Alt for Norge Daily Journal: 2012-10-07

Day 40 - June 1, 2012 (Episode 6)

We had a full day off today and used that time to do some sight-seeing as well as hitting up a large party!

I know there's a story behind this statue, I just can't
remember what it is. Either way, this is the kind of
good stuff they have on display at Vigeland Park!

To start off, Austin and I, who were rooming together, had breakfast, let it settle, had a great workout, and then met with the rest of the group for lunch. After lunch, Austin and I took the subway to Vigeland Park, which is a large park with a ton of statues, all involving naked people, many of which are in some very interesting poses! The most famous of all, which you may remember from Episode 4 was “Angry Baby”, which you’ll remember from Episode 4. The whole place was very cool! After Vigeland Park we took the subway to the Oslo Opera House, a very neat looking building (again from Episode 4), right in the heart of the city. After that, we went and checked out the Helle Hanson store to see how much all that great swag was that the show gave us. We’re guessing that it’s probably around $3,000 U.S.! What a gift!

When we got back, Amy, Johnathan and I went shopping for pants. (One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that I tore the butt of my pants out a few nights prior when Johnathan, Jessica, Amy and I took that late night walk.) They were trying to convince me to buy a pair of skinny jeans, but I couldn’t do it. However, I did find a pair of “skinnier” jeans, so I went with that, although they probably cost a little over $100! Everything here is crazy expensive!

Our pre-party drink of the night.

At 6:00 we got together for dinner and went to some American-style bar/restaurant, had a good dinner and then went back to the hotel for some pre-partying. There was a new club opening up that night and it sounded like it was going to be a lot of fun, but we knew the drinks would be expensive, so everyone was drinking heavy before we left. When it was time to leave Alf and Austin stayed behind. Alf wanted some alone time in his room, since it’s such a rarity to have. Austin stayed back to study Norske, although it turned out that he just fell asleep. The rest of us, including Mama Christine, headed out to the club.

This was the moment right before Johnathan breaks C.J.'s glasses. Notice
how the party is inside and for some reason we thought it would be
more fun to go outside and jump on bean bags! What a fun crew!

It turns out that it was a tent-like structure on the side of the fjord and next to the Opera House. It cost 100Kr ($20) to get in, but once we were in, the fun escalated quickly! At one point, we were taking pictures of C.J., Johnathan and Jessica jumping on big bean-bag chairs. Unfortunately, this led to Johnathan hitting C.J. in the face by accident and breaking his glasses! This, of course, turned into a very funny running joke for the rest of the night! Poor C.J., but he went right along with it!

Jessica and C.J. back at our favorite Oslo bar, Tilt.

We spent a few hours at this club and watched some crazy performances, but eventually it was time to leave. When we got back to the hotel, C.J., Jessica and I weren’t in the mood to call it a night yet, so we headed back out to our favorite local watering hole, Tilt, for our own after-party and a few more drinks. When we were done there and back in our hotel lobby, we ended up running into a guy that we had shortly spoken with this morning. Turns out that he and his buddy that was with him, were a part of the rap artist Pitbull’s entourage!! Apparently, Pitbull was in town and performed that night! After telling the guys why we were there, they invited us up to their suite for a couple more drinks and what would be our after-after-party! We were hoping that Pitbull would be there and it would be a raging party, but unfortunately it turned out to just be these two guys. However, the suite was pretty impressive and it was free beer (for us), so we stayed for a little while. After a couple drinks and realizing that Pitbull wasn’t going to be getting there anytime soon, we headed back to our rooms, but not before Jessica “borrowed” some breath mints and a random CD, so that she could say that she’s shared breath mints with Pitbull. As for the CD, we’re not sure what’s on it, but we’re hoping it’s a brand new song that we’ll hear first! Oh, and of course the new running joke is that we hung out with Pitbull! Everyone knows it didn’t happen that way, but that’s how we’re choosing to remember it!

I’VE PARTIED WITH PITBULL!!!

Day 40 Over!!

A shot of the "Angry Baby" statue.

