from a piece of paper. Initially, we all thought that it should be Jessica, Johnathan and last place going to Alf. Problem was that it’s audience voting, so you never know. They could vote for Alf simply because he looks so different and unique. There were even people asking to take photos with him after the competition.

Awaiting the results. Alf, Johnathan and Jessica looked very nervous,
well Amy appears to be proving her sobriety!

Shortly after the competition was finished and they did some interviews, we all headed to a conference room and waited for about two hours for the crew to get set up for the results. At the results, the tension was amazingly thick! Then, Henriette announced that Jessica was safe with 74% of the votes! After that, she let us know that 2^nd place ended up receiving 15% and 3^rd received 11%. After some long, tense moments, the one going home would be Alf!! He is the epitome of what this show is about and a really good friend. It’s going to be really weird without him here!

We did some interviews and everyone in the cast and crew were crying (to admit it, I was pretty close as well!). It was pretty rough, but we had to pull ourselves together so that we could film our closing scene. The five of us making toasts to making it to the semi-finals and to Alf!

Saying goodbye to the legend that has become to be
known as "Alf!" What a great guy!

After the final shots we went back to the conference room and found Alf. I had a really good talk with him and then he said he wanted to drink and wanted to do so with friends. Of course, we all were happy to oblige! Almost the whole crew and us six cast members spent the rest of the night cutting loose, drinking, dancing and generally making fools of ourselves. It was a lot of fun and we really feel like the cast and crew are getting along really well now! I’m not exactly sure what time I went to bed, but I think it was probably around 3:00 a.m.. Good times!

We’re down to 5 and it’s all individual challenges from this point forward! I’m too close! I’ve got to stay focused!

Day 49 Over!!