Ciao, come stai? In this leg of the race, the racers are in Bologna, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Italy. This is a part of Italy which I know very well simply because I've visited the area quite a few times: I've done Tuscany through and through (including Florence which they will visit on the next leg) and I've done the whole Rimini-San Marino area to the South-West of Bologna as well. I have managed to go to Italy at least once a year in the last few years, even throughout 2020, 2021 and 2022 in spite of this thing called Covid-19! Normally I would start the post with the average statistics but given that this was just part 1 of a mega-leg and we have yet to see a pit stop, I shall just cut and paste the statistics from the last leg here and give you an indication of where each team stands at the end of TAR S34 E3 for now.
Average statistics after leg 2 in Innsbruck, Austria + status at end of E3 in Bologna, Italy
Glenda & Lumumba: 2 (in last place)
Derek & Claire: 2.5 (in 6th place)
Marcus & Michael: 3.5 (in 1st place)
Linton & Sharik: 3.5 (in 5th place)
Emily & Molly: 6 (in 2nd place)
Quinton & Mattie: 6.5 (in 8th place)
Abby & Will: 7 (in 7th place)
Luis & Michelle: 7.5 (in 4th place)
Rich & Dom: 9 (in 9th place)
Aubrey & David: 9.5 (in 3rd place)
Finally, a roadblock that I really liked!
This is all very interesting of course and exactly what we want to see on TAR - the order has well and truly been mixed up! Yes Marcus & Michael are still in first place but they have seen their lead slashed given the difficulty of the Ducati motorcycle roadblock. But look at what has happened to the strongest team Glenda & Lumumba - they are way down in last place after having wasted so much time trying to reach the detour location on foot instead of driving there. What we want to avoid are straight forward, simply tasks where teams simply arrive, complete with ease and leave in the order they have arrived in and this roadblock well and truly succeeded in throwing a spanner in the works (yeah, pun intended) by mixing up the order. Whilst assembling a motorcycle isn't exactly as visually stunning as some of the other tasks we have seen on TAR involving activities like bungee jumping, I actually really liked this task as it achieved its purpose perfectly and of course, Ducati is from that area in Italy so we are getting a taste of modern Italian life from Bologna. I felt for the teams who struggled with this roadblock as this would be precisely the kind of task that I would struggle with but it did boil down to attention to detail at the end of the day - there was a demonstration and hennce racers could always go watch the demonstration again if they ever got confused though some experience with fixing cars and machines in general. It was a shame that the racers didn't get a chance to ride those cool Ducati bikes (as pillion) around the race track as that would have been visually stunning and I imagine it probably would have been really fun for the racers too!
Has TAR visited Bologna or Florence before?
Sort of but not really: Italy is a huge country and is currently the third most visited European country in TAR US history. This is the ninth visit to Italy for TAR US - with only France (14 visits) and Germany (11 visits) ahead of Italy. TAR US has never visited Bologna before but had a pit stop in Florence way back in TAR S12 E7 when the teams spent most of that leg in the smaller towns of Empoli and Vinci in the Tuscany region before going to the pit stop in Boboli Gardens in Florence - which was bizarre as the center of Florence is so stunning, I swear you can't take a bad picture there and thus it is swarming with tourists taking selfies. Instead, they only visit that one garden and then went directly to the airport after that. Incidentally that pit stop from TAR S12 E7 in the Boboli Gardens is approximately 0.85 km away from Villa Bardini (0.53 miles or a ten minute walk) and it does look like in the next leg, the teams will actually go into central Florence, that's long overdue. Florence is stunningly beautiful and it is one of my favourite cities in Italy, but then trying to pick a favourite city in Italy is impossible as they are all incredible I swear. This is why I keep going back to Italy year after year.
