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Being Polite Sucks Sometimes

Leaving Antananarivo, Madagascar in a tightly-bunched group (except for Lyn and Karlyn, who were about half an hour behind the other teams), everyone received a clue with tickets to fly to Helsinki, Finland, departing at 9pm that night - or they could take their chances at the airport on another flight.

When first-place team Dustin and Kandice find a flight leaving shortly, Tyler and James and Rob and Kimberly hop on as well, and Erwin and Godwin look like they will make it, but it seems that Lyn and Karlyn are just about to miss the flight, but then they get a lucky break and make it as well, so all teams arrive in Helsinki together.

On the road from the airport in Finland, Tyler and James manage to take the lead from Dustin and Kandice, but the two teams get to the next stop at virtually the same time. Once there, they run into a local coffee shop, were the teams get a brief message from their loved ones, and pick up their next clue, leading them to Soppeenharjun Koulu, where they follow a marked path to ther next clue.

To get there, all the teams take the same train, and Erwin and Godwin fall into last place for being nice guys once again. Specifically, they stand in line at a taxi queue, while single moms Lyn and Karlyn barge ahead of other people, excusing their actions by saying "they are in a race". Nice example for your kids, moms. Way to go (again), Cho brothers.

Tyler and James and Dustin and Kandice arrive together at their next clue - a Detour, where teams can choose from one of two choices: Swamp This and Swamp That. In Swamp This, the team has to put on a pair of cross-country skis and trudge through a one-mile course over a muddy field. This task requires skill and finesse, but a team that could master the technique of cross-country skiing could slide ahead. In Swamp That, the team has to slog through an obstacle course in the mud. They need to jump, crawl, climb, carry each other, and finally run across the finish line to receive their clue. This task requires brute force rather than skill, but even strong Teams could find themselves sucked into the wet ground and stuck in the mud.

Unlike many other Detours, this one had no obvious choice - it could go either way, and the two leading teams took off in opposite directions, and finished in about the same amount of time. Later teams seemed to finish in similar times as well. It was a muddy task, to be sure - but watching the ground undulate under the teams was fun!

The next clue led teams by train to the city of Turku, and then they have to drive to the town of Lohja, where they will find the Tytri Limestone Mine to receive their next clue.

Being in the lead has its advantages, and Tyler and James and Dustin and Kandice make the first train, pulling away just before Rob and Kimberly get there. They had to wait for the next train, and made that one with the other two teams. Meanwhile, the lead teams built a nice advantage for themselves.

Once in Lohja, Tyler and James beat Dustin and Kandice to the mine, and in so doing beat them down into the mine itself, giving themselves a few minutes headstart on the beauty queens. That gave them a jump on the Roadblock, which required one team member to ride a mountain bike down into the mine, pick up a limestone block, bring it back up, crack it open, and retrieve the next clue from inside. Both teams were off well before the other teams arrived.

Somehow Tyler and James seem to have picked up their navigational mojo again, and arrive at the last stop for this leg, Olympic Stadium in Helsinki. However, they lose that mojo again by completely missing the marked door, so spend plenty of time looking for it. They do beat Dustin and Kandice to the top of the tower, however, and do a head-first rappel down to the bottom, where they find out that there is no Pit Stop, and they will have to keep racing. That will have to happen next week. For now, this seems to be the place of the teams (there are no official standings this week):

• Tyler and James
• Dustin and Kandice
• Erwin and Godwin
• Lyn and Karlyn
• Rob and Kimberly

Rob and Kimberly got lost looking for the mine, then appeared to have a problem finding the marked door, so perhaps they have inherted the Tyler and James problem with direction. Also, no one else seems to have done the rappel, so it's tough to say for sure what place everyone is in, other than Tyler and James. But it does seem that those two have found their stride, and it does seem that Dustin and Kandice are there as well.

The big question that is remaining is who will be that third team in the final? I would have been likely to say Rob and Kimberly, but they seemed to be having problems this week, and started arguing again. I also like Erwin and Godwin, but they just may be too polite - will Lyn and Karlyn somehow back into it? We'll just have to wait and see.