Landlocked

I'm a week behind on my re-cap of The Amazing Race. I know you really care. But I will still let you in on some of the little factoids that I learned about these places they visited.

The AR peeps traveled from Austria to the country of Liechtenstein. Who's been there? Me either. But I have seen the Rhine River which creates it's western border. Who knows exactly where it is located? Well, I'll tell ya. It is landlocked between Switzerland to its west and Austria to its east. I learned that it is one of only two countries in the world that are landlocked wholly by other landlocked countries. The other country is Uzbekistan. Liechtenstein is the only country that lies entirely within the Alps. It is the 6th smallest independent nation in the world by land area. It has 61.7 square miles and is 15 miles long. For a challenge, the AR peeps had to ride motorized bicycles from the top to bottom and then accurately report what the mileage was. If they were incorrect, they had to do it again. That lead to the elimination of "The Cowboys", who were one of my favorite teams.



The teams had to go to this castle to get a clue. Pretty. Gutenberg Castle is its name.



Next stop... Zermatt, Switzerland. Home of The Matterhorn.



I've been to The Matterhorn at Disneyland... I don't think that counts. I've been to the Zermatt Resort in Midway, Utah... that certainly doesn't count either. I need to go to the real deal.

In order to avoid air pollution which may block the visibility of the Matterhorn, all cars in the area are electric. I think that is really cool.



Josh will be happy to know that he can go to Zermatt to ski even in the middle of summer. They are famous for their moguls.

One AR team decided to do the detour of having to eat a huge pot of fondue with heavy bread. I love Justin and Zev (best friends). They crack me up. After watching a "behind the scenes" video clip... yes, I watch some of those. I told you I'm a bit obsessed... I learned that the Swiss music that was being played loudly right next to them actually helped them finish the challenge. I thought that it would make it much harder. The fondue looked so yummy, but Zev said that the cheese wasn't very good because of the alcohol in it.

Look how quaint this town is nestled down in these majestic mountains. I wanna ride this cable car. In the summer.