Alt for Norge Daily Journal: 2012-09-30

Day 33 - May 25, 2012 (Episode 5)

Today was a travel day, consisting of a terrible bus ride, but a fun end.

We got started at 8:00 and prepared for a long bus ride back to Oslo. It ended up being around 10 ½ hours and sucked the whole time due to the A/C on the bus being broken, the weather being in the low 90’s that day, and being hung over from the night before!! Our bus driver felt so bad for us that she ended up buying all the cast and crew ice cream at one of our stops! (By the way, one funny thing about Norwegians, they love their ice cream! It was rare that we didn’t see someone leaving a gas station without some form of ice cream!)

Eventually, we made it back to our home base in Oslo. I got a good workout in and then we went for dinner. Another large and incredibly good meal!

After dinner, the remaining 8 of us went out to find a bar called Tilt. The place was great and consisted of a ton of pinball machines and those long shuffleboard games! It was the perfect “hang-out bar” and we declared that it would be our home-bar whenever any of us were back in Oslo!

Heartfelt - The local duo playing at the bar that night.

After playing at Tilt, we lost half the group to bed. However, Amy wanted to dance and the night was young. Myself, Amy, Jessica and Johnathan made our way to a bar called Revolver. It was a little hole-in-the-wall bar hidden in the basement of another bar, but was a lot of fun. Funny thing though, I started to notice a few too many guys checking me out! Then, we ran into one of the crew members who happens to be gay and was out with us at the gay club that we went to for Jessica’s birthday. Anyways, he sees us and asked why we keep going out to the guy clubs, which immediately made everything crystal clear! Apparently, this club has one gay night a week and we chose that day! Not that it changed anything for the night, but it did explain why a couple guys were dancing as close to me as they were! Ha! Pretty good stuff!

Jessica convincing the manager at our hotel's restaurant to play
"Euphoria", our favorite song, after hours. Which he eventually allowed,
so that Jessica, Amy, Johnathan and I could get in one more dance!

We stayed out until about 2:00 a.m.. Jessica and Amy danced the night away, while Johnathan and I just tried to avoid getting hit on. When the girls were all danced out, we made our way back to the hotel and called it a night. Travel day tomorrow as we get started on Episode 6!!

Day 33 Over!!

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Day 32 - May 24, 2012 (Episode 5)

Today is my first individual challenge. A day full of stress and something I don’t want to do again!

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.

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!

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.

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!

The survivors of Episode 5 enjoying the view
prior to our post-results interviews.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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!

Day 32 Over! I’m in the top 8 and half way through the show!!

Amy getting interviewed after the results.

Tara and her interview! What a gorgeous view!

C.J. saying goodbye to his "mom"!

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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!

The after-party back at the hotel! Good times!

Big day tomorrow! My first elimination challenge!

Day 31 Over!!

Alf looking manlier than ever!

Another shot of Alf walking the edge of the fjord.

Look at the jaw bone that Alf found out

on the water's edge! Not so happy I went

swimming in that thing today!

A close-up of the jaw bone. Pretty gnarly!

Barbara found a local that was willing to allow a

complete stranger to use his kayak! This is Barbara

kayaking away with a stranger's kayak!

A close up of Barbara and her kayaking

experience. She was in heaven that day!

Alf, Merete and Tore Andre enjoying

the local get-together in the park.

Mama Brita and Johnathan playing some soccer

with Johnathan's host families kids.

For the second time, Alf leaves his mark on a

local vehicle! At the park, he was attempting to

squat the front end of this car when his backside

left that large dent over the front wheel!

Fortunately, the local was very cool about it!

Austin and Johnathan enjoying the

afterparty. That's Snus in J-Rich's hand!

His first go at pouched tobacco!

A shot of Johnathan shortly after

putting the Snus in his mouth.

It wasn't in there long!

A shot of the after-party. Good times had by all!

Amy and I mean-mugging for hte camera!

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Day 30 - May 27, 2012 (Episode 5)

Today is our second team challenge. I woke up in a very good mood and was ready to destroy the Red Team!

