The Whole Country Hates Me

Previously on When You See The Bruises On My Lips From Kissing Phil: The cost of living in Long Beach is way out of hand, so eleven teams of two decided to follow a mysterious set of written instructions and head for Lima, Peru, where they could exist on a sandy beach, free of Schwarzeneggerian deregulation issues and displaced Hollywood types including, ironically, past reality show contestants. Speaking of whom, Rob and Amber got a jump on the chumps by hooking themselves to a Peruvian assistant who presumably dislikes moralizing about "a stack of greenbacks" as much as I do. Patrick's level of "dislike" of Rob looked suspiciously like it might be "dislike" of the pigtails-in-the-inkwell variety, but it was too early to tell. "Ptui!" said a menagerie of Peruvian llamas who had heard about this show based on last season, and didn't want any part of any pushing and shoving. The endlessly irritating Debbie and Bianca were grossly over-rewarded for coming in first, the dull Ron and Kelly were spared, and the endlessly entertaining Chuck and Ryan were tragically Philiminated, depriving the world of hours of pointedly subtitled hilarity revolving around body fat and "the high side." With ten teams left, who will be Philiminated...?

Credits. I'll tell you, Alex is right about one thing -- when you find a guy who will look that happy to see you in a purple cowboy shirt with white piping, you should never let him go, because it will be a long time before you find another.

Commercials. You know, if your engine is physically throwing up on you, that's not a sign that you need different engine oil so much as it is a sign of demonic possession.

A llama looks at the camera like, "What?" as we jump back to Peru. Mountains! Streets! Terrified members of the avian community! Phil explains that Cusco was once the capital of the Inca Empire, much as the home of the current world-gobbling empire is Branson, Missouri. I don't think the Incas were evil and soulless, though. And in this city, there is a church. And at that church, there is a mat. (E-I-E-I-O.) And the teams hit that mat for twelve hours of quality relaxation, scheming, and giving Rob and Amber dirty looks, and now they're getting ready to go again. Phil wonders whether the aforementioned Rob and Amber will continue to benefit from their renown, and whether Ron and Kelly can transform themselves into a metaphor for good old American go-getter-dom, rather than remaining a metaphor for good old American reliance on image-making to excuse execrable performance at things everyone else seems to excel at without difficulty, such as men's soccer and the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

10:54 PM. An entirely too chipper Debbie and Bianca, wearing cutesy colorful raincoats that make them look like Colorforms, rip their clue, which tells them to go by bus to Arequipa, which Phil explains is about 400 miles away. In the kind of cute trivia you watch this show for, Phil says that Arequipa is called "the white city" (see Branson, Missouri, supra) because most of its buildings are made of white volcanic stone. In Arequipa, the teams will have to find a "shoeshine union," where they'll get another clue. As they run off, Bianca interviews that it's very important for them to be the first all-female winning team, and vows that "[their] strength will be mental." Well, at least they didn't dig madly in a pile of sand hunting for the worst available airline tickets, so perhaps just being average may be enough. They take off in a little Fisher-Price taxi. At the bus station, they find a sign indicating a bus to Arequipa at 6:20 the morning. Now you or I might believe we needed to investigate other buses besides the first one we run across, but that's only because our strength isn't mental.

11:05 PM. Susan and Patrick. Patrick again lays down his theory that they will be underestimated by the other teams, and this will allow them to...do something. Slither? Whatever. They hop in a cab. "We are a lot smarter than anybody gives us credit for," he says. Man, there's such a fine line between flying under the radar and running around in a big black cape going, "I'm INVISIBLE!"

11:09 PM. Rob and Amber open their clue, and she lets on that they're getting $480 for the leg. They're wearing matching striped-sleeve red-and-white jackets, incidentally, which kind of make them look like members of a rain-delayed rugby team. Amber says that "Rob's definitely the leader of [their] team," which I'm fairly sure she means in that "I let Rob act like the leader of the team, because that way, when I tell him to shut up, it has more impact" kind of way. Nothing preserves your power position like the ability to choose your moments.

