Behind-The-Scenes: Thoughts on Episode 4!!!

Welcome to Episode 4, friends!  I hope you enjoyed this week's show  It is so strange to watch this journey each week and to see people go home...but I can remember after each elimination how NICE it was to have less and less people and luggage in the van.    This episode was actually really strange for me to watch because so much of it was out of order from how we filmed it...so my mind kept trying to remember the order we had actually filmed it in!   But lots of good stuff happened in this episode...so let's get started:

-SO excited to be heading to Gothenburg!  Such a beautiful city - and excited to be on the FRONT side of Sweden!

-I loved watching us walk along the path to the Amerikakoffert - because if you could actually see where the trunk was, it was back BEHIND us in that first walking scene after the train...and we walked back and forth on that path for a while filming.  It was just so funny to see us walking away from where the trunk was when I watched the show today.  Silly editing!

-In the letter from the box, for some reason, I actually clued in to what our team challenge was going to be.  So when we were in our teams and had our meeting, I said, "I think the challenge is going to do with laundry."   I don't know how or why it happened - but I was expecting a laundry challenge of some sort...and man was I right.

-I really can't tell you how excited I was to make it to a point in the competition to stay with a Swedish family!  I couldn't wait to get to their house and hang out with them!

-So the dinner with the shrimp is one of those things that is SO out of place in the episode, as far as timing.  We actually filmed that the evening AFTER we stayed with the Swedish family - and AFTER our Swedish school on humor that week.

-I love this dinner because in the background of the restaurant, at the other 2 tables in the room, are many of the crew of the show who weren't working that night!  They got all dressed up and got a free shrimp dinner!  It was so much fun to have them there and interact with them when they weren't worrying about work.

-In full disclosure, I was really worried about this dinner.  I am NOT a seafood eater...but when I came to Sweden, I promised myself that I would try EVERYTHING they put in front of me.  But still, when I got to the table, I noticed that it was pretty much JUST the big bowls of shrimp - and alcohol.  Well since I don't drink, either, I was thinking this was going to be a bust of a night for me.  I tried 5 of the shrimp - and they were fine...and then I realized that there were baskets of bread and plates of cheese on the table, too.  So I had like 5 cheese sandwiches and LOTS of water to make it through the evening.  I appreciated the shrimp - but I NEVER want to work that hard to get to my food!

-One of the things I'm sad this dinner DIDN'T show was the drinking songs we sang after we ate!  With the help of some of the crew, and with the help of a lot of alcohol at our table, we had a fun sing-a-long which we were told is pretty standard at a setting and at a meal like this one.

-It's so funny because for as much Dianne was hoping there wouldn't be "screaming children", I was so hoping to get a family with kids!   I have 14 nieces and nephews and I have always connected with kids.  So my fingers were crossed as we walked up that there would be kids!

-The family we stayed with are Jonas and Johanna Dejevik - and their kids Oscar who is 7 and Clara who is 3.   The entire family was SO welcoming and warm - and made our time with them just about as wonderful as you can get!  I can't wait to see them again in a couple of weeks when I return to Sweden!

-I know I tweeted about this before - but I loved the woman in the other group's house when she said "We had the space...but we didn't have the closeness."   I love that quote and that justification they had to move to a smaller apartment - for the strength of their family.

-It was so funny-bordering-on-annoying when we took a tour of the house and the girls were deciding where they wanted to stay.   What you see on the episode was definitely the quick version of us getting settled down - but it was anything BUT quick.  I ended up on the couch in the front room - John was on an air mattress also in the front room - and Becky was on a fold-out couch in the far side of the front room that had an accordion door that closed across it.  (Which is why I called it the Princess Suite.)   Lori ended up in the studio room in the basement.   In the end, I think everyone was happy with the arrangement.

-There was another weird editing/timing thing because the team competition with the laundry was actually AFTER we opened the Amerikakoffert and BEFORE we went to the Swedish families.   But for storytelling purposes, they put it after our arrival at the family's houses.

-Also, in actuality, on the day of competition, Team Yellow went first, and Team Red went second...but for whatever reason in editing, it was reversed.

-Once the competition was explained to us, the ONLY thing I wanted to do was hang the button-up shirts.  I would've done anything - but I knew that if I was going to be most effective at anything, the button-ups was going to be my greatest contribution.  I do it once a week, at least, in my own life...so I knew I could bust it out.  I'm glad they let me do it.   I think I did pretty good.