All the statues in Vigeland Park seem to

involve naked people, including these

guys holding up this fountain.

A shot of the "Monolith" at Vigeland.

There are 121 different figures in this

15 meter high statue.

One of the most unusual sculptures.

Posing with naked children.

Austin and I hopped a construction

fence so we could ride this zip line.

A shot of Oslo's Opera House.

We took a lot of photos trying to get the perfect

shot of Johnathan, Jessica and C.J. jumping on

these bean bags, but our timing was usually off.

Another shot. Too late.

C.J. showing he can jump like Michael Jordan!

The aftermath of the fury of Johnathan!

Simple lesson: Don't mess with a man rocking

a Charlie Brown shirt to a bar!

Johnathan keeping a souvenir.

One of that night's performers apparently

thought it would be good to hide in a tree.

Another performer for the night.

I almost wore this same outfit. That

would have been embarrassing!

Outside of our hotel lobby, there's this

statue of Kate Moss in an interesting

yoga pose. Very interesting.

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

Day 39 - May 31, 2012 (Episode 6)

Austin rocking his new pink pants on our walk to dinner!

Today was a pretty boring day, but a good day of rest.

We got started early, since we had to take a bus an hour back to the airport, which was pretty funny seeing everyone and how they deal with their hang over! Eventually, we made it back to Oslo in the late afternoon, had a nice workout and then met up with the remaining cast for dinner and a movie. Mama Christine took us out for some Chinese and then she took us to a local movie theater to see The Avengers! It was fun to have a night off and relax with a movie and I think it’s exactly what everyone needed.

As soon as it was all over, everyone immediately went to bed. Although, I went down to the hotel lobby and stayed up until 1:00 trying to catch up on this journal! I’ve fallen behind a little, but I’m now caught up! Phew!

That’s about it. Another day off tomorrow! Love you wife! Miss you!

Day 39 Over!!

While shopping with Austin and others,

they made me try on some skinny-jeans.

Don't think I can pull it off like he can!

Bacon flavored crisps at the movie

theater. I wasn't manly enough

to make it happen.

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

Day 38 - May 30, 2012 (Episode 6)

Today is a big day! I may be going home today! Have to stay focused!

The previous night, we were informed that our individual challenge was not going to be a physical challenge, so I got up and went for another run. From our excursion two nights ago, we had found an old hitching post that had some papers that showed how to tie four different types of knots. I wasn’t sure if that would be a part of the competition, so I decided to practice and memorize all four knots. As soon as I had those, I headed back for a quick breakfast and a shower.

Prior to our individual challenge, we snapped a photo
with the creators of the show.

Around 10:30, we gathered for the revealing of our competition. We would each have one hour to meet as many locals as we want and gather as many compound words that start with Fiske (Fish). In that same hour, you would use whatever time you want to memorize the words that you’ve gathered. Then, at the end of the hour, you would have to leave all your papers behind, walk up to a board filled with pre-written words that may or may not be combined with Fiske to make an actual Norske compound word. (There were also a lot of blank spaces and a sharpie, in case you wanted to write a word that wasn’t already written.) For every word that you chose or had written that correctly forms a Norske compound word, you would earn a point. However, if you created a word that doesn’t exist, you would lose a point. You would get 15 minutes to form as many words as possible. At the end of the 15 minutes, whichever contestant had the least amount of correct compound words would be heading back home! We drew the order.

After drawing names from a hat, it would be Tara first, then Jessica, myself, finishing with C.J.. Due to this, I would have about 3 hours until it would be my turn, which sucked because we had to all stay in a special room and be constantly supervised, so we wouldn’t talk to each other about the competition or go find words that we could use. I spent most of the time lying on the floor, listening to my iPod. (One interesting thing that happened this week was that we got to meet the show’s creators. Throughout the last couple of days, as well as during today’s wait, we were witness to the two of them in work-mode! Basically, it simply involved the two of them shooting ideas for new TV shows back and forth at each other over a cup of coffee, typically with one of them pacing and the other calmly sitting behind a laptop. Very interesting that this kind of conversation was what began the show of Alt for Norge!)