At the bus station, Debbie has apparently decided that she is the Mommy of the Bus Station, because despite not being stationed in line anywhere, she's informing Susan and Patrick that the ticket counter opens at 5:30 AM, so obviously, she and Bianca will get the first tickets, Susan and Patrick will get the second tickets, and so forth. Which is so dorky, because...you know, it's not a deli; there's no "take a number" machine. You want the first tickets? Put your ass in line at the counter. I swear, when did people get to be such obeisance-flapping weenies? I also love how when Rob and Amber arrive, Patrick passes the "instructions" from Debbie and Bianca along, how they'll just "go in order if you want to; is that cool?" Patrick is totally intimidating Rob, I bet, with all this "is that cool?" stuff. Rob says that's fine, because he will do whatever he wants anyway, and then he and Amber wander off to see if they can learn anything else that's interesting. Which, incidentally, it appears that Debbie and Bianca and Susan and Patrick chose not to do. I'll have to try for a peek at those teams' laurels later when they're not resting all over them; I suspect they're impressively comfy.

, we see Rob chatting with a gentleman in a green leather jacket with a fur collar, and another one in a blue coat. (Neither of them, incidentally, is a security guard, just for future reference.) Rob asks about the bus leaving at 6:30 and learns that it makes a lot of stops. There's another, on the other hand, that is better, because it goes direct. "Es mejor," Rob confirms, showing off at least a little workable Spanish. The guys nod. We now see the sign that says, "Cusco-Arequipa Via Juliaca, 7:00 AM," which has, among other things, a big notation in capital letters that says, "DIRECTO." That's not just Spanish; that's a word like "heart-o" or "train-o" or "plane-o" that a racer might actually invent in the hopes that it exists. All of the relevant information on that sign could literally be English except for the tricky word "directo," so verily, there is no excuse for failing to make out what's going on, at least enough to investigate this very issue. Rob explains to the camera that he and Amber will be taking the 7:00 AM, because it actually arrives sooner as a result of...well, it's directo. (Spanish for "direct"!)

11:59 PM. Greg and Brian -- or "G" and "B" as the bandanna-sporting Chachis they hang out back home with undoubtedly call them -- get ready to go. They decide to get two cabs and wait for Lynn and Alex, and Brian voices over that their strategy is to make friends with everyone on the race, hoping that it will, at some point, pay off. It seems to me that's unlikely to work unless you can get people to like you better than a million dollars, but...okay.

12:00 AM. Lynn and Alex. Alex drains all their accumulated goodwill up to this point by saying that they "want to prove something as a gay couple." Which...first of all, this show has already been won by a gay couple. Not to mention the fact that its first season featured a high-achieving gay couple. Historically speaking, I would go so far as to say being gay mitigates in your favor on this show, in terms of performance. Statistically speaking, people would be within their rights to start out the race going, "Look out for the gay guys; they'll probably kick a lot of heterosexual ass." It's like saying you're going on Survivor to prove something about naked corporate trainers. Oh, and also, Alex says that there's a side of them that's "competitive and edgy and butch." Aside from the fact that one should never self-apply the word "edgy" (see: Dr. Alphabet), I have to say I don't really understand why you'd want to prove you have a side that's "butch." Wouldn't the point be that you don't have to have a side that's butch in order to win? That butch isn't the only valid way to be? Isn't that a better lesson? I mean, not to step on anyone's quasi-inspirational pabulum, because it does make the world go round and everything. Anyway, those two teams of guys take off for the bus station.

At the bus station, Debbie continues to hand out numbers for who's going in what order, as if it's a binding contract. "We are so organized," Lynn gushes. You obeisance-flapping weenie! Rob tells the camera that they're still trying to make the rest of the teams think that they're going to take the same inferior bus the rest of them are planning to take.

12:24 AM. Meredith and Gretchen. Gretchen tells us as they get in their cab that she tends to be screechy -- or, I'm sorry, "emotional" -- and she's been happy to have Meredith there to make her shut up -- or, I'm sorry, "help [her] through things." They arrive at the bus station, and Meredith tips their cab driver, because he doesn't want the International Society of Taxi Drivers to start making with the eye of newt.

