Watching Reality TV

If you want to know what happened previously, check out this post.

Welcome to another week of trying to keep up with what’s going on and failing miserably!  Hopefully this will get easier as the weeks tick on and there are less people to talk about.  Azaria and Hendekea leave the pitstop in Ireland first and must fly to Amsterdam.  Wee!   Kynt and Vyksin leave next.  They’re psyched for Amsterdam.  TK and Rachel leave next and are mellow as always.  At least he is.  Lorena and Jason take off and she promises to be calmer this leg.  Nick and Donald take off and Nick fails at showing his grandfather patience.  Shana and Jennifer leave and are missing their facials and manicures already.  Nick and Donald get a flat tire, bad luck.  Ronald and Christina leave and she forgot her fanny pack already.  Kate and and Pat leave and follow Ronald and Christina.  No one stops to help Nick and Donald.  Shana and Jennifer say they would have stopped if the old guy was injured.  Nathan and Jennifer leave last and don’t seem daunted by their bad showing.  Marianna and Julia are en route and I don’t know if they left last or not.  Hard to keep up!  Ronald and Christina and Kate and Pat stop to check out flights on the internet and Ronald rides Christina pretty hard.  You kind of feel bad for her.  There’s the usual drama at the airport with getting on the first flight.  Donald and Nick just miss the first flight, due to their flat tire and their slow ticket agent.  Marianna and Julia miss the flight to Dublin altogether and have to wait for the next flight.  Which puts them seriously behind.  Nick and Donald hope to get on the flight to Amsterdam via standby, hoping to beat some of the later teams.  They got a little pushy which the ticket agents didn’t really care for.  Christina tries to intervene when her dad gets mad and bawls out Nick for being rude to the ticket agents.  He’s frustrated and she’s got to be embarrassed.  Nick takes it in stride, though admittedly he should have been nicer to the agent.

The first teams to fly to Amsterdam take off, while the remaining teams jockey for standby and tickets in the airport.  Marianna and Julia make it to Dublin before the rest of the teams are able to depart which makes them feel better but everyone else feel worse.  So the second flight to Amsterdam leaves and the teams take off at a dead run.  Azaria and Hendekea get the first train to the train station and are already halfway to the bridge by the time the other teams get to the train station themselves.  Detour!  Hoist It or Hunt It.  One requires brains and brawn, but the other requires persistence and agility (not to mention keen attention to detail).   Azaria and Hendekea choose Hunt It, while the next two teams Hoist It.  A&H are floored when they see the number of bikes they need to search through.  Shana and Jennifer choose to Hoist It, trusting in their upper body strength.  Hoisting is all about the knots, it turns out.  Lorena and Jason burn through the Detour and finish first.  Now they have to travel by bus to a rural village and find a clue box in a field somewhere.  Nathan and Jennifer are having issues with their knots.  Rather, Nathan is.  Kynt and Vyksin finish next and take off in search of the bus.  Shana and Jennifer finish next, impressive considering the strength required.  Nathan and Jennifer finish without further incident.  There’s some bunching at the bus stop but Kynt and Vyksin haven’t found it yet and get to it just as it’s leaving.  Doh!  Meanwhile, A&H and Donald and Nick are on their bikes.  TK and Rachel are having a heck of a time with their hoisting.  He’s not so good with the knots, turns out.

TK and Rachel switch spots and she’s able to finally master the knots.  So they finally finish and are on their way.  The first bus makes it to the rural village and they find a Roadblock.  One team member must Ditch Vault.  HA!  Of course, they have to fault over a muddy river so you can only imagine.  Jason does it for his team and makes it over in the first try.  They’re on the way to the pitstop, driving a bike-like contraption.  The last teams gets to the Detour at last when Shana makes it over the muddy river.  Ronald is the voice of pessimism.  He doesn’t like either Detour tasks.  Lorena and Jason make it to the pitstop in first place, making me wonder where A&H are.  They have won (each of them), a sport bike which sounds an awful lot like a tricycle.  Nate and Jen and Shana and Jennifer get to the mat at the same time and are teams 2 and 3 respectively.  Ronald continues freaking out at his poor daughter.  He’s not even happy when he finally finds his bicycle.  Ah, A&H were on the second bus!  “Pinky” is nervous of getting dirty and falls in.  And that’s not Vyksin we’re talking about either.  Ronald continues to berate his daughter, blaming all their being behind on her.  Nice!

Finally, Christina has had enough and vents on her dad, crying.  And he hugs her so maybe he feels bad.  We can hope.   Kate and Pat finally get their bikes and JUST miss the bus.  They are “superscrewed”.  According to my husband, the best kind of screwed to be.  For some reason, Donald is doing the jumping for his team and doesn’t quite cut it.  Kate and Pat take a bus-like vehicle.  Donald strips down to his skivies to jump and everyone is kinda of horrified.  TK and Rachel get a little lost on the way to the pitstop and Kynt and Vyksin make it to the mat in 4th place.  A&H and TK and Rachel make it to the mat in 5th and 6th place, respectively.  Donald is still trying to cross.  He finally makes it but he’s practically black with mud.  Marianna and Julia make it in 7th place, closely followed by Nick and Donald in 8th place.  Apparently Donald completely stripped at one point which makes it SO much worse.  Ronald is bossing his daughter around.  Again.  I just want him to shut up.  I can only imagine how she feels.  She makes it and he tells the camera he thinks he could have done it better. OMFG.  He volunteers to drive the bike-thing and they tip over.  GAH.  They make it to the mat in 9th place, finally.  He dares to tell Phil that the key is communication skills.  Kate and Pat are trying and trying but it’s already known they’re in last place.  Still, they have fun.  That’s great.  It’s too bad they’re last to the mat and are eliminated.

That’s all, folks!