We all settled in for a long wait and off went Tara. About an hour and a half later, Jessica headed out for her turn. Finally, three hours later, it was my turn. I was very nervous going into this competition, because I knew it was basically a straight memory challenge, something that I don’t consider a strong suit of mine. However, knowing that it wasn’t my strength, I made a plan to spend at least 20 of my 60 allotted minutes working on memorizing the terms I’d collect, instead of using that time to gather more words. I got started.

I ended up running to five different groups of people, four of which were locals that the film crew had asked to help participate in the competition (basically, planted locals) and one was a local mom that I remembered from the bryggefest two nights prior. I was allowed to spend up to five minutes with any group/person I went to. I spent the full five with the first three groups, but not the last two. I had already gathered enough words that it was becoming hard for people to think of more terms, so instead of wasting time waiting for them to think of more, I said goodbye and took off. I ended up going to study with 25 minutes left and memorized (or tried to) the 58 words I had gathered. I immediately ordered everything alphabetically and tried to find different things that would trigger memory of those words. Even with the 25 minutes, it was hard! If I make it through this thing, I need to find some tricks to short term memory for future competitions!

As soon as my time was up, I dropped the papers and headed to the board. I was able to find a lot of words off the board that worked, but a ton that I wasn’t familiar with, so I started writing down the other words I remembered on the blank cards. It ended up being a lot tougher than I thought it would be and the words just wouldn’t come back to me! Eventually, I finished by going back to the board and pulling a couple words that seemed like they would make sense and hoped that it was right. It was a little risky, but I just went for it! Time was up. I did some interviews and felt pretty confident then headed back to the our hangout which is when I noticed Jessica and my confidence was shot!

I came inside after my turn and briefly spoke with her. (We weren’t supposed to talk until after the results, so we had to make it quick.) She mentioned that she needed extra blank cards because she was writing so many words. Immediately, my confidence was shot. Even though my focus was on Tara, I had assumed that she and C.J. would be best in a memory competition like this. That leaves Jessica as the one person that I thought I could beat and if she needed extra blanks and I barely used any of mine, there was no way I was winning this thing.

I spent the next couple of hours hanging out with the rest of the cast and our Mamas while waiting for C.J. to finish his turn. I used my time working on getting myself in a better mood and planning my goodbye speech for when it was announced I was the one going home. However, just as happened with Barbara the episode before, I noticed how down Tara looked. While everyone else was hanging out and having a good time, she was off in a corner sitting by herself and looking like she was having some pretty heavy thoughts. Maybe there’s a chance? You just never know. At around 4:30 p.m., they did the results.

C.J., as expected, finished first with 48 words. We saw that coming. However, what I didn’t see coming was Jessica getting second with 46 words! She’s a much bigger threat and better player than what I originally gave her credit for. I was extra nervous now! It was just Tara and I left. (We filmed this on a pier, so I started envisioning doing a back flip off the pier as soon as they announced I lost! Thought it would make for great TV!) Then, Henriette said that one of us earned 43 points. I had assumed that I was in the mid-30’s somewhere, so it reaffirmed my thoughts that I was going home. Then, Henriette announced that the other person had 42!! One word would separate the person staying and the person going home! (Funny thing, we later discovered that there were two words printed on a machine 20 feet from the board and in clear sight, yet none of us noticed them!) After a brief and agonizing wait, Henriette said, “Congratulations Todd!” I beat Tara by one word! I was so relieved! I get to stay for my birthday! (By the way, interesting note; at this point, we’ve picked up on a “tell” from Henriette. During those long pauses, right before they announce a winner, she’ll spend that time looking back and forth between the teams or at each individual contestant. Jessica and I have noticed that she never looks directly at the winner. In essence, as that time is going on, you don’t want her looking at you, which is exactly what happened as we stood on the pier! She would look at Tara and then look right above my head. Back at Tara, back to something just off my shoulder.)

