Some Truths From Episode 2!!!!

So another week of my GREAT Swedish Adventure is in the books...and hopefully if you're reading this, you've watched the episode!  This was an interesting week/episode in Sweden because it really WAS the first time we were faced with someone going home...which made it all seem so much more real!   Here are a bunch of random thoughts from behind the scenes of episode 2 - based on questions and comments from family and friends after the show.

-The town we went to this week, Söderköping, is really one of the cutest little places we visited.  There was a lot of talk while we were there that it seemed magical.  It felt like a little town cut out of a Disney movie.   AND it had the most amazing ice cream shop - which they say is one of the top 10 in the world.  

-So that really was a dead crow in the box - and that really was the crow that we ended up eating later in the episode.   The crew was very good about keeping it cool and safe for us - but thank you to those who were concerned with the crow just sitting out in the trunk for hours on end.   Initially, we all thought it was a prop crow until John said "It's a real crow."  I guess the dried blood in its head should've told us it was real.

-Shane and John both tried to big bike.   Shane actually came home with scars on his shins from his attempt to ride the bike.  Quite the souvenir.

-While the one group went shopping for hats, my group was out trying the ice cream at the famous ice cream shop,  Smultronstället.   It was really delicious...and we ate a lot of it because it was a warm day and the ice cream kept melting as we were doing out takes - so the crew had to buy us a few rounds of it to get everything done.    YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED how much complaining there was about someone telling you you had to have MORE ice cream.   I'm looking at you, ladies!   Even when someone else was buying and you didn't even have to eat any...just carry it as a prop in some of the shots on camera.  

-The cool place we stayed here is called Thorstorps Gård - and it was in the most beautiful serene setting.   I even loved our little house that the guys stayed in.  It was a great stop on our trip for sure!

-FOR THE RECORD:  Those "tough guys" who went to the barn didn't last too long.   It was cold and I think they were miserable.   Mike ended up back in the little house on the roll-away bed they had provided for us, and I think John slept out on the grass behind the house.   So much for their great plan.  BUT it did make good tv...climbing up the ladder with a box of beers into hay as far as the eye could see.   So manly and cool.  :)

-The breakfast where Eric talks about his mother and father was one of the most contentious things I have ever been a part of.   The editing was very good - because it actually pieced together Eric's basic story.   But what it missed was the anger that we had to deal with in Eric being here.   Eric felt like he was wronged the minute he got off the plane, and he spent the next few days LOOKING to be offended by everyone and everything around him.  By the time we got to this breakfast, and we were asked to talk about the reality that someone would be going home soon, it turned into Eric almost giving a farewell speech...like he was going to throw the competition and go home.   I was not really happy about that...not because I wanted him to stay but because it had only been a week, and we had all agreed to 6 weeks at most...so that means if he wanted to go home after 1 week that he had taken the place of someone who would've come and embraced the experience fully.  So I called him out on it - and asked him WHY he was even here.  And that led into the story you heard - which in turned led into a conversation where Eric said that we were all acting like slave masters...and that we were trying to get him to call himself "Toby" - but that he was not "Toby".  He was "Kunta Kinte."    So yeah...we got breakfast AND a tie to the mini-series ROOTS.   Emotions were high during the breakfast - John actually left the room, and everyone else just sat there, listened, breathed deep and wished it would end.    So knowing all that, if you go back and look at people's faces around the room, you might see the strain of the breakfast conversation on people's faces.  

-Here is all I have to say on the above breakfast situation:  There is a right way and there is a wrong way to address a topic.   If you really REALLY want to have a discussion - a chat - a talk - you have to come prepared to listen to others, as well.   You can't come into a situation with rhetoric blaring and and verbal fists swinging.  You have to be able to speak your mind and listen to others.   Eric came in wanting to fight with anyone and anything that got in his way....because he had been wronged and he wanted everyone to know.    It was a tactic that won him no friends...and was a very small blip on an otherwise MAGICAL trip to Sweden.

-If you want to read some of Eric's angry words he wrote for the country of Sweden as a whole, you can find them at his Facebook page.   Just search Eric Basir on Allt For Sverige in your FB search and feel free to read all you want.  

