Leg 3: The 9 remaining teams left from the Pit Stop at Schloss Hellbrun in Salzburg, Austria and recieve a clue instructing them to travel by train to Munich and then fly 700 miles to Bucharest, Romania. Tammy & Victor scored the early flight at 3:20 PM. There lead though evaporated as their flight was forced to return and so they caught the last flight. Flight problems were also there for Brad & Victoria who missed their connecting flight as their flight into Munich was delayed. Hence, the only flight to Romania that they could take was the one next morning at 9:15 AM. This put them seriously behind the rest.
Upon arriving in Bucharest, teams go to Sala Gymnastica, where one member of each team had to perform three different feats of gymnastics practiced by three different disciplines. Mike, Amanda, Kisha, Margie, Mark, Jodi, Cara, Tammy, and Victoria all took the task for their teams.
After this, all teams were equalized when they all boarded a train to Brasov, Transylvania. Only Brad & Victoria were left behind. Once at Brasov, they were faced with a Detour. It was a choice between Gypsy Moves and Vimpire Remains. Gypsy Moves saw the teams loading a gypsy family’s belongs onto a horse-drawn cart and navigating it to their new encampment. They’d get their next clue after unloading the cart. Vampire Remains saw the teams dragging a vampire’s coffin through some woods after following a marked path to them, unlocking a series of small chains to open it, revealing several small, wooden frames, and impaling them on a stake until they’d found a hidden race flag. Once they’d found it, they could get their next clue.
Mel and Mike, Amanda and Kris, Kisha and Jen, and Mark and Michael all chose and completed Gypsy Moves, while Margie and Luke, Christie and Jodi, Jaime and Cara, Tammy and Victor, and Brad and Victoria all chose and completed Vampire Remains.
Taxi problems plagued Jamie & Cars and Margie & Luke. Also, Amanda & Chris nearly screwed themsleves as Kris lost their fanny pack containing their money and passports at the gypsy village, they found it though in the cart where they loaded their chosen family’s belongings. Also, Tammy & Victor followed a completely different path once at the site of the coffins and wound up making their way up a mountain and through the woods. They were being led by Victor and got lost until Tammy interviened and convinced VIctor to go back down. Once they got the coffin, they lost one of the keys. This lost them even more time.
After the Detour, the teams travel to their Pit Stop Vila Panoramic.
In the end though, Mel & Mike reached the Pit Stop first. Tammy & Victor were saved by Brad & Victoria’s bad flight luck.
The teams finished in the following order:
#1. Mel and Mike (Prize: Trip to two to Costa Rica, Courtesy Travelocity)
#2. Amanda and Kris
#3. Kisha and Jen
#4. Margie and Luke
#5. Mark and Michael
#6. Christie and Jodi
#7. Jaime and Cara
#8. Tammy and Victor
#9. Brad and Victoria (ELIMINATED)
Mark & Michael and Christie & Jodi arrived in a virtual dead heat and stood on the mat together. Brad and Victoria ended up on a flight that arrived many hours after all of the other teams. They arrived at the Pit Stop well after dark, but were surprisingly spared a clue telling them to skip the leg’s remaining tasks and proceed directly to the Pit Stop.
Leg 4: The eight remaining teams, set off from Bran, Romania, and headed off to Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. Amanda and Kris were sure their youth would help them win the race. Mark and Michael learned from their mistake on the second leg and borrowed a cell phone from their driver to reserve seats on the earliest plane… but they ended up calling Jaime and Cara, who pretended to be ticket agents to throw them off, instead. Christie and Jodi stopped by an Internet cafe to look up and book flights before heading to the airport. After all the flight arrangements were made, the teams would be connecting through four different cities — Munich, Germany (Tammy and Victor, Margie and Luke, and Jaime and Cara), Frankfurt, Germany (Mel and Mike and Amanda and Kris), Sofia, Bulgaria (Kisha and Jen and Mark and Michael), and Istanbul, Turkey (Christie and Jodi). However, they’d all meet up in Moscow before connecting to Siberia. Unfortunately, flight problems in the form of tight, missed connections stopped five teams from connecting there — Tammy and Victor, Margie and Luke, and Jaime and Cara, Mel and Mike, and Amanda and Kris. Christie and Jodi, Kisha and Jen, and Mark and Michael were all left to push their way into the top three.
