Hey, guys, we had most of the option choices covered; all except the train from Siracusa to Rome. What a long way to go and notice no coverage on the train ride. Boring.
Why even go to Rome? Blatant product endorsement. Not much of a code or puzzle for that matter. About a total of two hours in Rome and not much time to see much (so much for the plug that "we would bring in all the historical landmarks." Yeah, sure just in the quick intro to the city.
We had the Ancient Roman Agora pegged. But I think it would have been better to have some kind of connection with the Leonardo Da Vinci between Rome and Athens - such as the Tower of the Winds which was designed based on Da Vinci's formula depicted in the Vitruvian Man.
Also had the FF going to The Beach Boys on the option. Figure they may have finished with the plate smashing by 8:30AM then it is about a two and a half hour drive (141 miles) to the Fortress of Rion near the town of Rio which is near the city of Patra. The gals on TES yesterday morning did blow it big time by saying that the woman LAST week won a trip to Rio, Greece instead of Siracusa, Italy!!!! If you noticed as soon as Hannah said it, there was a very long awkward pause and then she and Julie sort of stumbled along at the end. Probably an irate producer was giving her the you know what through her IFB earpiece!!
Had the Olympic games gig pegged right in Nemea (o.k. we had that as one of the options) But how come MO and Yolanda were still wearing clothes!!!! And we did have some kind of intellectual bit as the second task of the DETOUR.
Now I have a real problem with the announced arrival times at the pit stop in Siracusa. I think TPTB are trying to fool us by moving the arrival times back to 10:30AM until 1:02PM. Just no way do the shadows support this. As you approach noon shadows get shorter as the sun gets higher in the sky, not longer as they are shown in the video. And you can see the sun almost on the horizon (about 10 degrees elevation) when the Nerds arrived so that puts it just about one hour before sunset which was at 4:59PM; and they were close on the heals of Rayolanda, not almost four hours behind. So I still think that the arrival of the Beach Boys was nearer to 12:30 rather than as early as 10:30AM. Have a feeling that TPTB added a longer rest period, so that when the teams left they would have a better chance of bunching up at the railroad station.
And, finally, speaking of BUNCHING we go quite few episodes with one or two teams running away from the crowd with no bunching points, so last night we had THREE BUNCH POINTS in the first fifteen minutes: (1) Siracusa Railroad Station (8:00AM train) (2) Rome Airport (7:35PM plane to Athens, (3) Ancient Agora (8:00AM opening)
And last but not least, I estimate that The Beach Boys arrive at the Fortress of Rion at about 11:00AM. The last teams to arrive Franberries, the Hippies and The Evil Ones (gone at last!) all arrived way after sunset (4:55PM) so it looks like The Beach Boys have a huge lead on the opposition. But don't worry , I am sure we will see a bunch point at the Athens airport waiting for a flight to Oman.