The Amazing Race: Kayak Kneeling and Taxi Stealing

"Prague?? Ole!"

The claws have come out. After Tallinn came the talons. This particular Amazing Race is down to the last four pairs of hoofers, and people really are playing to win now. Decorum is getting tossed out the window, taxis are getting stolen, and people are getting tired. That's what I kept thinking last night. They must be so tired. Just jet-lagged and jelly-limbed and mentally exhausted. But they persevere in spite of it all, so I guess I can't blame for their double-crossin'. Plus it makes for good TV.

Our eight friends woke up in sleepy Tallinn, Estonia and were immediately told to board a flight to Prague, a place where Dan thought they spoke Spanish until Sam assured him that no, Prague was in fact its own country. So they're both brilliant scholars. Good thing they didn't make fools of themselves again later in the leg. Oh... wait. Anyway, before that happened, the kids all raced to the airport and were told that there was only one good flight to Prague, with a stop-over in Riga. So it was another of those kinda-frustrating challenge starts where the plane options are so limited that everyone starts on the same flight, meaning the starting advantages are made null and void. Ah well.

When everyone arrived in Prague it was a mad dash to find an old car in the city's dizzyingly-beautiful Old Town Square (a place where sitting and eating a fried cheese sandwich and drinking an Urquell is the closest thing to heaven). Three teams took cabs, while one team made a fatal flaw that plagued them for the rest of the leg. Brian and Ericka had genially decided to take the advice of someone on their plane and opted to ride a bus to the subway. Normally I'd be all for taking public transpo over a car, but c'mon folks! You're racing here!

They said it was a gamble, and I suppose it was. I suppose in some instances taking the subway could be faster, but not when you have to take a bus as well and you don't know where you're going and you've got huge bags slowing you down. Unsurprisingly Brian and Ericka were the last to find the car in Stare Mesto, though that distinction might have gone to Sam and Dan, who had no idea with a "Vintage Praga" was, and likely would have spent hours and hours running around looking for an old guy named Praga or something had they not seen perpetual first-placers Meghan and Cheyne tearing across the square towards the old jalopy. So, lucky for the boys, unlucky for B & E.

After finding the car, everyone had to race away to some sort of in-city extreme watersports venue. No, no. Not some creepy Hostel-esque underground fetish club. I mean actual watersports, like funyaking. Yes, not kayaking. It was some sort of strange inflatable funyak where you had to be on your knees. Naturally Sam and Dan went for this challenge option, even though it was clearly more difficult to master than the rope pull that everyone else picked. And because it was a challenge about two people in a boat, of course Sam and Dan used the opportunity to graciously shriek at each other, cementing them firmly as my least favorite team. I mean, I guess they're good in the end—they always manage to somehow pull it out—but they do it in such horribly dumb, embarrassing, loud fashion. The Globetrotters irk me for some of their dirty play, but it's nothing compared to the perpetual whining and immaturity of the Brothers. So it was fun to watch them constantly tip over in the boat. The best wipeout (of many) was when they thought they had it for a second and started yelling "Good! Good!", and then instantly ate it. Terrific.

Speaking of those Globetrotters and their sneakiness? They bumped up againt Meghan & Cheyne kinda hard last night, with each team exchanging little digs or betrayals. First M&C beat the Trotters on the rope pull, though Flight Time was the first of anyone to arrive on the other side. When the two blondies tried to climb down from the structure to continue the race, Flight Time somehow managed to start climbing first, and he did so slowwwllyyyy. M&C freaked out, because it was really annoying, and Flight Time just played dumb. Immediately after, though, Meghan decided to be nice and combine forces with the Trotters to get to the next challenge. Though, it all came tumbling down when, while waiting for a tram back to the city center, Cheyne spotted a cab and insisted that he and Meghan take it, leaving the Trotters high and dry. Meghan was complaining because she thought it was rude, which it was, but Cheney was all "I don't care, it's a race," which it is. So no one's really in the right or wrong here, they're just not here to make friends. You know how it is.

Next up in the dirty-play-palooza were Sam & Dan, who finally stopped screeching at each other on the funyak and decided to do the rope pull instead. By that time Brian and Ericka had caught up to them and raced over to do the rope pull, with their idling cab waiting for them. Sam & Dan finished first because Ericka was super slow, and you know what those two boys did? They done stole B&E's cab. While Brian watched helplessly, they offered the at-first-reluctant cab driver more money to take them and finally the guy shrugged his shoulders and said "It's my car, let's go." Brian yelled at them from high above and then assured the camera that he and Ericka could get by "playin' fair" and... I dunno. I think maybe those two are just a bit too square about this whole thing. And Ericka is not nearly as tough a competitor as she talks. I understand the rope pull being hard, but the next challenge? She barely tried.

The final stage of the leg was to rush back into the city center to a lovely old opera house. Once there, one teammate had to scour the whole place looking for a tiny mandolin in a tiny case. They had to show it to a weird, singing Don Giovanni ("Heh heh heh... No.") who would confirm if it was, in fact, the correct instrument. Meghan & Cheyne arrived first and left first, because they are just continually lucky folks. Though that they have luck doesn't mean to me that they don't still deserve all their wins (they won again this week). They are the team to beat—fast, smart, and light on the fighting. The Trotters should have come in second, but Sam & Dan caught up and had better mandolin-finding luck. So they raced to second place with the Trotters hot on their heels. And I don't know, I just feel like Sam & Dan are soon going to meet a challenge that their dumbness and fighting will completely thwart and they'll be sent home. If Brian's nice-guy bumbling and Ericka's sorta-slothfulness don't finally get the best of them first. In the opera house challenge, Ericka barely even pretended to be in a hurry. I guess at that point she figured they were done for and going home.

Wrong she was! It turned out to be a non-elimination challenge, so I think ultimate luck of the day goes to B&E. They'll have a Speed Bump to encounter next week, so we'll see if they can pull it off and place third, hopefully kicking out Dan & Sam. I'm worried about Meghan & Cheyne, though. It's crazy to think that one simple mistake could send home a team that's already won five legs. Five! But, in the end, this game isn't all that cumulative. You live and die by the moment. And if you die?

Well, at least you got to see the lovely country of Prague, where they all speak Spanish.