TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episodes 11 and 12

The Thanksgiving holiday, a pileup of work assignments, and apartment cleaning prevented me from paying attention to my blog last week. Bad way to start off Year Two of my Chronicles, which is due for some minor tweaks to take advantage of the new Beta Blogger features.

Anyway, this edition of the race has remained true to form and had the teams finish in almost the exact reverse order than I predicted. The Beauty Queens were finally eliminated after being in the gun sights of every other team for several legs now. Their strategy for winning almost worked out for them, and they were a strong team that never had any conflicts, but in the end Karma demanded its pound of flesh (not camel meat) and so they were doomed. Even if the Queens had not overshot a challenge a week ago and put Rob and Kim into last, they would have still lost since Rob and Kim came in first this week and would have avoided the 30 minute penalty.

Granted the stress of having to come in first could have caused Rob and Kim to crumble this week. I totally thought they were goners once they chose to search for a clue in a pile of tomatoes while getting pelted by locals. I thought they were headed for a nuclear meltdown. Usually the "find a needle in a haytomato stack challenge" has taken down the strongest of teams, but somehow Rob and Kim and the Bama Moms found the clue to the Pitstop rather quickly.

The Bama Moms have proven that one can go fast by starting slow and staying calm. Last week they took advantage of not getting an earlier flight to study some maps of Morocco, so they did not get lost while other teams relied on sometimes unreliable locals for directions. They could have finished first last week while the Models had to run back to their car to get some good luck charm. This week they walked through a maze and were the first to find a way out of it. If they did not have such bad luck with taxis, they could have finished first again this week. Congratulations to them for being the first all-female team to get into the final 3. At first I thought the Bowling Moms had achieved that feat, but maybe they only made the final 4.

Other Notes:
The chariot races looked fun but dangerous. I wonder how they stayed in those things on such a bumpy track. Having a couple of stunt charioteers take a spill was pretty cool.

Hopefully Rob and Kim can avoid driving the rest of the race. I cannot recall another team having worse luck with cars.

Kim needs to see more of the world. This week she mistook some goats as dogs. I almost fell off my chair when that happened. Though I am not sure if those were goats or lambs. I was on the island of Nevis where a local had to teach me that goats have their tails up while sheep have tails that go down.

One pound or half a kilogram of meat is quite a bit of food no matter what animal it is. I probably would have made the camel kabobs a little too spicy.

I had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful city of Barcelona five or six years ago. On my last day there, I spent a whole day walking around the city. I started from my hotel to the incredible Sagrada Familia via the Diagonal. Then I went to the old bull ring, Magic Fountain, and Art Museum where the pitstop was this week. I went further up that hill to the Olympic stadium. Then I walked by the spot where the Olympic diving and swimming competitions were held. I recognized that site when I saw the first split second of the music video "Slow" by Kylie Minogue. From there I took an aerial tramway down to the harbor, walked along the beaches, and ended my trek by walking up Las Ramblas where one of the Detours took place. I do not recall the distance from Las Ramblas to the Pitstop being very far. With traffic it might be hard to say if a taxi would have been much faster than walking.

Next week, one of the final three teams will earn a million dollars. I have no clue who that will be, and I imagine I will be glued to the TV until the end. Plus I am already looking forward to the next Amazing Race. It is going to be an All-Star Edition featuring the return of the very loved and hated Team Romber. I vaguely recall getting an unusual cluster of hits to my website from Miami a few weeks ago too. Hmm...