The cheese delivery vs the anatomy lesson detour
I was quite surprised how the cheese delivery detour was actually a lot more straight forward than the anatomy lesson. Only Mattie aced the anatomy test on the first go as she took anatomy at college whilst the other teams struggled and had to take quite a few attempts to pass. I double checked on Google maps and I could see that the cheese delivery wasn't that hard as the distance to the first restaurant from the cheese shop was only 0.6 km (0.37 miles) and it was another 0.6 km to the second restaurant, then it was just 0.55 km (0.34 miles) back to the cheese shop. Whilt the wheel of cheese was heavy, the teams had a trolley to transport it and as long as you could read a map, it was a fairly straightforward detour. The anatomy test was actually really quite difficult given the number of parts the team had to identify correctly in the test so that surprised me. Now I would expect both sides of the detours to take about the same amount of time but this time, that really wasn't the case. It does seem obvious that without some knowledge of human anatomy, the anatomy test was always going to be harder and I would have then by default chosen to deliver cheese instead. In any case, the teams were all given maps to help them navigate their way between the locations, so it is not as if they had to ask the locals for directions. So as long as you can read a map, the cheese delivery detour was a lot easier. Thus I hope this will teach the teams to think a little bit more carefully, before when picking their detours in a huge hurry.
How did Glenda & Lumumba end up so lost?
Oh boy, I swear it was painful watching Glenda & Lumumba get so painfully lost and lose so much time. I was quite surprised as statistically, they were actually the strongest team going into this leg. It is one thing struggling with a task like Claire did with the yodeling last week, but to lose that much time because you didn't read the clue properly and follow the instructions was the kind of rookie mistake I didn't expect them to make as I thought they were a strong team. On top of that mistake, they had to pick the harder detour, I just hope they manage to catch up in the second half of this mega-leg.
Do Italians speak English?
We saw some teams try to ask for directions and they got mixed results. Generally, the standard of English in Italy is pretty low. It's not too bad amongst younger people but with anyone above the age of 45 or 50, it's a lot less likely. If you're in the big cities, it's not too bad actually but if you're in the countryside, forget it. But compared to Austria and Germany where the teams were in the first two legs of this season, the contrast in the standard of English in Italy is really massive. As for why Italians don't speak English as well as Austrians and Germans - that's another story for another day.
Why didn't they do anything at the pit start?
This leg started at the Madonna di San Luca in Bologna, a stunningly beautiful church. But instead of actually doing anything there, we literally saw the teams just rip open their clues and running to their cars. This is actually a beautiful location and I thought production could have showed the viewers a lot more of it instead of focusing on how some teams totally struggled driving stick shift. Oh that's another point I found incredulous - like surely, if you knew you were going on TAR and had the chance to win a million dollars, wouldn't you at least spend some hours learning how to drive stick shift? It's not rocket science, it is just practice and I'd rather practice calmly in peace with the help of a friend and not try to figure it out whilst on the race. So surely racers ought to do a lot of homework and preparation before coming on TAR!
I just love Dom's attitude so much!
She has been incredible - I love her attitude!. We all need a friend like her. It is natural to freak out when under stress but she was so supportive of Dom when they arrived at the Ducati detour and reamined very calm, even making the effort to get Derek to calm down as well. I do worry though as the sneak peeks for next week's episode show her struggling with a roadblock in Florenze but I hope that she will find a way to power through as that's one team I want in the finals - I'm afraid they are not as strong as some of the other teams in this season but I'm gonna play favourites and support them!
Where are the teams off to next?
The teams are off to Villa Bardini in the city of Florence next and according to Google maps, this is a 1 hour 10 minute drive depending on traffic conditions of a distance of 101 km (62.7 miles). Florence is known locally to the Italians as Firenze. Yup, English speakers have been butchering Italian names for centuries to the point where the English name for most places are different from the original Italian names. So Italia became Italy, Roma became Rome, Milano became Milan, Venezia became Venice, Napoli became Naples, Torino became Turin: you get the idea, I could go on forever, so Firenze became Florence. Somehow, Bologna's spelling didn't get corrupted in this way, but the pronunciation did. In Italian it is actually bo-lo-gna, with the Italian"gna" sound that most English speakers struggle to replicate, click on this link to hear a native Italian speaker say it. The racers and Phil made an effort and turned it into "bo-log-nia" which is wrong but at least it they didn't just say "bo-log-na" In English words where we have a G and an N back to back, there's no liaison, like in the word "Magnolia" - the pronunciation is very straightforward: mag-no-lia. But in Italian, there's a very clear liaison between the G and the N turning that into a dipthong that doesn't exist in English. Anyway, I am geeking out over my love of the Italian language (which is one of the languages I am fluent in), I digressed - let's get back to the race.