We woke up at 8:00 with the film crews taping us as we got up. For the second time in two weeks, they had me brush my teeth on camera. Such as weird feeling to be doing something like that and have a camera a couple feet from your head. Hope I do it right! After that, we came down and had breakfast with Vebjorn and Tore Andre (Merete and Hanne had already left for work and school.) Shortly after breakfast, we said our goodbyes for the day and left for our competition.

Getting ready for today's competition!

At about 11:00, they filmed us with Henriette as she told us our next competition. In front of two nice cars, they left us know that we would be doing something called “Ronning” (sp?), which is basically driving around town and wasting the day away. We would call it “joy-riding”. However, there was a catch. We had to go to four different locations and do different competitions to earn car fresheners that they call WonderBaums! Again, as with previous competitions, the teams will compete separately and have the results revealed later.

The Red Team would go first and would automatically get 5 WonderBaums to start with for winning yesterday’s competition. During that time, our team went to the crew’s hotel and waited. About two hours later, it was our turn!

Alf practicing for his modeling/spokesman career!

We were informed that there would be no timing on driving or finding the locations, so that was not important, which relieved some stress. We got stated and drove to our first competition.

We pulled up to a soccer field and noticed about 70 students (10 to 16 years old) sitting alongside a soccer goal. Then, there were five balls about 15 yards from the goal and a goalie! I immediately guessed that we would each be shooting five penalty shots against the keeper, and was right. In return, for every goal scored, we would earn one Baum. The team elected me to go first.

Immediately, the crowd started cheering, “Todd, Todd, Todd” over and over! I approached my first shot and put it just left of the entire goal. Oops! That was especially bad since the last thing I told my team was “Just make sure to put it on goal!” My second shot was a little better, but right at the goalie! 0 for 2. Then, I asked the crowd to cheer something different, something like a football kickoff. Next thing you know, I scored! 1 for 3. I immediately ran up and down the row of kids giving them all high fives. Then, again after the next goal and again after the next! 3 for 5! 3 WonderBaums! Next up was Jessica.

The first challenge: Kick a soccer ball past this olympic athlete! (Okay,
he was only a local school boy, but I'm sure he was on steroids or something!)

Jessica had some very nice shots, but this goalie was really good! He made some great saves and kept her scoreless. 0 for 5. Then, Alf was up. The first thing he did was make all the kids clap their hands and say his name as if they all were all seals. It sounded really funny, with 70 kids all doing it at the same time! As for his shooting, he put his first three shots outside and above the goal, but scored on his fourth, then missed his fifth. 1 for 5. 1 more WonderBaum. Finally, Barbara finished us up. Apparently, this would be her first time kicking a soccer ball in over 20 years. She didn’t seem too optimistic about her upcoming performance and was right on with her thoughts. She missed all five and had a couple that just trickled to the goalies feet. It was pretty funny! We would walk away from the first station with 4 WonderBaums.

Following soccer, we took a short drive and ended up at a local church. The next station would consist of a simple scavenger hunt. We would have 3 minutes to find as many Baums as possible, hidden outside of the church. It was a lot harder than we thought it would be and we only found 14 of the 30 hidden. Either way, that’s 14 more WonderBaums.

Another short drive and we were at a gas station for our third station. Our challenge here would be to eat 4 polish sausages covered with all sorts of crap and wash them down with 4 bottles of pear soda. The only catch was that we could help each other out, if needed. (I think this may have been a “Jessica” rule, in case she couldn’t eat the meat.) The faster you finished, the more Baums you would earn. We immediately got started and all of us, including Jessica, who doesn’t eat meat, went to town! My original thoughts were to just eat the hot dog first, then follow it up by downing the soda. However, after eating a couple bites of dog, I took a swig with the soda and discovered it was much easier to eat the hot dog. The only problem was that the carbonation of the soda would immediately be triggered when it hit the food, so it caused a lot of gas in your mouth and stomach! As I got about ¾ through mine, I looked over to see Jessica finishing hers! She was flying! Quickly, she turned to Barbara and helped her finish hers! The vegetarian was putting us all to shame! Once I had the hot dog down, I finished my soda and immediately felt like my stomach was going to blow up! I made sure that we were done as a team, and then I headed outside, in case I was going to throw up. I let out some of the greatest feeling burps I’ve ever had and felt much better! I returned to the store to our celebrating team. We were pretty sure that we did pretty well with our total time and were told that we earned 18 Baums!

