Ep 2 - We Raced To Visit The Most European Countries In 6 Days
Welcome to episode two of our race to claim the most countries in Europe. Last episode, Tom and I took the Eurostar route, claiming France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Though we only successfully completed the challenge to lock Belgium, leaving France and the Netherlands vulnerable to a steal. Meanwhile, we thought Ben and Adam would fly to Vienna to claim this group of four, but they surprised us by flying to Zurich, Switzerland and beating us to Germany by only a few minutes.
Now they're on their way to France, hoping to steal it from us. We weren't too worried about that because we had a great plan to fly to Vienna in the morning. But our train at Cologne Airport was canceled, so we had to scramble and go back to Brussels where there's a later, more expensive flight. If we can even make it there in time. Back the way we came, then? I suppose. I just— I need to research whether there is a connection.
What if there isn't? (sputters) Cool! Cool, cool, cool. No, it's recommending that we go via Aachen, which is not possible. It should— Look at that route. That's the most efficient route
to Brussels Airport. I don't know why. 'Cause earlier it seemed to show me... I'm sure there's— Now, there's a route, yeah.
Yeah, there's a 4:31 to Brussels Central. Alright. (sighs) I need a shot of your face and the train everything, just like, "You got Deutsche Bahn'd!" It's really impressive considering...
we didn't even go into Germany. We still got Deutsche Bahn'd. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying we're going slowly... but we are about to be overtaken by a bicycle. Yeah, it's tough. (wheezes softly) They're still not going to Basel, but...
Why not? Are they having train problems as well? Certainly possible. I mean, they're in Germany. Adam, Ben, I'm not certain, but maybe you just got Deutsche Bahn'd. Maybe you just got Deutsche Bahn'd.
Hey Ben. Deutsche Bahn canceled our train. This is shocking. This is a shocking development to me.
You know, a huge strat in this game should be to avoid Germany entirely. Now the good news is that there is supposedly another train in 15 minutes. So it should... theoretically be fine.
We heard a large explosion, and then they just took our— They just made the train disappear off the board. So I wouldn't say that it's a good sign. Okay, so if they're going to Basel... there is Basel Mulhouse Freiburg Airport, I think it's called, the... Mhm. But that one.
And is there a Vienna flight outta that tomorrow? The 10:10 Austrian to Vienna. What time does it arrive? 11:40. What time would our flight arrive from Brussels? (snickers) We would get in at 11:35. (laughs) Five minutes earlier! But it doesn't— It's not the schedule. It's wheels down time. It's wheels down time. It came.
Gonna be late, but it came. Whew. Well, I do think we're gonna be able to steal France. Well, if we succeed. I think that we are gonna be able to give it the old college try.
Alright, Sam, we are nearly back in Liège. What are the lads doing? They're... on the line west to Basel as I thought they'd be. Alright. I'm not convinced that's a good strategy for them? I mean, they're not in any sort of advantageous position to us, as far as we can tell.
Of course they have the chance to pick up France. Which, that's significant. Yeah. Oh, I wanna steal France.
It would be— Imagine, imagine that they take the Eurostar, and we end up with France and Germany on the first day. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. It's unheard of.
And it's like, they just left that open. Yeah. 'Cause the thing about a steal, as of course you know, because you the audience are very smart...
A steal is a two-point swing. It takes a point away from them, and it adds a point to us. So it's functionally worth the same as getting two countries. Yep. It's 3-2 now, but it could be 3-2 the other way.
Yeah. But if we blow it, then... they'll have won the day.
I don't see that happening. Smile at the window. So good. There's a departure board. I think that's a bus schedule. That's the departure board.
Mulhouse, track 33. Look how French it is. There he is. (whispers) He's asking you to be quiet.
I hate him. (whispers) We hate him. But we have to be quiet. He's asking, he's saying we have to be quiet. Shhhh.
Are they doing something weird, Tom? Or why are you looking like that? There is a train to Saint-Louis[sahn-loo-ee] in three minutes for them. Mhm. From platform 33? Lot of platforms.