12:41 AM. Ray and Deana. Ray puts an interesting, not-very-credible spin on his jerky behavior when he says that because he has a background in sports, he tends to assume that he should go everything alone, and that he needs no help. Because if there's one thing you never learn from sports, it's...teamwork. These are the moments when you have to wonder if he hears himself. He acknowledges treating Deana like "window dressing," and says he shouldn't do that, because it's going to take two people to win. He doesn't add that he also shouldn't do it because whether you are dating "on" or "off," treating other people like "window dressing" is equally dismissive and dickweedy. But there you go.

12:47 AM. Uchenna and Joyce. She interviews that although they tend to battle for control in day-to-day life, they've both been giving a little in order to function better on the race. Yeah, that's it. Nobody is being an asshole or anything. I don't know what to say.

At the bus station, Rob talks to his apparent alliance partner Ray, explaining that he doesn't want anyone else to know about the better bus except Uchenna and Joyce. He explains to Ray how the bus they want takes off later, but arrives earlier. "I got a guy who told me everything," Rob says, "and I paid him not to tell anybody else." (Presumably, this refers to the civilians he got the information from, just to keep you in the loop.) Rob voices over that he had formed this alliance with Ray and Deana and Joyce and Uchenna the night before. When Uchenna and Joyce get there, Ray explains to them about the bus, telling them they're on "a secret list." Heh. Oh, the secret Rob List. Everybody wants on it; nobody wants to admit it. "Play dumb," Ray tells them. You can write your own joke, I presume.

12:55 AM. Megan and Heidi. Megan says that they've decided that they'll do better if they go it alone. Well, "alone" except for their citrus-hued capri sweatpants, which will be with them the whole way. As it turns out, Megan and Heidi are, by their own description, "leaders," and they "will take control of things." In a moment that makes me fall extravagantly in love with the editing staff all over again, we cut directly from that declaration of authoritativeness to Heidi complaining in the cab, "My hair is blowing in my mouth." Nothing makes a woman look like a leader as much as inadvertently eating her own hair and actually looking to others for a solution. "Put it behind your ears," Megan counsels. See how they engage in cooperative problem-solving? Impressive! I suspect they employ the same technique when they accidentally tie their shoelaces together. Getting dressed is hard!

12:58 AM. Ron and Kelly, at long last, are the last team to leave the pit stop. Ron voices over that he's "a very gritty, down-and-dirty type person." And you get that from being in the military. Did he mention he himself was once in the military? Ron tells us that as a "beauty queen" (which strikes me as an oddly uncomplimentary word choice), Kelly has never had to "rough it" the way he has. Of course, in fairness, few people have. I've never been imprisoned in an international conflict either, but I've been camping. Does that count? I did unroll my own sleeping bag. Anyway, they and Megan and Heidi arrive at the bus station and see all the rest of the teams already there. They'd better go and get a number from Debbie and Bianca. Otherwise, how will they know what to do?

Alex goes up to a security guard, and he voices over that he was "getting help" from this guy. Alex claims in an interview, with overwhelming gravity, that the security guard said, "I'm told I cannot help you." Interestingly, rather than actually seeing the guard say any of this, we only hear Alex describing it, first in the interview, and then to Ray and Deana, whom he tells that the guard says he was asked not to help them by "the guy in the cap." Just keep in mind, we saw none of that actually occur, nor did we see in what tone of voice it was said. I mean, "I'm told I cannot help you"? It makes no sense that the guard would say that and mean it, because what authority would the guard even think Rob had to make such a pronouncement? It sounds much more like something that would have been said by the guard in semi-jest after Rob made some comment in semi-jest like, "You're not going to tell everybody else about this, are you?", but that would have taken away from the drama, which I suspect is why we never saw it happen. Anyway, Lynn and Alex meet with Debbie and Bianca and Greg and Brian, and tell them that since Rob and Amber are "really trying to BS [them]," that means they need to get on the other bus. And then Alex and Lynn tell Susan, "Just FYI, don't trust Rob and Amber." Keep in mind, Susan is traveling with Patrick, who has already declared his intentions to align with Rob and Amber for the sole purpose of drawing them in so as to more efficiently fuck them over later, so presumably, Susan can't possibly be all that offended unless she (1) would have been equally shocked to hear Patrick speaking thusly; or (2) is getting ready to gobble rather a large hypocrisy sandwich later on. Great with mustard! I'm telling you, a lot of hassle could have been avoided here if people had been able to decipher the tricky Spanish word "directo."