-There were a few surprise things in the competition - for example:  the jeans were wet.  I don't think Becky expected that at all. Good curve ball!   Also, I think we were ALL surprised how QUICKLY 5 minutes goes.  Our plan as follows:  1 minute to sort, 1 minute for jeans, 1 minute for button-ups, 1 minute for tshirts, 1 minute for socks and lint.  In my mind and my team's minds, that was ample time and it would be easy.  But MAN when that clock is going, all that planning is out the window! 

-My mind was going a MILLION miles an hour when he said the difference was 11 points.  Once again, I thought there was NO way, when he said that we had 40 points, that the red team could be LOWER than that.  So I was resigned to the fact that we were headed for elimination.   MAN I was shocked - and I had never been more thankful for the second button down on a dress shirt!  It was such a relief.  SUCH a relief!

-For the next week, Shane kept jabbing at our win saying, "Well guys...TECHNICALLY, we won that competition."   Which would set me off...because if you technically won, you would've buttoned the top button on those shirts.  THAT would have technically made it a win.   That is what Becky is referencing after the competition when she says that Dawn should've paid more attention and so we won fair and square.  I'm glad she had the last word!

-Tacos with the Dejevik family was the perfect ending to a stressful day!   And at dinner, we were introduced to 'taco boats' - which blew mine and Becky's minds!  Taco boats are basically crispy corn tortillas in the shape of rectangle little troughs or boats...and they are awesome!  I can't believe we've never seen these here in the States before!  We had a lengthy discussion about it at dinner - and we planned for Becky to open a taco boat company in the US.  HA.  That conversation may have been heavily fueled by alcohol.  I'm not naming any names.....Becky....but MAN you all drank that night!

-After dinner, Oscar and Clara and I sat on the couch and played with my translation app, Say Hi, for over an hour, talking to each other through the translator.  It was so much fun and we laughed a lot with each other.   They were great kids!

-I really REALLY loved Mike's family history story.   And I really love Cowboy Mike.  I'm really thankful we were able to meet on this adventure - and I have a lot of respect for the man and the dad that he is today.

-Swedish school was a struggle this episode.  The red team was pretty angry with each other - it was the day after the night with the Swedish family, and as you saw in the episode, Dianne was a tough pill to swallow, so there was a lot of frustration there.   Luckily there was a laugh track on the episode, because as much as all of us wanted to understand the differences in the humor, it felt like we were all missing the gist of it all. But a few of the jokes were funny/corny.

-The morning with the Swedish family was fun because we got to take the kids to school, but what I was really sad about was the segment when we went to work with our Swedish hosts!   After Johanna dropped little Clara off at school, she took us to the shoe store that she manages and we got to help at the store!  It was so awesome.  We cleaned, we arranged displays, we sold shoes!  I SOLD SHOES!  I worked with this cute little 9yo girl, Maya, and her mom to help her find a pair of shoes - and they bought them!  MAN! I was a natural!  We had so much fun with Johanna at work - and I was really really sad that it didn't make it in to the episode.

-I feel like the time they could've shown it was taken up with telling the story of Dianne's bad behavior during the taco dinner.  I hate that bad behavior is rewarded that way.  I wanted the world to see Maya get a pair of shoes she was so excited about!

-So during the car driving elimination challenge, our team first went and learned how to play kubb for an hour....which was fun....but is also ANOTHER thing that was recorded and didn't make it in to the episode. It was an epic game of kubb, people!  I'm sorry you won't see it.   And then we ended up going to a pizzeria up the road (we were in Trollhättan for the elimination challenge) and ate and hung out...and hung out...and hung out...for over 4 hours!    It was SO crazy!

-At the pizzeria, I ended up befriending a group of 12yo boys who were there after soccer practice.  They were such funny young men, and we sat there and chatted about soccer and school and America and pizza - and it was just a funny way to kill time.  Their English was so good - I was very impressed!

-The announcement with who was going home was SO stressful (I think you can see it on my face as we waited) because they brought the 4 of them out together.  They came around the corner of a building about 75 yards away, and as they walked towards us, Shane was the only one with his head down...and as they got closer, he would try to look up and then look down quickly again.  I was 100% sure he was going home because of how defeated he looked as they approached us.   Looking back at the episode made me laugh because I could SEE how stressed I was watching them walk up to us.   MAN I am glad my gut feeling was wrong!!!!

-I actually really grew to enjoy Dianne...and off camera, I had a lovely time chatting with her...but I was happy to see her head home today.  It just felt like it was time for her to head out.

Thanks for tuning in this week!  I'm not sure if any of this is interesting to you as we go along, but it sure is a fun trip for me down memory lane as I look back at my notes and my photos and watch the episode and express my thoughts on the episodes.   This experience was such a highlight of my year and my life...and I'm so very grateful for every minute of it.  Reliving it each week with all of you is such an exciting reminder of the blessing it is in my life!