We all said our goodbyes to Tara and followed it with some interviews. I was flying high! Not only do I get to continue onto another week, but I now get to celebrate my birthday in Norway! Incredible!

After interviews, we went to a spot on some rocks next to the waterside to shoot our closing scene around a campfire and to do the Spirit Award. We started grilling some hot dogs and started talking about the week. Shortly after that, Henriette came in to announce the winner of the Troll. We all assumed it was going to be C.J., since he and Austin were the only ones left who had not won it yet and his general attitude keeps us all upbeat. However, in a surprise move, it was awarded to Jessica for the second time! They’ve never given it to the same person twice in one season. You can see that the crew really feels bad for her, seeing that she has now been on every losing team, but she deserves the Troll, because she keeps a very positive attitude throughout it all.

Snapping a photo with Odd, one of our favorite crew members. He was going
to take some time off after this, so we weren't sure if we would see him again.

After we finished, we headed back to the hotel for dinner and things quickly got crazy! It was our last day of shooting and the cast and crew were ready to cut loose! Everyone had a few extra drinks at dinner and then headed back to one of the crews hotel rooms for an after-party. Austin and I were in rare form and having a great time! We stayed up until 3:00 in the morning, as did most of the crew, and again, it was still bright out! (I know that things aren’t going to change overnight, but it’s just such a weird thing to be looking at your watch and it’s well past midnight, but yet, it’s bright as it would be at noon! Crazy!) It was a lot of fun hanging out with the crew away from “work” and getting to know them better. They’re all some really great people and I hope to stay in touch with many of them as well as see them when I come back to Norway! (Oh yes, we will be coming back!!) Good times, but best of all, my journey continues!

Day 38 Over!!

A shot of our fisherman cabins that were

our homes for the week.

Amy and I rocking Jessica and Austin's

glasses while they played some tetherball.

Production assistant Lasse with

Amy and Austin.

Johnathan taking a break from the

party to get a massage.

It didn't take long for this fridge to

get emptied out and the party moved

to the hotel's bar.

Austin taught everyone a drinking game. (Little

secret, Austin may have stacked the deck so that

Mama Brita had to have a couple extra drinks!)

Jessica saying goodbye to Odd in her own way.

What other than a "spank-fight" to complete

a night of drinking with friends!

Odd put on a show for everyone with a

guitar and a couple songs.

The beer of choice when you're

above the Arctic Circle.

After closing down the bar, we headed back to our

cabins. It's now 2:00 in the morning and still

completely bright out! Crazy!

A shot of the pier at 3:00 a.m. before going to bed.

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

Day 37 - May 29, 2012 (Episode 6)

The aftermath of Johnathan and his plane ride!

Today was a “reality” day, which means that we would do really long interviews and generally twiddle our thumbs all day long, all this while the winning team enjoys a special surprise for winning. Apparently, they got to jump in a small plane and fly all over the area. (Which included some crazy maneuvers that had Johnathan puking when they landed!)

I started the day off with a nice run in the morning, followed by a quick breakfast. After that, they did a shot of Jessica and I taking a morning stroll and talking about going into the elimination challenge. Typically, these things can be tough to do, since you have to try to keep a conversation going for a long time, so that the film crew can get a lot of footage, but we handled it pretty well. I’d say, at this point, I get along best and easiest with Jessica, Alf and Austin. There just seems to be a better connection with those 3 than the others. I could see staying in contact with everyone from the show, but those are the 3 that I would definitely consider going to visit after this is all said and done.

After the walk, we took turns doing interviews. Jessica went first and was gone for about 90 minutes. Because she’s been on the losing team every episode, but is still standing strong, they’re really following that story line. After she finished up, I interviewed for about 45 minutes, then C.J. for 30 and Tara for 30. Then, lunch.

C.J. getting his shopping on in the candy shop!

After lunch, we met up with the other team and did another staged shot of Alf, C.J, Johnathan and myself shopping at a local grocery store. It had been a long day already and I was not in the best mood due to losing yesterday, so I didn’t bring a whole lot of energy, but got through it.