In theory, they could get that... and try and get France tonight. But they'll have to get a move on. Here we go, Ben. Finally leaving... Off to France. Leaving five minutes late. Thank you, SNCF.
So they're going back to... They're going back to Brussels. Yes, which is very surprising to us. We're trying to figure out why. Yeah. We thought they should've gone down to Luxembourg. 'Cause they could get Luxembourg, but like they're like...
maybe there's a really good flight out of Brussels in the morning, but we can't find anything. No, I mean it seems like the best flight out of Brussels is to Vienna. But we would beat them to Austria tomorrow morning.
And there's an okay flight to Copenhagen, but it's not a slam dunk. You're also just gonna be wasting time in Brussels. 'Cause you're in Belgium, a country you've already locked. Yeah, they're just sitting around in Belgium. I don't know. I don't know, man. I don't know what they're doing.
Man, this is a slow train. Yeah, it's crawling along into France. It's alright. It's alright. And they are entering France.
I really hope they stuff up the challenge. I really, really hope they stuff up the challenge. It'd be very, very useful for us. Alright, buddy. Well, we've made it to France.
(sighs) Oh man, I hope that this works. Yeah. Otherwise, we just wasted so much time. Okay. Alright, let's do it. Let's hurry up.
Welcome to Saint Louis[seint loo-is]. Let's get out in front of the station in case we gotta run to a business or such. I'm excited to see the arch. Alright, they are in Saint-Louis[san loo-ee].
Okay. So we should expect their challenge soon. Okay, hello. We have made it to France. A vulnerable country. It's very vulnerable here. It is controlled by the tyrannical Tom and Sam, but we are here to liberate it.
We're gonna go ahead and open this. Let's hope we can do this one. Open an unpopular museum.
The Louvre in Paris is the most popular museum in the world. In this challenge, you must create the least popular. Go to any museum, then spend 20 minutes recreating three things that are there. Mark an area of four by four feet and place your three objects and a sign with the name of your museum inside. This is your new museum. In the next 10 minutes, if any stranger spends more than five seconds in your museum, you fail.
At least five strangers must visit and leave your museum during the 10 minutes, or you must start over. The museum you visit may be out of the country, but your museum must be in France. Okay. Okay. It seems as though there is something called the Pocket Museum, which is open 24 hours because it's just a little window.
Okay. It's actually back in Switzerland. Okay. We can take the tram there. We can get there before the day is out. We'll take the next tram. We can get there... We'll basically end the day at the museum.
The annoying thing is we're gonna have to— we have to go into Switzerland and we have to go back into France. Right, 'cause we have to actually do the challenge in the country. So, but that's fine. This is, look, it's not the easiest challenge in the world. No, I think we can do it. We could get screwed, but there's no time limit.
We can take our time. Yeah. And I think we can do it. This is true. I think we can do it. I think we can make a museum that people do not give a (bleep) about at all.
Okay, well, let's go to the Pocket Museum. Let's get on the tram. We're having so much fun on the tram. Okay. Okay. There's nothing more we can do tonight other than wait for that call. Except for— Except for pick the flight.
Our options are still Vienna or Nice. If they're taking a flight out of Basel, they're taking this flight. And if they're taking this flight, I think we want to take the flight. Yeah, I agree. Because we want to fight over those countries, so that at best— And if they're not taking that flight...
we've got the... Right. Either the best or the second best bit on the board. Right. With no competition, or... The— Yeah, it's the only— Book the flight. Book the flight. Book the flight.
Yeah. Yeah. $784. (growls) That's more than I want. But that's... It's 20%. slightly less than a fifth of our total budget. (sighs) Yep. And we didn't spend any today.
Call it. We're going to Vienna. Tomorrow is going to be... Interesting? A fight over... What do you call that region? I mean, I can't call it the fight over Austria-Hungary.
(laughs) That's... We had a couple of those, you know? Yeah. Let's a-go. Okay. Ben, welcome to the Pocket Museum.
