Another Amazing Tuesday Recap

So, let's talk about this week's Amazing Race, shall we?

1. Fly to Russia. J and I agreed that Russia would be a cool destination. We'd each like to see it some day. I thought when I saw the instructions, though, that Russia could be challenging race-wise. The language barrier could be a real problem since I wouldn't expect a lot of cabbies and folks on the street to speak English like you might find in other countries. I'm sure Sarah probably speaks Russian - she seemed to speak every other language on this race - but she's gone now.

At the airpot, the Frats had to buy new shoes. J and I still don't understand why they didn't/couldn't just go back to the theater and get their shoes after they'd checked in at the pit stop the day before. If there was some legitimate reason why not, then I agree that they needed something other than slippers to wear the next day, but I'm not sure blowing as much as they did on the shoes from the airport was their only option. The sandals they saw in the store would've worked and weren't they cheaper? Those guys just do not make good decisions.

Travel to the monastery. As often happens with flights, the teams all ended up on the same flight, meaning they basically started off even once they hit the ground in Moscow. As usual, the cabbies made all the difference. That's one of J's frustration with the race is that so much depends on the cabbies you get. The cabbies did spread the teams out as some teams arrived faster than others at the monastery.

Detour: Boots or Borscht. You could probably say alot about this Detour, but honestly nothing is more noteworthy than Dan's complete inability to march. I've never seen anything like it! I mean...it's marching. You just walk and swing your arms. Sure, there's a little kick-out with your leg, but it's really not more complicated than that. J said he'd have thought the guy was making fun of them, except that a million dollars is on the line, so you know he's not - he wouldn't waste the time! I said it reminded me of the Elaine dance on Seinfeld. It was jaw-dropping just how bad he was. And WOW did they waste a lot of time.

Deliver flour. After the Detour, teams had to head to a bakery and unload flour bags. J immediately didn't like the bakery lady. She was pretty unpleasant. I think J would've punched her in the mouth if she'd talked to him the way she did Nick. Hey, man - I'm not condoning violence, I'm just telling you how it would be.

That task would've been really physically exhausting. J and I pondered if there was any strategy you could get going to make it go faster or easier, but in the end, we decided it would just be brute force. Just do it. Get a rhythm going and just keep going until you're done. I was impressed with Andrew's performance on this task considering how horrendous he'd been at the marching. Dallas and Ken were rock stars on this one, though. I think Nick got a little comeuppance in this leg of the race, which he deserved after being a little arrogant when they won the last leg.

I liked seeing Dallas and Toni win the leg. They're a good team. I truly can't believe Andrew and Dan were spared again, though. Nothing but a non-elimination round could've saved them, and that's what happened. Oh well. They live to race for one more week. Surely they'll be gone in the next round. I don't dislike them, but they really are terrible racers - it's just staggering they're still around.