Some Behind-The-Scenes Thoughts on Episode 3!!!

 

What an episode, friends!!!  If you're reading this, I'm once again going to assume you have watched Episode 3 and have come here to get some additional insight into the shenanigans we engaged in!!!  I don't want to hear anyone cry foul that something was ruined because you read this first!   That being said, this episode is pretty much the format you are going to see the next 5 episodes...meaning that it will be a combined episode of a team challenge and then an individual elimination challenge for the losing team - with some one ultimately being sent home each week.  It's tough (aaaaaaand sometimes not....) to say good bye, but that's the way this works, we all realized it when we signed up for it, so we will deal with it.   

And now...some things I thought while I watched, or answers to questions people posed to me throughout the episode:

-I WAS SO EXCITED THIS WAS TRADITIONAL COSTUME EPISODE!!!!  I just wanted to throw it out there.

-One of the coolest things I have found out, after coming home and getting some papers from my dad that he had filed away, is that some of my ancestors who left Sweden actually took the path that WE took - travel the Göta Canal from basically outside of Stockholm CLEAR over to Göteborg - where they boarded ships for America.   Finding that out after I got home made our time on that Canal (shown in this episode) so much more special to me - as I realized that I was literally walking (or floating or sailing) in the steps of my ancestors.   This beautiful waterway will always carry a special place in my heart - because of the awesome experience I had on it, and how that links me to my ancestors!  And the COOLEST part is that there is NO way the producers of the show KNEW that that was the route my ancestors took when they were planning out the show.   Their focus on this area was on other contestants....but in the end, it ended up being a huge blessing to me, as well!!!!   THANKS CHRISTER & CO!

-I thought I was a natural to read the letter in the trunk...but I found out very quickly that I read it WAY too quickly...and had to re-read it a few times slower.  I like to blame it on my excitement level!

-So we were so excited to have the national anthem to listen to - but I later learned that the crew was so delighted by our antics holding up the flags and having a "patriotic Swedish" moment around the trunk that day because we were doing it to the wrong song!   HA!  We were doing it to "The Time of Blooming is Now Coming" - which, as it turns out, is NOT the national anthem, 'Du Gamla, Du Fria'.   BUT I think our hearts were in the right place. 

-That trunk is on the dock where just last episode, Becky, Laura and I sat around (earlier in the same day, actually) and speculated about what would happen at the elimination challenge..and then we hugged her and said 'See you later.'   Then she left, competed, really left, we ate lunch and then we came BACK to this dock to film the AmerikaKoffert for episode 3!   TV magic, people!

-It was so exciting walking up to the boats!!!  We had 1 less person - just 4 on our team (Dianne, Dawn, Shane and I), so we had the smaller boat.  But it was PERFECT for us.   And our captain and his son were so nice!   You may see stars and stripes blankets - they had bought them just for our visit to the boat! (You can definitely see Dianne wrapped in one as we pull out.)

-The plan for the boats, when we stopped in beautiful little Borensberg, was for each team to sleep on their boats for the night.   BUT - knowing there would be displeased castmates when that plan was announced, they had a hotel ready for anyone who didn't want to sleep on the boat.   I WOULD LIKE THE RECORD TO SHOW that out of the 9 people left in this adventure on these boats, only 2 of them took full advantage of this experience...and it was....drum roll please....my buddy Shane and I.   EVERYONE else wimped out and wanted a hotel and internet and a bathroom...and whatever other excuse they could think of to not sleep on the boat.   I even thought the 2 manly men who wanted to sleep in the BARN would at least sleep on a cool boat for a night.  But no. So it was definitely Shane and I for the WIN!!!!

-It was such a peaceful night of sleep on the boat.  Just FYI.

-For filming purposes, we actually went up and down the same segment of the canal for a few hours, filming segments.  All of that is the canal segments you see BEFORE the team competition.   AFTER the team competition (notice the change of clothes - it was actually the morning after we slept on the boat) when I talked about it 'opening up', that was a long, constant boat ride across a beautiful big lake over to the locks. 

-When John's team is talking about being the winning team, Eric slides an interesting Swedish idiom in right before it cuts to the competition.  "Man ska inte rope hej..." - which means "You shouldn't shout hello to your neighbor before you cross the creek" - or in our terms, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch."   FORESHADOWING.  dunh dunh dunh duuuuuuuunh!

-I find the editing of the team competition really good - but the one thing that I am fascinated by (and I don't have an answer for) is the order we competed.  In the episode, the yellow team went first, red second.  But in the actual competition, red went first and yellow was second.   Probably not a big deal - but still interesting as to why the change.

-Mike was NOT happy his name was chosen to sit out.

-Shane and I WERE happy Mike was chosen to sit out.   With Mike AND John on that team, it probably could've been a very different outcome.

-EVERYONE on the red team was happy Dianne was on our team.

-Each team waited on the back side of a big house/building that the competition was held behind.  So we were not able to see the other team compete - which was a change from the first episode, when we competed side by side.   We were probably about 150 yards away - with the house between us - but we heard a couple of shouts and hollers.   Our wait to go seemed ETERNAL.  But it was a beautiful day.

-Yellow team's plan was this:  Shane and Dawn would lay out the pipes and get them all placed while I pulled water out of the canal and brought it up to Dianne...who would dump the water in to the barrel.  This plan between Dianne and I lasted about 10 buckets...and then she said she needed to stop.   At that point, Dianne simply stood by the barrel doing her stand up routine for me.   So every time I came up with 2 buckets, she would throw out a line:  "Hey sailor, you come here often?"   "Fill up my drink, bartender."  And so on and so forth.  At the time, all I wanted to do was drown her in the canal.   Looking back on it, it was pretty hysterical - and 100% Dianne.