Oh, it's so cute. Look at that. In many ways, it's one of the cutest things I've ever seen in my whole life. So he is rolling up a little present it would seem. Mhm.
They're doing surgery. Ah-huh. Which is dark. What's happening in this one? Uh-oh. This one's very dark. That one's spooky. Oh no, that elf is dead.
I think that this is murder. Five, four, three, two, See you tomorrow, folks. one. Happy rest period, Tom. (exhales deeply) We made it through day one.
Well, Ben, the day has ended. Tomorrow morning, I think we can finalize what we're gonna do here. Okay, good night. Good night. (smooches)
Okay, now it's time for the first rest period. Each day at 5:30 pm Central European Time, gameplay stops so that players can sleep, shower, and consume as many calories as possible. Gameplay resumes from the exact same point at 7:30 am Central European Time the next morning. And so without further ado, here is day two.
Day two. Good morning. We're going to Vienna. We think they're going to Vienna. Let's get on a train. Let's do it.
Oh! Alright. Brussels Airport. Platform three. Uhh, yeah. Here we go.
Great timing. Not that we're in much of a rush, but... True, but we might as well. Good morning. Good morning. Everyone seems to be asleep here in wonderful Basel.
But not us. Not us. We are awake here. We're awake, and we're at the Hoosesagg Museum. Unfortunately, we need to pick the three most boring things from here.
That's true. And recreate them. Make a wrapping paper? And a fork. I mean, does this branch count? Are these branch— These are a thing in there.
They are a thing in there. There are a lot of objects that we can recreate. Yeah.
We need to figure out where we're going to build our little museum. There's a couple of options, right? We could go— 'cause we've gotta get back over the French border. So we could go back to that train station we were at.
There's also the airport right over the border. Oh, look at this. People are throwing out their Christmas tree. So maybe we just...
Perfect. We've done it. Train station or airport? Where should we build our museum? Let's try the train station. Okay. 'Cause I'm not confident about the airport. Where are Sam and Tom this morning? Can now see why our game day is so short. Because despite a 14 hour overnight, I can't see anything out there. it's still pitch black. But the sun will rise soon.
Hopefully. If it doesn't, we're in big, bigger trouble than... Yeah.
But at least probably equal challenges for both teams. Eyes peeled. This kiosk is open, Ben. See if there's anything. You know what we could do? We could take one of these.
Uh-huh. Oh, that looks like wrapping paper. And sort of recreate the roll of wrapping paper Yeah, I like that. the little gnomes had. Okay, let's get that.
Thank you. Alright, let's go get on the tram. Where are Sam and Tom? We just have to see... Yeah. when they go to the airport.
If they go to the airport. I am... Surely they're going to the airport. Welcome to Brussels Airport, Tom.
Before you go up... Yeah? Curious for your opinion. Are humans animals? What? I wanted to get your opinion on a card. Touch an animal that's not a pet. Humans are animals, right? Humans are animals.
God damnit! It's probably our oversight. No, it's just a simple question. Are humans animals? I'm not getting involved. (scoffs) Seems like a pretty simple question. And yet! Welcome back to Saint Louis. Saint Louis. I can't wait to have some ribs.
So we need one more item. Yes. That matches the museum. And then we need to figure out where we're gonna make our museum. I will just say right here. Yep, right here, pretty good. There are people walking in.
And I don't think that they are stopping. They're not stopping. Right, like this. This whole corridor. Right, this whole corridor. Nobody would stop in here. Right, there's no reason to.
There's simply no reason to. There's the mini-mart. We're gonna poke around in the Relay. This is exactly the kind of thing that was in there. Or actually, look at this.
This is even closer to one of those key chains. And it's tiny. And it's tiny. If we can rip it off the pen. Yeah, we can rip it off the pen. Love that. Perfect.
Merci. Okay. We've acquired our items. I think we've done really good work. The real key to this challenge is just picking the right spot for the museum. I feel like I have the perfect idea.
