We arrived in Europe buzzed with excitement for the competition.  Our adrenalin levels were so high, we never felt tired.   Each night, we couldn’t wait to read the handouts and find out what country we would be going to the next day.  At breakfast, we would trade funny stories.  At the bar late in the day, we would howl at each other’s videos.  And we were surprised how much fun we had interacting with so many people as we accomplished our challenges. 

The challenges were….challenging, the locations interesting (Bruges was a highlight for us ) and our fearless leader Steve was friendly, helpful, always available and always unruffled in the face of his own challenges.  But our favorite part of the trip were our fellow Competitourers. It’s interesting what happens when you travel for a week with a bunch of people who start out as strangers. Verrrrrry interesting – and very rewarding as wonderful new friendships form.

This is not a trip for the faint of heart or anyone looking to chill out, eat regularly or turn in early. But for adventurous travelers looking for something different, this be the trip. 

Would we recommend Competitours? Already have.  

   Arriving in Reims, we walked over to the tourist center to find out about the tour at Pommery and were informed you couldn’t get onto any tours  without a prior reservation.  Marina, who writes for several magazines in France, pulled her journalist strings and we found ourselves at Pommery face to face with the marketing director.  

  Our challenge involved asking about the name Champagne, and it’s use outside of France.  It seems that France and the U.S.are involved in verrrry delicate negotiations over the name and it’s use and we were told in no uncertain terms that no one there would answer our question at this time.  Mumm was the word.  But that’s another Champagne….

  Although our question went unanswered, the buildings were lovely, the history of the company fascinating and the champagne they served us delicious.  

   When it was time to head back, a taxi was called for us, which arrived with 6 Euros already on the meter.  No, no, no said Marina.  Yes, yes, yes said the Taxi Driver.  Since we refused to take his taxi, he told Marina he would call all the other taxis in town and tell them not to pick up the three women at Pommery.  He then proceeded to do so.  

  So there we were.  In true Marina fashion, she stepped into the street and stuck her thumb out.  A  young woman took pity on us and deposited us at the train station, even though it was completely out of her way.  

  Back in Paris, we started planning for our challenge that night, which involved a Laotian restaurant . Surely there would be one on every corner.  As it turned out, not exactly the case.  But our persistence paid off and not only did we complete our challenge but had the best dinner of the trip. 

Currently we are on a train from Amsterdam to Brussels studying our challenges for today which include something to do with  the world’s only French Fry Museum (Brugge) and a Contemporary Art Museum in Ghent (which Judie happens to be familiar with and has longed to return to, you should excuse the hanging preposition). 

To catch up, Cologne was a beautiful city with a huge, gorgeous Gothic cathedral as its centerpiece (we were never lost, we just looked up, saw the cathedral and got our bearings).  

Our first challenge was the Chocolate Museum where in a burst of creative energy – and the lack of an accommodating tourist participant – it hit us that Fran was actually a tourist so she she became our 3rd interviewee, in the guise of Imama from Iran.  Her performance was truly inspirational. The Envelope please.

Then it was Judie’s turn at the Museum of Fragrance where the challenge was to do a wrap-up in the style of an American perfume commercial.  Move over Kate Moss, the other Envelope please.

Everyone met at the train station early that evening and headed for our next surprise destination – Amsterdam.

Arriving in Amsterdam late that evening we had a chance to visit with our friend Dorit, (and miss yet another meal – we’ve existed on bread and cheese for the last week) wife of Derek, the actor who lived in Judie’s cabana for a year.  He is back to being a famous actor in Europe and in fact that night was appearing in an out-of-town play so we didn’t get to see him until the following day for lunch.  How much fun was it to sit in a restaurant with Derek and feel all eyes upon us?

In Amsterdam our challenges included a visit to the Bols Liqueur headquarters where we had a blast as we got blasted.  We tasted many, many liqueurs and made a Rap video. 

All in all the trip so far has been fantastic with lots of challenges that have been as interesting as they have been difficult. This trip is not for the unadventurous or timid.  Every day there are 10 or more challenges, some very far away and some quite complex.  Since having fun is our goal, we haven’t done as many challenges as most of the others, but have tried to make our videos as quirky and enjoyable as possible, but I guess the judges will be the judge of that.

And it’s been fun interacting with our teammates and readjusting our first impressions with reality.  This is a high-energy group, full of good humor and good sportsmanship (for the most part).  Group psychology is an interesting thing to observe.

Omigod! You wouldn’t believe it!  

  Met all the other teams in Newark, a real mixed bag.  Got very little sleep, arrived in Frankfurt at 8:30AM, got on a train to Cologne, where we checked into our hotel and dashed out to meet our first challenge(s).  

Here’s how it works, all eleven teams choose from a big pool of multi-part challenges to complete that day in different parts of the region, video themselves (Let’s hear it for Flip!) doing it and then get back to the hotel and upload them to a private YouTube account for judging by 8pm., 

So what do we choose? We chose to get back on a train and go to Dusseldorf.  How far is Dusseldorf?  31 minutes on the Express and 29 minutes on the Local. 

 We floored ourselves by finishing 3 challenges which included going into the Japanese section of Dusseldorf and asking for three Japanese items that even the Japanese didn’t know what they were.  We surprised ourselves by completing not only that task (sounds easy, trust us, it’s not)  but three more as well.

Returning to Cologne it took us 40 minutes to buy the ticket, and an hour and a half to get back travel because we got off three stops too early. Finally got back to our hotel exhausted, but decided to get the dirty work out of the way first and upload the videos at Starbucks for judging first before treating ourselves to a nice relaxing dinner.  

Wrong.

Seems no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t access the internet, so we did what any smart women would do, we asked someone else to do it for us.  Long story short, we ended up at the apartment of a 26 year old    dentistry student, a darling Israeli girl, (not Jewish), Iman who made the mistake of asking if she could help us. Two hours later, three frustrated non-internet connected ladies went to dinner.. Bid each other a fond farewell –  

Got back to the hotel around midnight, tried for another hour but still no luck.  Lucky (for us, not him)  Fran’s son was still awake so we brought him into the Frustration Loop.  An hour later, still, no internet-connection. Did this stop Fran? Not a chance.  Luckily a half hour later as Fran was on the bed with her computer pulling her hair out, Judie heard voices from Team #3′s room next door, knocked on their door to see if they could help and discovered that almost everyone had been having the same kind of evening (minus the Israeli)  due to an as-yet undiscovered – let alone unresolved – problem.

Oh well, as our  favorite role model says -”Tomorrow is another day.”  We’ll think about it then.

Judie is usually our writer and I am the technician (don’t fall off  
your chair laughing, Mikel), but she’s very busy getting ready to go,  
so I will be the one to throw down the gauntlet to you other teams.   
Judie and I have been traveling together since college, when we went  
to Europe on $5 a Day and did it on $4.85!  We slept in fifth floor  
walk-ups, ate in student cafeterias and slept on overnight trains.  We  
even invented a way to sleep sitting up with out drooling!