TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episode 10

The Cho Bros pretty much choked this week, or at least that's how it was implied. Starting out the second half of the leg having to confront their fear of heights may have made them too tentative for the rest of the leg. The time they wasted needing to stop and ask for guidance over and over was about as bad as driving the wrong way confidently. But at least they dispelled one stereotype that men never ask for directions. The male models also have shown navigation impairment, but they realized quickly that they would not be able to read the Ukranian Cyrillic alphabet and were thoughtful enough to trust taxi drivers and the Beauty Queens to lead them around. This vaulted them to victory.

I wonder if the Beauty Queens came in second because they were being perfectionists with their Rap song. Other teams sounded like they just let the passenger throw some lyrics together while the other drove. The Queens worked diligently together on a routine that they might use if they were still competing in pageants. They could have just over-estimated how long it would take the Models to find the sheet music and a piano player at the other Detour.

Dustin might be cute and an excellent tank driver, but may not be the person you want on a Trivial Pursuit team. I think she was the one who knows about the Chinese inventing paper. She is also familiar with the Ukranian Bell Carol. However, last week she talked about Finnish clogs; this week she thought Chernobyl was where an atomic bomb went off. Granted I thought the nuclear reactor was in Russia rather than the Ukraine. If I were competing, there's a slight chance I would have gone to Moscow instead of Kiev and committed the most monumental blunder in Amazing Race history.

Rob and Kimberley were lucky that the Chos and the 'Bama Moms were moving so slowly. They were able to overcome an automobile breakdown and still come in third. It's funny how pessimistic Rob gets whenever anything goes wrong. At least he's realizing that Kimberley is a superhuman alien. They did try to be nice this week and invite a very helpful local couple into a club to watch their Rap performance. The expression on the locals' faces were classic and it was funny to see them standing patiently outside the club when Rob and Kim finished. I guess they were not in a hurry to go anywhere and enjoyed the opportunity to appear on TV. I wonder how many other countries air the Amazing Race. At least, it is being broadcast in the Philippines and Canada along with an Asian edition.

Hopefully the teams get some money for laundry after traipsing through mud twice on the same long leg.

I guess the Race was filmed in the summer. It looked like it was still early afternoon as the racers ran into the Helsinki airport at 9:17PM. It also looked pretty bright at 6:00AM the next morning. The longest amount of daylight I have experienced was June in Berlin, Germany where the sun rose around 4:30AM and did not set until around 10:00PM. The furthest north that I have traveled is Skagway, Alaska but that was in September.

Kiev looks like an interesting city to visit. After eating duck in Beijing, I am considering eating chicken in Kiev, but several sources say it did not originate there (though the text is almost identical on every site).