Alex confronts Rob, which is sort of pointless, given that Rob isn't obligated to answer to Alex, who is another contestant and not a study hall proctor. Alex asks whether Rob talked to the security guard, and Rob immediately says he did. Alex asks whether Rob told the security guard not to talk to the rest of them, and Rob says no, he didn't tell the guard that. Which might or might not be true, considering we saw nothing one way or the other except for Alex describing it third-hand. Rob then takes a dip in the deep pool of irony, saying, "All this politicking, and back and forth, and whispering, it does nobody any good at all." He's completely insincere, but he's exactly right. Sharing actual information is completely different from running around bitching about who did what to whom, and that's exactly where the line is between productive and not.

Here, rather hilariously, a bunch of teams crowd around Rob and Amber to bitch at them like townspeople with pitchforks, and Bianca gets all up on her high horse and says, "Lying to somebody is completely different." Lying about something that, one way or the other, is already done and is at worst sneaky rather than harmful to anyone? Who cares? What obligates you to tell the truth about that? Whatever. "Tell me what I lied about," Rob says. Here, an amused Amber reaches out her hand, touches Rob on the elbow, and says, "Calm down." She's been here before, you can tell. Debbie and Bianca decline to specify what lie they're talking about. "Because there is nothing," he repeats. "Accusing somebody of lying; that's personal." "It makes me nauseous to have to deal with that kind of stuff," Debbie says, actually throwing her scarf over her shoulder so as to become a more complete caricature of the Mortally Offended Fairy Princess. Rob says it makes him nauseous to have her call him a liar. "Let's just say it's a good thing that people can't be voted off," Lynn snots. As the rest of them stomp off, mad and distracted and thinking about everything except playing the game, Rob looks toward the camera, grins, and winks. I tend to agree with people who say that this isn't smart strategy on his part in the age of the Yield, but Rob plays reality shows just like he would play poker or Monopoly, never seriously taking anything particularly to heart, and I find it intensely refreshing.

More generally, to me, the whole thing is just a bunch of moralizing nitwits who would do precisely the same thing if they were able to. Why didn't Debbie and Bianca do exactly what Rob did before he ever got there? Because they didn't think of it. They sat around on their fannies all, "We'll just go in order of arrival on the most obvious bus." They have absolutely nothing to be snooty about, because Rob would have had nothing to fool them over if they had done what he did when they got there, so their affecting an attitude at this point is a transparent case of envy and sour grapes. Which is why Rob is amused, as am I, once I get my eyes to stop rolling back in my head at how goofy some of these people are being.

In the morning, all the lemming teams have found their way onto the express bus by following the herd and doing very little of their own work, and they'll all be tied when they arrive in Arequipa. Good thing somebody checked, eh, guys? Joyce explains that it was about a ten-hour bus ride, and that it was pretty. Happy deedle-deedle music plays as Brian and Greg are seen flirting on the bus with Megan and Heidi. They all liiiiiike each other, see? And Megan and Brian have "sparks," but presumably not the intellectual kind. Not exactly flint and steel in that department. More of a popsicle-stick/cheese-log vibe I'm getting, there.

And now, Rob has a new plan, probably made more attractive to him by the self-righteous nonsense to which he was just subjected back at the bus station. He explains to the bus driver that when they get to Arequipa, he'd like the driver to open the front door first, and not the back door, at first. And then he greases the guy with a little money. Rob then explains for the camera that this was a collaborative effort between Uchenna and Joyce, Ray and Deana, Ron and Kelly, and himself to pay the driver to open the front door only. They all chipped in five sols to pay off the driver. But as Rob explains with a chuckle, he actually only paid the guy 15 sols, and he never put in his five. Hee. Of course, he did do all the work, so they don't have a hell of a lot to complain about.