After that, they filmed both teams walking around an old trading post and talking with a local historian. Then, it was dinner time. Funny thing was that I just spent my interview earlier today complaining about all the salmon we’ve been eating and wouldn’t you know it, there we were having salmon for dinner! Bah!

Austin showing how the portable toilets
worked back in the day!

The combination of a long, boring day and our team wanting to get some extra sleep before our competition had everyone in bed early. Big day tomorrow!

Day 37 Over!

C.J. looking like Oliver Twist.

Our tour guide for the day.

We took a walk later that day and ran into this

beast of an animal! Everything was fine until

he looked me in the eyes from about 10 meters

away and gave me that, "I'm about to mess you up!"

Pretty scenic view coming back from our walk!

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

Day 36 - May 28, 2012 (Episode 6)

Today was a long day of filming, including finishing our first team challenge, competing in our second team challenge and filming all the interviews that go with it. A long day!

We got started early and headed back to the previous day’s island. When we got there, they moved us to a different location and this time asked the Blue Team to go first. Our team went back to our hole for another hour or so. Again, it was really cold and slightly rainy. Even my four layers weren’t enough, but at least it wasn’t as bad as yesterday!

Seagull eggs.

After the Blue Team finished up, it was our turn. The task was simple; find 10 seagull eggs hidden around a portion of the island. The only catch was that we needed to stay in pairs, so that they could leave one camera on Henriette, and one each, for each pair of cast members. Knowing that, we decided to have Jessica and CJ go off in one pair and Tara and I would be the other pair, thinking that Tara and I might be able to cover more ground. As soon as Henriette said go, we immediately got started looking everywhere, but had a planned path that we were going to follow, that would each circle half the designated area, ending us back at the starting point.

Tara and I went right and we were able to find a couple eggs really quickly. Then, we found a nest of 3 eggs together! The only problem was that they were slightly larger and a different color than the first eggs we found. I doubted that they counted, but brought them along, just in case.

Both pairs covered their specified areas and made a full circle back to the starting area, where I asked Henriette if those 3 larger eggs counted, which she replied, “no.” I immediately put them down and we all ran back out. Together with C.J. and Jessica’s findings, we had a total of 6 eggs. We all ran back to our starting areas, looking in spots that we may have missed before. C.J. yelled out that he had found one, then Tara found two, with Jessica finding our 10^th! We all took off for Henriette, where she confirmed that we had found our 10, then stopped the clock. We thought we did okay, but we weren’t too sure. There was no way to really know how we did in comparison to the other team.

After interviews, we did the results with Henriette. Both teams standing in front of her, she announces that one team was 49 seconds faster, with a total time of just over 11 minutes. The winners……Red Team! We’ve just earned an advantage in the second team challenge!

After more interviews, the boat picked us up and we headed off the island and back to our hotel for lunch. After lunch, we gathered to film the introduction to our second challenge. We were told that we were going to have a “Norwegian picnic!” Each team would have to make four sandwiches, as well as drink four glasses of wine. (Specifically, each team would have to set up a table and four chairs, peel 30 shrimp, cut slices of bread, make and eat those sandwiches, as well as pour four glasses of wine and drink the wine.) The catch was that all of this would take place in less-than-favorable conditions, at that point revealing a large wind machine, a hose with a sprinkler, and a bag full of small, white particles! The Blue Team would go first. (Two things to note: Our team would be given five pre-peeled shrimp as our advantage for winning the first team challenge, and each team was given the option to use mayonnaise on their sandwich to help the shrimp stick.)

Again, the Blue Team would go first, so our team spent that time strategizing. The plan would be that I would set up the table, cut the bread and pour the wine. Tara would hold the wine glasses and spread the mayo on the bread. C.J. and Jessica would simply focus on peeling the shrimp (however, if Tara and I didn’t have other tasks to do, we would help with the shrimp as well). As soon as enough shrimp were peeled, we would start making the sandwiches and start eating while continuing to peel the remaining shrimp. We knew that Jessica could eat fast, so the order of eating would be Tara, myself, C.J. and Jessica, with as many shrimp as possible going on the first two sandwiches so that the last two would go down easier/quicker.

