the grass is greener

...in Ireland! Seriously, the grass is a ridiculous shade of bright lush green in Shannon, Ireland where the teams in the Amazing Race had their first pit stop. I can't quite get over it. But in any case, it's night time by the time the second leg starts this week and the teams are off to an airport to find a flight to Amsterdam for this next leg, so bye-bye to bright green grass.

Teams battle over two different flights to Amsterdam, and once there, it's gray and gloomy. Teams are greeted with a detour of either scouring through huge decks of bike racks for ones with matching stickers or completing a very bugs bunny-like lifting task to get furniture from the sidewalk to an upper floor of an Amsterdam home. After this craziness, teams are led to... ditch vaulting! Oh yes, pole vaulting over a muddy, dirty, soggy ditch. If you fall in, you're slimed. And so this is the roadblock that makes this episode oh so interesting. The first team to attempt it flies over it with ease... and then it's all over after that. Most tries result in mud covered contestants and I think this show reaches a new height when the grandpa gets covered in mud and decides to strip himself down to his underwear (in the form of what appears to be tighty whities but they're black and spandexy - gross). So here we have 68 year old grandpa Donald and his pale jiggly body, clothed in way too tight underpants and covered in mud, vaulting over the ditch. What a sight.

In any event, Asian dad Ronald (clad in a "Who's Your Daddy?" windbreaker) turns out to be somewhat of a nutcase and acts all crazy this episode, which makes me and all the other teams feel very sorry for poor Christina. He's going to need to settle down a bit if they're going to have any chance of climbing out of last place, where they currently reside.

And in the end, Lorena & Jason get to the pit stop first to win the leg of the race along with a pair of sports bikes that Lorena acts way more excited about than I bet she actually is. Minister couple Kate & Pat can't quite get their act together for any part of this episode and alas, come in last place and are eliminated.

Next week: Camels!!