It's not the way I most enjoy seeing the game played, as I've often said, but I'm not bothering to get up a head of hate about it, because it would require hating the other teams who participated in it equally. I mean, you can't let people off the hook just because they take advantage of dirty work but don't do it personally. So to me, you have to either hate all four of these teams or none of them, and I choose to hate none of them. Also, Rob amuses me, and seeing people like Lynn and Alex and Debbie and Bianca go into spittling fits over being outplayed entertains me as well.

When the bus gets to Arequipa, the four teams involved in Doorgate pile off the front of the bus through the front door. They hop into taxis while someone on the bus yells, "That is not cool!" Hee. Ultimately, the bus driver opens the back doors, and the other teams, still complaining about their lot, scramble off the bus. They get into taxis. The fact that they got off the bus in the back and hadn't even had a chance to make it up to the front before the back doors opened suggests to me that it was an extremely short delay before the back doors were opened, so it's not like it was going to turn into a riot.

Elsewhere, Ron is so speedy that he's already done. They really do know how to shine shoes in the military. Ray is finished as well, as is a smiling Amber. They all run back toward the union to meet their partners. Ron is the first to get back, and he and Kelly receive the clue. When they open it, we find that the flights are spoon-fed at this point, and Ron and Kelly are on the first of two available flights to Santiago, Chile. Phil explains that they're being "awarded" tickets to Santiago, which likely means that some logistical oddity requires a sidestepping of the usual airport kerfuffle. The flights will leave 45 minutes apart. Once in Santiago, they'll have to ride a funicular to a statue of the Virgin Mary, where -- you guessed it -- there will be another clue. Or "clue," considering that even if your official team uniform were matching "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts worn with no irony, you could still probably solve most of these tricky "puzzles." ("'Go here'...what do you suppose that means?")

Ron and Kelly hop in a taxi and take off. Uchenna restlessly waits for Joyce, and then we cut back to her, out on the street, the last of the Doorgate people not to be finished. Susan is also getting polish on her customer's socks, but he pays her anyway, so she's done. to finish is Gretchen, so good for her. Well, "good" if you like your socks with polish on them. I'm betting that's covered on Day One in shoeshine school, though. Right after "Managing Your Fetish: Don't Take Your Work Home With You." "I need to polish some shoes!" Joyce calls out in frustration. Aww.

Commercials. Wow. It never would have occurred to me to use film noir to sell nasal spray, but that's why I'm not in a creative field like pharmaceutical advertising. Can you even hear me when I'm this far inside the box?

We return to Joyce, still on the street. She finds another person and completes her second shoeshine. Uchenna, meanwhile, talks to Deana about how they can "will" their partners to return, and he says he's sure Joyce will be . But of course, actually, Ray is , alongside Amber, and both of these teams learn that they, too, are on the first flight to Santiago. to return are Susan and Gretchen, and both of those teams also land on the first flight. Teams pile into cabs for the airport. Rob and Amber share a smooch in their cab as he says, "Good job." Meredith congratulates Gretchen, Patrick congratulates his mom...it's all happy times. And Patrick has a bandage on his head all of a sudden. I wonder if he conked his swelled head into a doorjamb.

Megan completes the task, and then Joyce does the same, and then Debbie, who feels the need to kiss everyone, because that's the kind of person she is, and oh, please, camera, look at Debbie, because she is being so charming and clever and wacky right this minute! And then whichever brother it is finishes up by creating a little freak show in the middle of a bunch of pedestrians. After all, in every country in the world, people can't resist stopping to gawk at a freak show. Interestingly, this is why promoting American Idol is easy, and why filming Cops is hard. Oh, hey, look -- it's Brian, because there's his name on the screen! Okay, Brian. Brian polishes shoes "American-style" and such. Lynn finishes his fourth shine, so he and Brian are tied for, like, most pitiful performance in shoeshining.