Once in Krasnoyarsk, the teams first stop was on the back of a ten-ruble note. They had to go to the Soviet Era Krasnoyarsk Hydroelectric Dam. Once theur arrived there, they recieved a clue telling them to head to the Church of Saint Innokenty. There they recieved a Detour. It was a choice between Stack and Construct.
Stack saw teams stacking up a pile of firewood to the satisfaction of a local expert. Construct saw teams heading to a woodshed and using provided materials to build a set of “traditional wood shutters,” followed by taking them to a house, distinguished by a “Repairs Needed” sign, and properly installing them. Christie and Jodi, Kisha and Jen, Tammy and Victor, Margie and Luke, Jaime and Cara, and Amanda and Kris all chose and completed Stack, with Jaime and Cara having the biggest struggle with it (at least of those who finished it). Mel and Mike, Mark and Michael, and Amanda and Kris all chose and completed Construct (and took a really long time to do it, as they continuously missed the house they were seeking), but only after they’d all tried and failed to complete Stack.
After the Detour, the teams had to trevel on foot to the museum of the novel The Last Bow. Waiting there was the first of only two U-Turns on the race. This season, however, there was a twist. The teams ran into a Blind U-Turn. Fearing Amanda and Kris’s physical strength (especially Kris’s) and their ability to win a footrace, Margie and Luke U-Turned them, which forced them to go back and complete Stack after completing Construct.
The teams then made their way to a nearby amusement park called the Bobrovy Log Park, where they were tasked with the Roadblock. It saw one member of each team completing a one-man bobsled ride in four minutes or less. Along the way, they’d have to find various Siberian letters along the way and unscramble them to form the name of a Russian playwright, Chekhov. Christie, Kisha, Victor, Luke, Jaime, Mel, Michael, and Kris all took the task for their teams. Kisha and Michael each had to do the bobsled portion twice when they didn’t find all of the letters on their first runs. But Luke struggled more than any other racer at that task, as he was the only one (other than Jaime) who’d never heard any Russian words before, and thus didn’t know which letter combination to use.
After this was The Pit Stop. It was the first indoor Pit Stop after a long time on the Race. It was at the Krasnoyarsk Theater of Musical Comedy. And in a stunning turn of events, Christie and Jodi finished first! Kisha and Jen almost finished first, but the directions on the clue said to go in through the main entrance of the theater, and they just missed it, going in through a different one. So they wound up finishing in second place instead. Tammy and Victor rebounded from their previous near-elimination, landing in third place. Despite Luke’s struggle at the Roadblock, Margie and Luke stayed in the race, finishing in fourth place. Jaime and Cara finished in fifth place in spite of their troubles at the Stack Detour. Things were then left down to the three teams who’d fallen behind looking for the ending point of the Construct Detour, with Mel and Mike taking sixth place due to Mel finishing the Roadblock quickly. Mark and Michael ran into some trouble when they lost the rest of their money paying off their cab driver… and still not having enough, to boot! They got their driver to agree to just take what he got, though, so they managed to get out of that jam unscathed, finishing in seventh place. And as a result of the U-Turn, Amanda and Kris finished last, a long way behind the other teams, and became the fourth team eliminated.
The teams finished in the following order:
#1. Christie and Jodi
#2. Kisha and Jen
#3. Tammy and Victor
#4. Margie and Luke
#5. Jaime and Cara
#6. Mel and Mike
#7. Mark and Michael
#8. Amanda and Kris [ELIMINATED]
I hope you enjoyed these two episdoes. I am so looking forward to the next episode.
Here is till tomorrow, Sahil.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Hi,
I loved last week’s amazing race episode. With all the horrors I heard about Siberia, it looks like a very pretty place to live or visit although it is known to be very cold. I also love how the Amazing Race contestants are able to experience the cultures of the countries they visit via the tasks they complete. It is especially interesting when they are countries that people either are not familiar with or that were known for the negative things that occurred in them.
Keep up the good blog work.
Always
Deon