-Quilting & Horseshoe day was really fun.   It actually was AFTER our morning of hat shopping and ice cream eating...and it was nice to be back as a whole group and seeing the beautiful setting.  At the horseshoes, we all got a chance to work on a horseshoe - and we all got to bring the one we worked on home.   But as I stated on Twitter yesterday (and as you will most definitely see when I post behind-the-scenes pictures tomorrow), I am SO glad they had no footage of me hammering my horseshoe - because I truly looked like Cam from Modern Family...and let's be honest...ain't no body got time for that.

-Shane is one of my closest friends from this whole experience - and I love his story and his journey.  I especially love his line "because of a bag of horseshoes, I grew up in America."  It really is such a simple and profound thought...but it's also such a truth to how America came about...because of one thing or another in the lives of millions of people in the past, we grew up in America.  We owe a great debt to our ancestors who made that possible   I'm proud to call Shane Booth my friend!

-The trip to the grocery store was pretty fun...but I felt bad for the people we kept stopping and asking questions to.   They just wanted to get their shopping done.   And honestly the poor woman we asked about preparing crow was COMPLETELY dumbfounded.  She just kept saying, "Crow?  Really?"   And the 3 or 4 people we talked to ALL had that reaction.   While Mike, Becky and I went to find things to cook with crow, Dawn and Eric went to find things they could eat, since they both had very specific dietary restrictions or requirements.

-So I love the segment when Anders comes to visit the house - because if you look closely, you can see me concentrating so much, I'm kind of NOT myself.   The producers had given me a line they wanted me to say IN SWEDISH before we go outside, and I was so NERVOUS trying to remember it while Anders walked around the house, I thought I was going to pass out.  And when I watch it back, I laugh so hard because you can SEE my concentration in the scene as we walk around the house.  I am a weirdo.  HA!

-The crow.   YES we cooked it and ate.  YES it was actually really delicious.  Yes it tasted like steak.  For the record:  we did NOT have a full meal of crow.  We cooked that one little crow and everyone that wanted a taste got one or two, and then there was regular food for anyone who wanted it.  (ALSO - the potatoes we cooked were delicious.)

-We had a fantastic evening hanging out with Anders talking and laughing.   There was SO much alcohol taken in that night.  If the cameras were smart, they would've stayed around.  But I'm pretty sure most people in my cast were happy they did not.  Being one of the only non-drinkers in the group, I had the rare opportunity of watching it all happen.  It was a wacky night!

-I am so happy I was not in this individual challenge.   In theory, I would probably be good at it.  I memorize things for a living - I like cartoons - I enjoy music - I'm a quick study for things like this.   BUT - I think the pressure of the first elimination may have worked against me...and I would've frozen up!     It was nice to know that if you answered "CROW" enough times, it would eventually turn out to be an answer.

-While this group was going through the elimination, my group was hanging out along the Canal in Söderköping...shopping, eating more ice cream, eating lunch, and meeting the locals.  I actually spent some time learning a dance from some junior high school girls we met.  Don't worry - I got video of it and will post it on FB.  It was nice to have some free time - but it was also stressful because in the back of our mind, someone was going to be gone next time we were all together.

-When Shane and I turned the corner and realized that our friends, Mike and Laura were still in the competition and one of them was closer to going home, we went through some EMOTIONS!  It was just such an emotional day.   And then to have them as the bottom 2 really took its toll.   The crying you saw in the goodbye with Laura was like 1/8 of the actual crying that happened.    I will not apologize for the tears.   They were real - and this REALITY tv.  Bam.  

-We had the most delicious lunch right after Laura was eliminated - so we got a little more time with her.  This was not the case in most eliminations.  Most of the time, when you were knocked out, you were whisked away from the other group after quick goodbyes.   It was nice to be able to spend a little more time with Laura - AND to have delicious food to associate with it!

So that is a little look inside this weeks episode.   If you have specific questions or want to know about something else you saw in the episode that I didn't answer here, please feel free to shoot me a note and ask.   This adventure is an open book - I just need to know which page you're on.    Thanks for coming along on this journey!