Megan and Joyce return to their partners, and they learn they're on the second flight to Santiago. Debbie comes back , so Greg notes that only he and Alex are left waiting for their respective partners to return. Brian finishes, and as he walks purposefully back to the union, he tells the camera that you have to be entertaining. "They don't want a shoeshine," he says, "they want to be treated well." Well, and they want to be on TV, I think, but so does everyone else. Like Debbie! But this isn't about her right now, which I'm sure she bitterly resents. Lynn finishes, hugs and kisses his victim, and heads back. Both teams get done at the same time, with the only difference in their fates being that the brothers apparently believe that the clue is sending them to "San Diego, Chile." Sigh. I hear it's got a great zoo.

In the Lynn/Alex cab, Alex gripes about being "in the back of the pack of [sic] again." "But that's okay! We're good at pulling up the rear!" Lynn puts in. And it's like that should be dirty, and it kind of is, and the censors let it go, but...is it really that funny? I kind of think it's only impersonating something funny.

The first flight is preparing to leave from Arequipa airport. Kelly explains that she and Ron are one of the five teams that are now tied for the lead. "We feel good," she says. The flight takes off. Then, the second flight. The Amazingly Inefficient Yellow Lines have quite a task in explaining that the teams are flying from Arequipa to Santiago via both Lima and Buenos Aires, which is kind of like flying from Chicago to Knoxville via Minneapolis and Atlanta. Or something. Phil reminds us that they'll be going to the Virgin Mary statue to find their clue in Santiago.

Speaking of Santiago, let's go there now! There, we find numerous happy people, as well as music. Why does every country have better music in public spaces than we do? It's like they all have guys with guitars in the streets, and we have "Welcome To Our World" at F.A.O. Schwartz. And then the lead teams are making their way through the airport and hopping in cabs. Patrick shares some kind of a happy moment of glee with his cab driver, but I wouldn't even try to interpret, because I just don't really get Patrick, which is kind of surprising, because he's somewhat nerdy, and I should totally be able to relate, and I somehow can't. It might be that he reminds me too much of everyone I disliked in college who bored the crap out of me hating Barnes & Noble and pop music. I realize this is unfair of me.

I note with some horror that Rob has the beginnings of a Sleazestache as they ride in their cab, but I try to shove the thought out of my head as they are the first to hop out at the funicular. They run inside and pay the fare (or whatever), and then they hop on board. Smooch! Ron and Kelly run up, and they make it onto the same little car as Rob and Amber. The two teams dutifully take a moment to enjoy the view on the way up.

Down at the bottom, here come Ray and Deana. Gretchen, on the other hand, is in her cab complaining about the traffic. And Patrick is asking his driver how many minutes it is until they get there.

The Rob/Amber/Ron/Kelly car gets to the top of the hill, and they hop out. They run to the statue and find the green clue box. The clue is this week's Detour. Phil explains about the pros and cons. And what are the choices? Shop and schlep. Hee, Phil said "schlep." In Shop, you travel two miles to a restaurant and receive a recipe, and then you go to a crowded market (yay!) and buy the five ingredients. Then you bring them back to the chef. In Schlep, you also travel two miles, this time to a bookstore. Then you have to deliver 180 books to the Library of Congress (there, not in Washington). Both of the lead teams go with the books, with Rob and Amber specifically mentioning that if they were to buy the ingredients, they'd have to pay for them out of their depleted cash supply, having poured so much of it into their graft budget. They head back down the mountain.

Here comes the second flight. Teams pile into taxis.

Rob and Amber and Ron and Kelly get taxis to the bookstore. Ray and Deana, having reached the clue, also choose the books and get the funicular back down. Meredith and Gretchen and Susan and Patrick are arriving at the bottom of the hill, but when Susan and Patrick go to get their tickets, they find that they don't have enough pesos -- in other words, they have cash, but they didn't exchange enough currency. "We have to beg for money," Susan tells Patrick after they aren't immediately successful in exchanging money on the street. And what, really, makes a parent feel better than being out on the street in a foreign country with your child, panhandling? It's the kind of experience you have to go on a game show to enjoy, because if you do it in your day-to-day life, people tend to call social workers and whatnot. (See also: sending your child to walk through a sewer.)