When it was our turn, that’s exactly how things went, except for one large mistake. Tara had messed up the order of how the sandwiches were dispersed. She gave the first sandwich to me, which was wrong, but fine, but the big mistake was when she gave the third sandwich to Jessica and not C.J.. Instead of having our best eater finishing the last sandwich, C.J. was stuck with the challenge of getting it down, which he was struggling with. Although he probably finished a lot quicker than what we thought at the time, it seemed like it was taking forever! (We even were screaming to swallow it down, which he replied, “I’m f*%#ing trying!” When it was done, we celebrated, thinking that we must have done well enough to win. Plus, it was a really messy and fun challenge. We were all soaked and had mayonnaise all over us. We even pulled our bag of wine (yes, a bag!) back out to celebrate some more. I even brought the bag of wine with me to my post-competition interview, which didn’t last long, with director Eli asking me to put it down! (Funny note: After the Blue Team had gone, but prior to our turn, we had to wait in the back of a box truck with the film crew, waiting for a nasty hail storm to pass! Pretty funny seeing that they were going to have us have a picnic in a faked hail storm!)

We did our post-competition interviews, got cleaned up (I apparently cut myself with the knife, but nothing too bad), and got in line for the results and to see which team would have to go to individual challenges.

After the usual Henriette build up, she let us know that it was a total of four seconds separating the two teams! Then, she said, “Red Team, you had the advantage going into this competition.” At that point, I knew we had lost! Damn! Turns out, the Blue Team decided not to use mayo, so that person could focus on peeling shrimp. It made it harder to eat the sandwiches, but that, combined with our fumbling of the sandwich-eating order, had to be the difference. I did my post-results interviews, holding back a lot of emotions that were welling up inside of me, but when we were finished, I had a moment that I wasn’t too proud of. While walking back with a few people from my team, the emotions bubbled up and I went off on how upset I was that we lost! I spent my walk back to our cabin venting to Mama Brita and a few others, stepped inside my cabin to get away from everyone and then went out the back door to take a walk down the pier. I found a hidden spot at the end of the pier where no one could see me and then took a seat. I don’t know if it was the loss of our team challenge, knowing that I could now be eliminated, being away from my family and not having my wife and best friend to vent to, or simply the wine that we consumed during our challenge, but all of the sudden I lost it and just broke down with a bunch of cuss words and a few tears! As emotional as I was though, the tears didn’t last long. I immediately gathered myself and turned those emotions into a complete focus on getting through our elimination challenge. I will not lose!!

Amy, Jessica, and Johnathan joined me for a midnight walk and some venting.

I headed back to the cabin and got cleaned up, so that I could meet everyone for dinner. There, I had a couple extra drinks to calm my nerves, but ended up having to film one more scene for the day, so that was interesting. We were going to have a “briggefest” which was a pier-party with the locals. I was still in a pretty bad mood, so I wasn’t too excited about it. However, as soon as we got out there, I found a group of local kids, with several of them near my girls’ ages, so I immediately started to play with them. There was a huge language barrier, but we were still able to have a great time. This party helped me out a lot and I was feeling much better. Along with that, when the party was over, Jessica, Amy, Johnathan and I went for a nice long walk and spent a lot of time talking about today’s events. It felt really good to be able to get everything out! We spent the next two hours walking and talking all around this small town, discovering all its different areas, always in daylight, which was weird, since it was so late. Eventually, we started to make our way back, but made a pact that we were all going to make it through this individual challenge (which was really just Jessica and I, since Johnathan and Amy weren’t in it), so that we could celebrate my birthday in Oslo during the next episode!!

Not sure whose boat this is, but felt the need for a picture on it!

Shortly after that, we said good night, Johnathan and I returning to our room with a little more conversation. I’ve actually grown really fond of that guy! He does some really weird and funny stuff, but he’s genuinely a good guy and one that I’ll definitely stay in contact with!

Day 36 Over!