Finally, we headed to the same pizza factory from the day before and did another scavenger hunt. This time, we would have two minutes to find as many as possible. When our time was up, we tallied 15 of the 25 Baums. Not too bad, but wish we had done better.

Altogether, we had 51 Baums, which we felt was pretty good, but we were still very concerned about the fact that the other team started off with that five Baum lead.

After lunch and some interviews, we were given the results. It was very close and only 2 Baums separated the teams! Unfortunately, the Red Team had a total of 53. We had lost! This will be my first rip into the elimination challenge. Boo!

The Skog Family! Tied with "the views" for the greatest reason to visit Stranda!

We finished off the filming day with some more interviews and then the taping of us getting “home” to break the news to our “family”. We did a little more filming of preparing dinner and doing some cheers with the Skog family, but then the film crew left and we had alone time.

It felt really good to be alone with our family. They really are very nice, welcoming and even had a little sarcastic/fun tone. It really felt like home, which is what I needed!

We finished the night with a lot of talking, which I listened intently to. We were given a clue to find out as much about everyday life in Norway from our host families. I assumed it was going to be part of the challenge, so I made sure to memorize anything that stood out.

Before we went to bed, we played a game called Kubb. It was great! We’ll definitely have to get a set! In fact, Alf said he’ll make me one and send it to me when we get back! That guy is incredible and is probably the easiest here to get along with! I think we should definitely go visit him after this is all said and done!

Tore Andre and his family trying to take down the Americans
in a game of Kubb! I hate to say it, but we were too competitive
to let them win. For all that they did for us, it would have been
the polite thing, but we just couldn't help ourself!

Time for bed. A bad day, but that’s part of the game. Time to prep for the challenge!

Day 30 Over!

The porch area of our host families home,

where we spent a lot of time that week!

Another shot of Cindy! Great dog!!

The game of Kubb! My first time playing,

but definitely will not be my last!

Merete and her dog Cindy. Welcome

at my dinner table too!

(Expand the "Blog Archive" to the right to find additional entries.)

Day 29 - May 26, 2012 (Episode 5)

Today was Day 1 of Episode 5, which involved our first team competition and a very interesting sleeping arrangement.

We started out the day by doing an opening shot with Henriette. We stepped off a bus and onto the same pier that we swam from the day before. There, Henriette introduced us to the city of Stranda and informed us that we would spend this week learning what it’s like to be a “typical Norwegian.” Not sure what that means, but it sounds like we may be doing some more “regular” jobs. I guess we’ll find out.

Henriette getting ready to tell us more about our first challenge.
This is the view from Stranda! Wow!

After the introduction and an hour wait, they had us take a short walk through the city, ending our walk at a factory that was right on the edge of the fjord. It was here that Henriette told us about our first team competition. We were standing on the steps of the company that makes Grandiosa Pizzas, which is Norway’s number one frozen pizza (the equivalent of our Totinos). The challenge was to create and make four pizzas, all the same kind, and feed them to some local town’s people. We would be able to choose from a large variety of ingredients and would be judged on one of three categories: Creativity, Looks, and Taste. After some initial interviews, it was on.

Hanging out between shots after finishing making our pizzas.
Gotta love Alf's hair net!

Quickly, our team, the Blue Team (Alf, Barbara, Jessica and I), decided on a “Surf and Turf” pizza. It would consist of a light amount of marinara-like sauce, a mix of salmon and bruschutto (sp?), topped with a light amount of cheese, some arugula, mushrooms, peppers, onions and some seasoning. The plan would be to cook it, then top it with some fresh baby shrimp and some small dobs of sour cream. (This last part was Jessica and Barbara’s choice and one that I didn’t quite agree with, but they were so confident in it, I went with it.) From what we could tell, the Red Team (Johnathan, Austin, Tara, C.J. and Amy, who has the troll) was making some sort of pizza that seemed to have everything on it.

