Average ranking after leg 10 in Strasbourg
- Carson & Jack 2.7
- Alyssa & Josiah 3
- Jonathan & Ana 3
- Brett & Mark 3.8 (eliminated in Strasbourg)
- Han & Holden 5.6
Why the detour via Frankfurt? Why didn't they fly direct?
There is an airport in Strasbourg and there is a actually direct flight from Naples to Strasbourg on Easyjet but the teams went via Frankfurt on Lufthansa. They then all ended up on the same train from Frankfurt to Strasbourg, a journey that takes 1 hour 51 minutes. I suppose it might have been because they wanted to get the teams into Strasbourg early enough for a full day's filming and the timing for the direct flight with Easyjet just didn't work. The racers didn't actually have to do anything in Germany, they passed through the airport to the train station at Frankfurt airport and that was it.
What was the point of the task at the council of Europe?
The teams had to answer a question, which was to name the four countries they had raced through which were members of the council of Europe. Firstly, that question was so easy and secondly, there was no penalty when Alyssa & Josiah gave two wrong answers, seriously guys? That was hardly a difficult question. I would have made the teams that gave a wrong answer take a time penalty of ten minutes before allowing them to answer the question again. Otherwise what was the point of asking that question there then? We had additional drama when Brett & Mark got hopelessly lost on the way to the building, that just left me shaking my head - if you knew you were lost, you should have just asked for directions.
Is this water jousting some kind of French sport or tradition?
Yes indeed it is, if you're interested, here's the Wikipedia page on it. It is clear that there is some kind of learning curve associated with the activity, as with all sports. Thus the only real exciting match was the first one between Han and Carson, because neither of them had done it before. After that, it was kinda expected that the racer who had done it before had the upper hand with the benefit of experience. I was just thinking of how uncomfortable it must have been for the racers who fell into the water to have to continue racing that day in their wet clothes, as it didn't look like they had the chance or the time to change out of their wet clothes after falling into the river - at least they had warm weather that day.
Two cheese challenges in two legs!
I liked this cheese challenge in Strasbourg as cheese is a massive part of French cuisine. The challenge was hard enough to mix up the order of the teams: the teams all caught up with each other at the cheese shop and that's the kind of drama we like. Well done to Han & Holden for getting out of there in first place despite being lactose intolerant - hey, I really love cheese, my stomach can digest diary so at least I have plenty of experience enjoying different kinds of delicious cheese over the years but if you're lactose intolerant, then that condition would make this task so much harder.
Carson & Jack cruised to victory!
Congratulations to Carson & Jack, won this leg in style, despite an initial loss on the river jousting challenge, they kept their cool, made good strategic decisions and most of all, took the time to get directions for the self drive. They must have learnt their lesson from leg 7 in Bulgaria where they got so hopelessly lost early in that leg they ended up about 3 hours behind the other teams. In the end, no other team even came close to challenging Carson & Jack for the win in this leg, the team that came in second were Alyssa & Josiah who were made a really silly mistake with the express pass. Hindsight is 2020 of course. They should have either used it the moment they arrived at the cheese challenge or saved it for the detour - instead they wasted an awfully long time being so indecisive at the cheese challenge only to finally use it. Given how close they were to finally getting it right, they should have held their nerve and saved the express pass for the detour instead. They should have simply made a plan and stuck to it, rather than give in to blind panic when the cheese challenge proved harder than they had originally imagined. So this win in Strasbourg cements Carson & Jack's position at the top of the average ranking board for yet another leg, even if they are just ever so slightly stronger than the next two teams tied in second place at this stage. They are my favourite team now and hence I really want to see them win S37.
Why did Brett & Mark get eliminated?
Well, they had a bad start to this leg as they were the last to arrive at the first location as they got terribly lost. That meant that they were hit with a ten minute penalty after failing the river jousting challenge. However, they did improve their performance throughout the leg and were even 2nd at one point when they started on their detour but then they got stuck on the details when it came to building their stork's nest. It looks like the teams were super close to each other at the end, because Alyssa & Josiah finished their detour in second place, with Brett & Mark being right behind them by a matter of a minute or so. At the same time, Jonathan & Ana finished their detour just after Han & Holden, within minutes of each other. You could see both teams trying to get directions at the same time It then boiled down to a navigation task to see how quickly they could get from the detour location to the pitstop and unfortunately, Brett & Mark took a gamble: they had tried to follow Alyssa & Josiah and if they had managed to do that, then they would have probably finished 3rd and that would have meant that Han & Holden would have been the team that had to go home at this point - but instead, they failed to follow Alyssa & Josiah and got lost on the way to the pitstop. I am incredibly frustrated as they are a wonderful team, I really liked them and yes, I have accepted that Jonathan & Ana are going all the way to the finale - I just want Jonathan & Ana to face the strongest possible competition in the finale and statistically, Han & Holden are incredibly lucky to still be around, despite being much weaker than all the other teams with an average of just 5.6 now.
