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| 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.
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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.
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| 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!
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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!
The damage from running into that boulder.
Not as bad as it sounded!
Johnathan, practicing his "Al Bundy".
Working on my "Al Bundy" as well.
One way to greet the locals!
A swan that we found on our walk.
Working on my poses, incase the Bunad Rap
becomes a chart-topper!
What a sunset! Beautiful!
I don't know what is more beautiful,
the sunset or Johnathan!
(Expand the "Blog Archive" to the right to find additional entries.)
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