I believe that our museum should go in here. It's just like the little window That's true. of our museum. The only question is, are we at all worried that people won't walk close enough to the wall? Maybe.
Maybe... I can observe the doorways. The doorways are more narrow.
People are more guaranteed to walk through them. If we put the museum right here... Yeah, okay. I buy that. Because also nobody would wait around in a doorway. It's very rude. This is gonna go great.
Okay. The doorway's really smart. Hello, welcome to the installation of the Pocket Pocket Museum. Our first piece is this wrapping paper. Our second piece, this beautiful pine needle. And our third piece is this key chain.
And finally our sign. There, that's beautiful. That's the Pocket Pocket Museum. That extends four feet.
One, two, three, four, and then this line to there, four back. It's basically if you walk through the doorway, you've been to the museum. Yep. Here's the deal. When we open the museum, it will be open for 10 minutes. We have to have five people go to the museum, which just means to walk past it.
If anybody stops at the museum for longer than five seconds... Then we lose. Then we lose. But I don't think they will.
I think we've been very smart about this. I think that our museum is going to be a huge failure and thus a massive success. Happy Christmas, Tom. Oh, it's the Tintin... Oh yeah. ...rocket.
Sorry, I should probably be saying more, but I've got nothing. Instead I'll just take the camera and point it back at you. Oh yeah, I think. Okay. Museum.
Are we ready? Yep. The museum is now open. One.
She did not... She did not like the museum very much. Oh, this woman's going.
Is she rushing to see the museum? No. Alas, she hated the museum. That is two. He's going right through. This is working just beautifully.
People do not like the museum at all. Two more guests for our museum. Will they stop and enjoy it? Alright, that's five. So that's— We've hit our minimum.
Now we just have to wait another nine minutes and make sure that no one actually stops in the doorway. But why would anyone stop in the doorway, Ben? How rude would they be? No one would stop in the way. But if anyone stops in that doorway in the next nine minutes for longer than five seconds, we do not steal France. No. And these are the kind of stakes we're dealing with out here. In Saint Louis of all places.
I could see in their minds an overarching strategy being... Sweep up behind us. Yes. And I was thinking before on whether or not that's a viable strategy. But I think the trickiness of it is, effectively what happened in the Netherlands is that the fact that we have failed a challenge means it is challenging. And therefore... Yeah. You spend all that time going somewhere.
And maybe you still have a greater than 50% chance. But even that, you know, one third of the time when you fail and you spend all that budget and time going there, that's pretty impactful. Yeah. There's the advantage of being first in terms of you're more likely to end up with the country, 'cause you get, you claim it in the first place, and then you have first pass on the challenge. But there is the advantage of coming in second, in which that's not a one-point swing, that's a two-point swing. And I think it's impossible for us to know now No. which strategy's better. We're gonna find out.
He's in there, and he's out. They're in there... and they're out. I want France so bad.
I know, buddy, I know. Seven more minutes. Seven more minutes. Okay. You would never stop in the doorway. You would never stop in the doorway.
No, you would never, you would never. Hi. Hello. No way. How's it going? You absolutely can, as long as you don't spend more than five seconds in that doorway.
Just we're begging you not to spend more than five seconds in that doorway. Good to meet you. Good luck to you guys.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Alright, see, that was fine. But what if she had noticed us while she was in the doorway? I know, I was gonna say.
Legit, if she had done that 10 feet that way, we would've been screwed. What time are we at? We're at six minutes. I have bad news, which is that the museum has been open— Oh my god. No—
Gotta go through. Whoop, yep. (wheezes) (hyperventilates) Okay, we're good, we're good. See, that was also very scary because they hugged. Two minutes left. Don't stand there. What if somebody stops and looks at you or something? Okay, one minute left, Ben. One minute left.
Man, I am so nervous. I'm some of the most scared I've ever been in my whole life. Okay, he's going through. He's moving at a nice brisk... One, two, three, four, oh my god.