Wait, no speed bump for Han & Holden after the NEL?
I was kinda surprised as a team who is spared elimination would usually have to do a speed bump in the next leg that no other team has to do, however, Han & Holden were inexplicably spared that requirement in this leg. If they had to spend ten minutes doing an additional task in this leg, it might have sent them packing as the results were so incredibly close.
Which detour was closer to the pitstop?
Both detours were in the small village of Scherwiller, so it made virtually no difference. There are two possible routes to take to the pitstop, one is 9.1 km (5 miles), the other is 12.4 km (7.7 miles), so the difference isn't that huge but when there are four teams just within minutes of each other, taking the slightly longer route could add minutes to that journey.
Detour: dirty laundry or stork's nest?
It is evident that the dirty laundry detour is easier as it is just hard labour, it doesn't take any skill to scrub that pile of clothes until they are clean enough whereas with the stork's nest, the two teams who attempted that challenge were caught out by the little details of the nest, such as the base of the nest and how the wiring around the nest should be tied down. I would have been more risk averse and simply gone for the one where less could go wrong and just do laundry. Whilst both tasks reflect aspects of the local culture, I was shaking my head at the choice of those tasks - I've been to Strasbourg, you've seen how the center of Strasbourg is a magnificent city, yet we end up in a canal in the middle of nowhere scrubbing dirty laundry and a farmyard constructing those nests? It is a questionable choice of tasks to say the least. We did start out well in this leg in the middle of Strasbourg which is stunning, but then we once again end up in the middle of nowhere for no other reason than to give the teams a chance to get very lost whilst self-driving to a small town.
One little detail that you may not have picked up on.
I'm sure you adored those old French ladies doing the washing at the detour location but did you notice that they spoke in a mixture of French and Alsatian, the local language? Alsatian is in fact a dialect of German that is spoken in this part of France, though when I was there, I really only saw it on signs which were in French and Alsatian, as an effort to preserve the local culture. It is a regional language that is struggling even in the Alsace region of France because after WW2, German was seen as the language of the enemy and Alsatian is to all intents and purposes, a dialect of German. So if you spoke German well then you would be able to figure it out. Nonetheless, the default second language in France became English and I remember being in a department store in Strasbourg when I was there in 2020. There was an very old German lady who spoke only German and the young French lady behind the counter spoke French and English - these two women were really struggling to communicate with each other so I stepped in to help them out as I speak both French and German well. That really surprised me as I thought that local French lady might have some knowledge of Alsatian which would have allowed her to communicate with the German customer, but no, that was clearly not the case.
Do people in France speak English today?
The racers asked various people for help on this leg, some clearly spoke English well whilst others did not. When I lived in France in the 1990s, it was virtually impossible to find anyone willing to speak any English with me - like even if they could, they refused to. It was like, "you're in my country, you have to speak to me in my language, I'm not going to speak English with you even if I can." But then when I returned to Paris to work years later in 2014, I met a whole new generation of French people who really wanted to practice their English with me. So if you are a tourist and you need to ask for help in France, then pick the youngest person you can find to ask for help - the younger the person, the more likely they are to speak English. Ironically, the French education system requires that all high school students do at least two foreign languages and often that would be English with Spanish, Italian or German, but students may also opt for others like Portuguese, Mandarin or Arabic. But it wasn't the education system that has taught the younger generation in France how to speak English, no, it was mostly the content on social media that they have consumed on their phones.
Were we satisfied with this episode, did it do Strasbourg justice?
Meh, it was a so-so episode. That first task at the council of Europe was so pointless. It started out well in beautiful Strasbourg, then for some dumb reason they decided to head way out into the middle of nowhere for the detours and pitstop. Heck, if you really want to take a day trip out of Strasbourg then goeven to somewhere picturesque like Colmar (and jostle with the hordes of tourists there) or venture even further to Baden Baden across the border back in Germany.
Who will get eliminated next in Portugal? Who will win the next leg?
As much as I like them, unfortunately I think it is inevitable that Han & Holden will be eliminated in the next leg as they are just so much weaker than the other three teams. The other teams need to make a major mistake if Han & Holden were to survive this next leg. In the previews, we see two teams bickering: Han & Holden as well as Jonathan & Ana. I'm hoping that Jonathan & Ana will reach breaking point and finally crumble under pressure. Given that Alyssa & Josiah made some errors on this leg, I am going to predict that Carson & Jack will win the next leg in Portugal. And at this stage, I really don't care who wins as long as it is not Jonathan because like so many people on social media, I find him so obnoxious and disgusting. But hey, this is not a popularity contest, I just feel sorry for Ana as we only have to put up with Jonathan when we watch TAR, Ana is actually married to him good grief. I have rushed this piece out today because I'm flying off to Pescara in Italy tomorrow for a long weekend, Friday to Tuesday. As always, thank you so much for reading.
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