Who will win this mega-leg in Florence?
Well, the obvious answer would be Marcus & Michael given that they did leave the Ducati roadblock in first place, despite having had their lead slashed significantly. But they have won leg 2 in Innsbruck so with this lead, this prediction would make perfect sense. The team who are hot on their heels is Emily & Molly but they are going into this leg in the middle of the pack with an average ranking of just 6 so I would be somewhat surprised if they do come up on top, but then again, they're an incredibly likable team with such an interesting story as twin sisters separated at birth - so don't get me wrong, I like this team and I do want to see them go all the way. After that, we have a whole bunch of teams leaving in 3rd to 8th place in a reasonably short space of time and it remains to be seen if these teams could catch up with the top two teams. It should be fairly easy to drive to Florence given that you're headed from one big city to another, thus the highway between Bologna and Florence is one of the busiest roads in that region. Then again, we have seen some teams struggle with navigation on this season already so this could play a factor in the order teams arrive at Villa Bardini in Florence. It is quite central, just on the south side of the river in Florence but this is a very old city with confusing narrow roads. Take a wrong turn and you could end up taking a long detour; I expect at least some teams to get confused and lost on the way and the teams will definitely not arrive in the order they departed the Ducati factory! So if Marchus & Michael don't win it, then I'm guessing that it would be Derek & Claire based on their performance on the first three legs.
Who will be eliminated at the end of this mega-leg?
There are a few factors to consider: the team that we saw still stuck at the roadblock at the Ducati factory was Glenda & Lumumba and we don't know how far behind they will be by the time they arrive in Florence, so they are in the danger zone. Then you have the teams who were featured in the sneak peak of the next episode struggling: we see Dom struggling with the sculpting task (presumably a roadblock), we see Quinton saying, "I said we weren't finishing last", then we see both Marcus & Michael and Linton & Sharik struggling with navigation issues, with Sharik close to a total meltdown. But then again, this is reality TV, a racer can have a wobble - a moment when they just wanna cry or scream out of sheer frustration. They get it out of their system, they take a few deep breaths, then they calm down and carry on. The editors will feature on the wobble rather than what they do to pick themselves up afterwards as that's the kind of drama that reality TV thrives on. So it's really hard to tell but I'm going to guess Glenda & Lumumba solely because they're so far behind at this stage, otherwise it will be Quinton & Mattie given that they have already had serious navigation problems in leg 2. Don't get me wrong, I love both of these teams but somebody has got to go in this next leg and I'm putting my personal feelings aside in this process. I really don't want Rich & Dom to go in this leg but they are also stasticially at the back of the pack and we did see Dom struggling in the previews, so I hope they get through this!
So that's it from me on this leg. I think I'd be regularly pumping out these reviews on Saturdays from now on given that I watch the episode on Thursdays (remember I am in London, UK) and I rarely have enough time on a Friday to finish writing this - that's what Sautrdays are for, when I done have to work. I started a new job back on the 1st September and at least I've more or less settled into my routine now. I will have a business trip sometime in mid-November and that's gonna mess up my schedule but since it is a work trip, I will definitely have my laptop with me and I will be hopefully able to still keep up with the blogging. I do remember last season which was suspended because of the pandemic and I don't want to take 'normality' for granted: enjoying TAR, getting on a flight to go to another country for work or for play, or just going to the gym to see my friends. I already saw one potentially fiery comment on Facebook which I chose to ignore as I wasn't going to get into an argument over why I said something about this team or that I wasn't being fair to this racer etc. It's reality TV people, you wanna take part in something like that, you're putting yourself out there to be judged by the viewers - you accept it as part of the deal and if I don't like what a racer did on this season, that's my right to voice and opinion. Never mind this season, I've been to many of the countries in all 34 seasons - from Ukraine to Uruguay, Sri Lanka to Switzerland, Morocco to Malaysia, New Zealand to Norway, Panama to Philippines, I have been there and done them so it's not like I'm some housewife from South Dakota who has never crossed the state line and I do know what I'm talking about. I am doing this out of my love for TAR - not to pick fights with anyone. Peace out, many thanks for reading.
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