I almost just threw up. That was the scariest thing that's ever happened in my whole life. Five, four, three, two, one. We're good. Oh my god, it got testy there. Oh my god.
Okay. Yeah, clear out the Pocket Pocket Museum. We'll go ahead and install this somewhere else.
I think up here, it says C and D. Yeah, yeah. Let's get on this train. Okay.
Let's call Sam and Tom, shall we? Hello gentlemen. Hello. Hello. I am afraid to inform you that we have wrested France from your grasp. Hmm. Yeah. We opened a museum, and it was a huge failure.
But in its failure, it was a massive success. Congratulations. Good bye. Good bye. Good bye.
(whispers) Oh my god. Alright, Adam, where to next? It's time to go to the wonderful country of Austria, I think. I think so. Alright, well, that means it is 3-2 to them. That's the bad news. You know what I just noticed? The good news is...
Yeah, you were looking at the map? Well they were— That was a train that they were on, right? It was some form of transit. I was trying to figure out whether it was a bus, but I'm pretty sure it's a train. And they're on the move.
But that's not the way you get to Basel Airport. I checked. The way you get to Basel Airport is by a bus from there. Are they not doing Vienna? If they're not doing Vienna— But why would they not be? The same reason they weren't doing it yesterday. Maybe they've spotted something. Look, there's a rainbow. There's a rainbow.
Oh, look at that. Who-ho-hoa! It's— There's a little rainbow in France because it is— To celebrate its liberation. Here's the thing. We can get to the Swiss-Austrian border seven minutes before their plane would land.
Yep. I don't know that we can cross the border within seven minutes. We can look into it. Yeah, we can look into that.
There is a bridge kind of near there. My opinion is that even if they beat us to Austria, it would be good to be near Austria because they— we can be there doing the challenge at the same time as them. Yeah. So we could certainly be a— Even if they claim it first, we could be a strong contender to steal it.
Because they would have to get three miles from the airport before they can even open the challenge. Right, so we could actually probably start the challenge first. Before them. I also don't even think they're gonna go to Vienna. They might not. They very well may not. I think they should know it's too much of a risk.
Are they gonna try and pull a train across Switzerland to get to Austria before us? But they can't. We're gonna be there in two hours. You say they can't. It's physics.
I don't get it. And that's worrying. Off... to the Austrian border then. They're going east. Yep. The most relevant question is can they beat us by train to Austria? I don't think so. Because we'll be there in about two hours.
Uh-huh. If all goes well. The fastest route that I can find off of, you know, admittedly two minutes of research... would take... Hmm. I don't like that "Hmm".
Two— Two hours and 45 minutes. Seems like the border town is St Margrethen. If they left on this train, which sure looks like they left on that train... Yep.
They would get into the border town, which is still in Switzerland, at 11:43. What time do we land? 11:40. But, keep in mind... this is not... From there, they would have to go on foot or something...
to get into— That's not far, Sam. It's not far. That's really not far! It could be possible.
And if our flight is delayed a little bit, they could get it. But our plane's right there, Tom. What could go wrong? (exhales shakily) You... nnngh. They're at the airport right now. Can you see what gate they're at? It's, I mean... you never know with these things how accurate it is.
But it looks like they're at a gate in the mid A50— like A51, A53, A54, A52. 9:50 to Vienna is boarding. It's at gate A51. Sam, I really do not like how fast they're getting east. It's a high-speed line.
Does it stop being high-speed at some point? Yes. Okay. After Zurich. I just, I... 'Cause if they can just pop into Austria, even if we get it first, they're in position to a challenge. We gotta get outta the airport. Yeah. We can't do a challenge within three miles of an airport, right? Yeah, but also, yeah.
(grumbles) But as far as— Twice, twice they've surprised us in two days. Yeah. They're out on the tarmac. I think they're definitely going to Vienna. Okay.
We are going to get to Zurich in 10 minutes. Let's go to St Margrethen. We walk over the border into Höchst and we try and steal it. Yeah? (whispers) I think so. I think so. I think so.