After seeing the look of their pizza, compared to ours, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that we had the “Look” category won. Along with that, we were pretty confident on “Creativity” as well, but taste would be a toss-up. However, with 2 of the 3 categories pretty much in the bag, I was sure this one was ours!

The locals starting to gather and getting some instruction from Eli.

Both teams put their four pizzas in an oven that was brought out for the competition, and then broke for lunch. Quickly, the townspeople started arriving. What we thought would be a lot of factory workers, soon turned into about 40 high school/college girls, along with a sprinkling of other genders and ages. At the time, I didn’t think it had any effect on us, but it may have played a role later.

Then, the competition took an interesting turn. Although the portable oven placed on a hillside in front of a fjord was a picturesque scene for this shot, it wasn’t as functional as the crew was hoping. It turned out that the oven wasn’t quite level. Between the oven not being level and the vibrations from its heater, all of a sudden, 3 of the pizzas slid off their racks and to a heap at the bottom of the oven! Quickly, everyone moved to stop any other pizzas from falling. It was then that it was discovered that all three pizzas were our team’s pizzas! We only had one left! The scene was chaos for a little while, watching all of the crew scurrying around trying to figure out what to do.

Johnathan being Johnathan while waiting for the pizzas to cook.

After the producers and directors met, we were given an update. It was determined that we would feed 16 people, instead of the 60 that were originally intended to be fed, and each team would only use one pizza. As soon as the pizzas were ready, we would feed the locals!

16 people, probably a half local teenagers, made their way to the tables, with both of our teams standing beside our products. First, they took a good look at the pizzas and then each ate a 1/16^th slice from each team’s pizza. From the looks on the faces of those eating our pizzas, it looked as though we may sweep the competition and win the “Taste” category as well!

Austin getting interviewed before the results.

After interviewing the locals and a long wait, we gathered for the results. Amazingly, their team won the “Look” category with 68% of the vote! Then, we destroyed them by collecting 80% of the votes for “Creativity”. It would all come down to Taste. With 62% of the vote, the Red Team would win that category as well as the first competition! We just lost, which means that they will have a head start in tomorrow’s team competition. Dang it!

Immediately following the results, Alf and Jessica were telling people in a passive-aggressive means that they thought it was unfair that the judges were able to see who made which pizza. When there are only 16 judges, it only takes two of the several teenage girls who were seeking photos with Austin, to swing their votes towards his team, which would change everything. I agreed with them and really don’t think that it’s that hard to believe it could have happened. It may not have, but that should have been considered. (Okay, I may be reaching here, but as you know, I don’t handle defeat very well. AKA: I’m a sore loser!)

Shortly after, we were filmed learning that we would be spending the night with a Norwegian family! One team would stay with a younger family with two young kids. The other team, with a slightly older family with two teenage kids and a dog. I was really hoping for the younger kids, seeing that I needed some play time, but it was not meant to be.

Hanging out with our host family, the Skog family! A truly great
representation of the Norwegian people!

We headed to our designated homes and were filmed as we walked up to their door. It was there that we were greeted by a couple in their 40’s with a 13-year old girl named Hanne, and a 17-year old boy named Tore Andre. The parents, named Vebjorn and Merete, were very inviting and very nice. The home was very nice as well. It was pretty cool getting to see what the “typical” Norwegian home was like.

We spent the rest of the night having dinner and talking. It turned out to be a great time and we got a lot of information from them. (We were told by Henriette to pick their brains about “typical” Norwegian life, so we were all assuming that would be a part of the individual challenge.) Vebjorn even shared some local beer and aquavit with us! (That was nice, since we were told that the typical Norwegian family does not drink on a weekday, which it was.)

Alf and the Skog family dog, Cindy!

At about 11:00 p.m., Alf and I went to bed in their guest room. Tough to do when it’s still light out! (This Norwegian sun is crazy!) Anyways, time to rest up for tomorrow’s competition. I don’t want to go to the individual challenge. Positive thoughts!

Day 29 Over!