Commercials. People who should not sing "Somewhere": Pitchmen for TIAA CREF. Mikalah Gordon. Thank you very much.

When we return to Santiago, Susan and Patrick are begging for some money from an American, and it appears that they do give him some U.S. dollars in return, so they're not purely begging. And that, I appreciate. On the funicular, Meredith and Gretchen are fretting about the possibility that Susan and Patrick indeed ran out of money. Meanwhile, mother and son do indeed get their funicular ticket at last, but...they learn that it will be ten minutes till the car.

Bookstore. Rob asks whether they can take 180 of any books they want, and the guy says yes, they can take any books. Outside, they work with the hand cart that will be the form of transportation for this task, and Rob explains that working in construction, he knows how to build stacks so that they'll be stable, which I suspect is true. Nothing against academia, but I do think that a background in something like construction would be more helpful on this show than, say, a degree in philosophy. (Watch -- I'll say that, and then the Detour will be Carts or Descartes.) Ron and Kelly are right behind Rob and Amber, but when they have a little over 100 on their cart, Ron tells Kelly that he thinks they should take off and do it in two trips. Rob, however, keeps stacking. Kelly mildly objects to the two-trip idea, but they do indeed leave without the full complement of books.

Debbie and Bianca come to the funicular and find Susan and Patrick, surprised to find anyone from the other flight still there. There is hugging. They get on the funicular and head up. At the top, Gretchen and Meredith are getting the clue, and on the theory that 180 books is "a lot of weight," they decide to do the shopping. I'm really not sure in this case that the books are that physically demanding, given the cart. You don't have to carry them on your back or anything.

Elsewhere, Rob and Amber finish piling all 180 books on their cart. And you'll note that they have four columns of books on that cart, so it's something like 45 books high, which isn't that overwhelming. They wheel their cart out. And as they and Ron and Kelly wheel their respective books through the streets, you can see that Rob stacked those books into a tight, unmoving wall with sections that point in different directions, like you would with bricks. He's so very often full of shit, but he wasn't full of shit about that, I don't think. Ron and Kelly's books fall over at one point, and there is an awesome pan directly up from them trying to get their books back onto the cart over to...Rob and Amber, scurrying by with no trouble. Great shot -- tip that camera guy, and the editors who undoubtedly reframed that until you couldn't see the other camera guys who inevitably must be nearby.

Ray and Deana arrive at the bookstore. And the books they're getting look exactly like the books Rob and Amber got. They, too, manage to get all 180 of their books onto the cart, but outside, they have trouble finding out how you get to the Library of Congress. ("Practice, practice, practice"? No, wait, that's something else.)

Here come Uchenna and Joyce and Lynn and Alex to the funicular. Brian and Greg, on the other hand, are stranded out on the streets on account of taxi problems. They note with some consternation that their driver doesn't appear to speak even a tiny shred of English, so they can't communicate with him at all. Megan and Heidi similarly believe that their driver doesn't know where he's going, as he doesn't seem to be driving with any particular sense of purpose.

Debbie and Bianca reach the top of the hill with Patrick and Susan, and they run into Gretchen and Meredith on their way down. Gretchen and Meredith want to leave immediately, of course, but it turns out that they still have to wait another four minutes for the funicular to head back down, giving the other two teams a reasonable shot at catching up.

Ray and Deana are trying to find the Library of Congress, and they're making the most efficient possible use of their time by arguing over whether it's worse that the writing on the map is really small or worse that the book cart is heavy. Once they figure that out, things will start to go a lot better, you can just tell. Don't tell me -- at the moment they're dating "off," right? That must be so handy, because if she gets offended at being talked to like she's stupid, he can just say, "Um, hello? We're not dating right now." And then later when he wants to make out? Well, you can immediately see the advantages.