Alright. There's a train at 10:03 in three minutes. What platform? That goes to Rorschach on platform 33.
And we need to make that to get to the Austrian border. Yep. Oh man. And that should be no problem at all. It's gonna be so easy. Not even close. Not even close.
Doing it all with flight radar? Yep. Well if their plane gets delayed even like 15 minutes... could be huge for us. 'Cause then we might be able to actually claim Austria first.
Yeah. Okay. Platform 33.
Here we go, buddy. That's the train to Rorschach. Okay. Yep. Come on. Oh, beautiful. Just in time.
Oh, the door literally closed on me. What's it look like? It looks like their flight is taking off. I think that's what it means when the line turns from white to yellow.
I think that might be the prettiest takeoff I've ever seen. That was stunning! (sighs) Alright. First to Austria wins. Er, a point.
But first to Austria wins a point that can then be stolen by the other team. But you know what I mean. And it took off 17 minutes after scheduled.
Which is actually... It's pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. It makes me worried that they're gonna get in even earlier. Yeah, me too. It's kind of fun to be in a frantic race to the Austrian border, but here we are. Having a little... (cups clink)
you know... espresso. With a tablecloth. I know.
Look at that. That's a... That's a damn tablecloth. My opinion is that our show, more than anything, is an advertisement for Eurail. Yeah. Okay, Tom, so... I think I've identified the exact route they're on. Okay.
I think pretty soon they're gonna get off the train in... "Rorschark"? Rorschach. Ror-shark? Ror-shack. Ror-shack. And transfer onto to this one towards St Margrethen. If they do this, it looks like we should beat them by a couple minutes. Haaugh.
And we just gotta hope we land first. It's gonna be tight. I hope they're stressing. They're probably looking at our flight tracker. (laughs) I really hope they're stressing! Adam has decided he can't sit down anymore because the stakes are too high.
And also he just— He's only had caffeine today. Uggh. Oouggh. (yawning) It's gonna be so tight, Ben. They're gonna be watching the dot on the flight tracker.
Yeah, and the thing is, this plane today is landing much sooner than the average for this flight. Yeah. Yeah, we've got lucky with this. Ben, their estimated time of arrival has been moved up to 11:25.
I don't love that. Ohh, it's gonna be tight. It's gonna be tight. I think that they're gonna be the first ones there by about 15 minutes. But then... I think we'll be able to start the challenge first. 'Cause they'll have to deplane, get through the airport, get onto transit, get three miles away from the airport.
And I think that that will take longer than 15 minutes. Yeah, it's gonna be close. Oh my god.
It's gonna be close. What are the odds that it keeps being this close? Yeah. It's fine. I really want this one. Yeah, well, I really want all of them. Yeah, that's true. Because if we get it, then the score is 4-2, and if they get it, then it's tied.
It's tied, but they have a better route to more countries. I do think that they might be overestimating how easy it's gonna be to do the run. That route is not easy. That route is not easy. In fairness, yeah. How close are they? They're through everything now.
So they're about to transfer again... there. But that thing where? No, no, no. Go ahead. Go ahead. Say the name. Royzh—Royzhashberg. Rorschacherburg. No, that still sounds wrong. Alright.
They need to get across the border before we touch down there. Okay. Welcome to Rorschach. Welcome to Rorschach. We got one more train, and then we can run right over into Austria.
I think that they are landing in... five minutes. It's gonna be close.
That's all we can say. I can see their plane. Look, it's coming in to land. Ugh. They're slowing down. Yep.
Contact. Text 'em. Text 'em. Text 'em. Text 'em. Let's goooo. You have the text prepared! Of course. With a lot of fire emojis, nice. Seconds matter, Tom. Okay.
Now we've just gotta see whether they can steal it back. Yep, Austria claimed. Damn it. Ugh. I wanted that one. Yeah, they got us. That's tough. That's tough to lose it by 10, 15 minutes.
They got it for now. Yep. I hope they enjoy it while it lasts. But we're coming for you. We're gonna steal your Austria. (zombie-moans) I think.