-Fact:  I played this game so hard that I actually did something to my back, and for the next 3 days, I could barely move.  Lucky for us, we had 4 days off in Stockholm, and I did get around, slowly, but it took a lot of pain killers and long hours on a heating pad.  BUT it was SO WORTH IT TO BEAT THE RED TEAM!

-If you listen to the episode. when Anders says, "Yellow Team/Red Team, are you ready?"  They have edited my voice saying "Yes sir" in for BOTH teams.   Which I find to be a delightful little weird fact.

-It took me exactly my first 2 buckets to realize just dropping the buckets in wasn't going to cut it - and that is when I quickly moved to my over-arm swing into the water.   I was such a beast that, if you look at a few of the buckets, they are bent when I dump the water in.  POWER, people!

-I was trying to time our time in my mind as we went, and when that marble dropped in, I honestly thought we were at 20-25 minutes.  So when they first brought our teams up to tell us the times, Anders said there was difference of about 6+ minutes.   He actually told the RED team their time first, and it was something like 17 minutes or whatever it was.  But the minute he said that, I resigned myself to the idea that we had lost....because the difference between the time I THOUGHT I had timed and what Anders said was their time totally made sense.   So when he said that our time was actually 11 minutes 59 seconds...I mean...there is no way to describe that shock and joy and elation.  IT.   WAS.    EPIC.   

-While the red team is sitting around talking about where things went wrong, if you look in the background around the tree, you can see me bent over.  HAHAHA.  I lost a very important coin out of my pocket (my lucky clover coin, Donna M!) and I was on scouring the area looking for it.  NO ONE WORRY - I finally found it....thank goodness...but I started laughing when I saw the episode at that point and I am in the background being a weirdo.

-The trip post-team competition across the lake to the locks was a DREAM!  It was great when it was 4 of us - but that day, Dawn left after the competition and went to her family day, so it was down to just Dianne, Shane and I who were on our little boat...and we had a blast!

-Here is a conversation that actually happened on the boat that day:

Dianne:   Hey.  Where's Anna Nicole Smith?
Matt:  She died.

Dianne:  Well I know.  But she shouldn't have.  I miss her.

AMAZING.  Just Amazing.

-No one fear...the captain was actually down below driving the boat...Dianne was not really at the helm.  But man it was fun to see her acting like she was.

-I WAS SO EXCITED TO SEE THE LOCKS and to go up them.  It was so ridiculous that our boat didn't end up being able to go up that day!

-We were there waiting forever, and just about the time they got the doors fixed, there was a big cruise ship-type boat coming through that was on a schedule that needed to go ahead of us, so instead of waiting for that to go and then our little boat to go (since it was getting late in the day), they decided to send us up to meet the other boat.   If you watch in the background when we are helping Dianne off the boat, you can see the big tour boat coming through.

-The trip post-locks with everyone into Motala was just so relaxing and lovely...and even better having a win under our belts and not having to face elimination.

-Have I mentioned I was excited about the costumes?  HA!  It was awesome - but to be honest, at first, I had no idea what I was supposed to do with those red puff ball things, so I just hung them around my neck.  Luckily the crew helped me realize they were supposed to go around my knees.   They saved me.

-I really thought the National Day celebration in the park was sweet.  We'd been told time and time again that Swedes are very reserved and so to me it seemed like the perfect National Day celebration.  A beautiful day - beautiful music - low key proceedings - the blue and yellow of Sweden all around - I soaked it up.  I was so thankful to be a part of it wearing the clothes from Mora!  I'm glad Motala allowed us to take part in it all.

-We were ALL pretty mortified when Dianne told her story about telling the waitress she would look better with long hair.   Many of us thought we had gotten OVER the mortification from when she said it two days before at lunch...and then she brought it back up at Swedish School again.  But you can tell EVERYONE around her was like "STOP TALKING" as she told her story. I LOVE Anders' reaction to this story.   He's silent...and then he says...."Yeah....that's different."  HA!

-When Anders says we will eat the Princess cake, he says we must eat it "standing up...to ensure that we will get married."   I HONESTLY thought he meant he was going to hand us a slice of cake and then we would all stand up in the park eating it.   Moments later I realized he meant we were supposed to make sure the cake stayed standing up on our plate while we ate it.  Once I realized what he meant, I couldn't stop laughing.  I was committed to standing in the park eating that cake!  

-We knew our friends were going to compete in their costumes - but MAN I was so happy to go back to the hotel, change, walk around a little bit in Motala before heading over to the factory to see how the elimination was going to shake out.   It was a LOT of waiting around...and it was nice to do it in our own comfy clothes.

-I was SO SO SO thrilled when Becky came out first!   We all sat down on this bench looking up at the door they were coming out of...and it was such a rush of emotions every time it opened up! 

-Eric's farewell speech was a continuation of his breakfast speech...and if you look around at our faces standing there, everyone is over it.  He managed to call Dianne a racist in the speech - and he also took the time to call John a bully - and it was just another uncomfortable rant.  But it was the last one we'd have to hear, so it was nice to get it over and done with and send him on his way.  There was so much negativity that came with that breakfast and this speech...and it is not something that this show or this experience should have associated with it at all.

-I know people have said they see a pattern with who gets their box and then who gets eliminated - but I think that that pattern ended this week with Eric's elimination.  In order to fit Laura's and Eric's personal days in to the show (which were both filmed after they were eliminated),  they had to get them fit in somewhere before they left...so the options are very limited.  But I think that if there was a pattern, it will probably disappear starting in Episode 4.  

That about does it for Episode 3!  If you have any other questions, just leave them in the comments below!  And as always, check back tomorrow for my Behind-The-Scenes in Photos for Episode 3!  TACK!!!