EP3: Sisters in Sweden

Episode 3 of 12

Last night another great episode of The Amazing Race aired on CBS. The racers left Norway early in the morning for near-by Stockholm, Sweden. When everyone reached the train station, though, it was closed. So, all of the racers got on the same train and leveled the playing field. In a way I like when the racers get on the same level again and everyone has a chance to do good. It gives everyone equal oportunities. I also don't like it in a way because it takes away the advantage that some teams have worked for and have earned. I would like it if they let the teams leave at decent hours instead of like 2 in the morning. Nothing is going to be open at that time anywhere. This is the time people sleep. Wait until like 8 or 9. Well anyway, the teams got on the same train and arrived in Stockholm, Sweden. They had to find the hotel that contained the "ice bar" that is completely made of ice and is constantly kept at 23 degrees. When the teams arrived, they had to shoot a ice mug down the ice bar onto a small target. This proved more difficult than I thought it would be. I got a little scared at this challenge because one of my favorite teams, Gus & Hera, got lost and arrived at the bar far behind everyone else. I was relieved to see that even though they arrived last, they didn't leave last. After that, the teams had to go to the world's largest IKEA to take part in the detour, either "Count It" or "Build It." In Count It, the teams had to count three huge cartons of products (2304 was the exact number they had to count). I would have looked at those cartons and said NO WAY! Surprisingly, many teams picked this, but ended up changing to Build It after many unsuccessful tries. The wrestlers and the elderly people had a hard time doing it. The old man even was sweating to death. Both ended up switching to Build It. In Build It, the teams had to build a desk using provided instructions. The teams that picked this task left earlier than the teams that did Count It. After this the teams had to ride a two-seat bike into the country to take part in the episode's roadblock. On the way, Jonathan and Victoria, the new Colin and Christie, got into another fight. I don't think an episode would be complete without them getting into a fight. This time Jonathan actually lifted his hand as though he was going to hit get, but he let down before he did. In this roadblock, one team member had to unroll barrells of hay and find a clue in one of the barrells. I thought this would be an extremely hard task since that hay would be so heavy! I could only imagine what it would be like. I was glad to see that Gus & Hera finished early and even got into third place. They are doing much better than they were in the first episode. This roadblock proved difficult for the sisters, though. Lena had a lot of bad luck. She just couldn't find a clue for some reason. It came down between the sisters and the edlerly people. I was getting nervous because I was sort of rooting for the old people. They beat the sisters in finding the clue. Lena didn't give up though; she unrolled an estimated 100 barrells of hay and spent over 7 hours doing it. The host Phil had to eventually come out to the field and tell them that this was an elmination leg and that they were gone from the race. I might be mean, but I'm glad it was them and not the old people. They are so sweet. One thing in this leg that I noticed that is different in this season is that the producers of the show are displaying the penalities for the "scuff laws" (aka breaking race rules). They showed were Freddy & Kendra was penalized with a time delay for taking too many clues and were the elderly people were penalized with a time delay for taking the wrong car in the last leg. I'm glad they are showing this because it looked as though the Amazing Race was an injust world that benefited the cheaters. The penalized teams in previous races but didn't display on the show. That definitely needed to be fixed. In conclusion, I'm lovin' the race, and I hope you are too.