Asterisk. Put an asterisk. You're revving up? Yeah. There you go.
Maybe we can fuel up with some weed-flavored iced tea. Oh yeah. They've still got it. That's what we're about to do.
We're about to go Thurbo mode. We're going Thurbo mode. We're about to go absolutely Thurbo mode. Austria, here we come. Okay.
Oh, no. No, it's fine. They're still taxiing. They're still taxiing. I think they're still taxiing. I was about to say, what the (bleep) Oh no. What? What? Oh, that's a bus.
We're turning to the bus gate. That's a bus. That's a bus. That's a bus. That's bad. We got a bus gate. (laughs) (grumbles) It's bad luck. That's bad luck.
I feel like I'm gonna throw up. Yeah. You have the challenge ready to go, right? I'm ready to go. That's Austria. That's Austria. It sure looks like it.
Alright. Alright. Welcome to St Margrethen. We're still in Switzerland. We just gotta get over the bridge into Austria and then we can start the steal.
This time we're not gonna stop the steal. No, we are starting it. This time, we have to start the steal. We gotta keep counting. Alright.
Okay. Come on, let's go. Alright, that was a fairly efficient bus. It was... but we still gotta try We've got other people clearly going for challenges. to get on the next train, yeah. (cackles) Even if the challenge is just make a connecting flight. Come on.
Need to find the train station. Yes. And look for the fastest train to... Yes. Wien Hauptbahnhof. There's fewer people on this carriage down here. Okay, okay, so...
We have all of these. We could stop at Prater. Which is, that's tourist central. Okay, yeah. Wien Mitte is Vienna City Centre Station. There are... There is literally a shopping mall around it.
I can't think of anywhere better to do this challenge, Sam. Have they made it across the border? Alright, they've made it across the border. As we thought in St Margrethen, so they probably just started it. Oh, they've literally just crossed the border? We gotta get over the river. Okay. Alright, we're in Austria.
Okay. We are starting the steal. Here is the challenge. Play classical music on non-classical instruments. Play classical music on non-classical instruments. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony debuted in Austria in 1824.
In this challenge, you must play the famous "Ode to Joy" theme, but you may not use any musical instruments. The challenge is complete once you play the selected portion of the piece correctly: all correct pitches, on beat, at least 140 beats per minute. You may rehearse as many times as you'd like. You may only make one official attempt at your performance. Okay. Okay.
We can do this. Okay, I'm gonna start looking up where we can go get bottles. Because bottles are gonna be the way to do this. You start looking up "Ode to Joy".
Yep. And figuring out how many notes are in it. Supermarket, an eight minute walk this way. What about this? There's a... something here.
Okay, we can look at that. How many notes? Five. Only five? Yeah. Five bottles. Do you think they need to be glass? Glass is gonna be best if they have glass, but plastic will work. Here, let's just get water here.
Well, these are glass. Where? These, great. These will be great. Get seven of 'em just for good measure.
4, 5, 6, 7. Okay. Do we need a little thing to... ...ting them with? Yeah, let's get a thing to ting them with.
We'll use this. I think we might wanna blow though. Oh, maybe. Well, it's, you know. We'll see, we'll see.
Thank you. Thank you. Alright. We can just do it right here. So here's the deal. We just have to prove that each one can make the right note... And then we have to play it. Yeah. We're using a tuner.
(unpitched whistling) So you know, so you're gonna need to pour out a little bit to get it. (B♭ whistling) That's a sound. That's what you want. But I think tinging is gonna be better. I'm just worried about us getting it in tempo if we have to blow. That's true, that's gonna be a lot harder.
What are the notes we have to get? G, A, B, C, D. And then another D an octave lower. Okay, let's divide and conquer.
You try to get notes G, A, and B. I'll try to get C, D, and the other D. (repeated tinging) Are we pulling? Three miles? We're at three miles. Pull the challenge. Okay. Don't be a time limit. Don't be a time limit.
Play classical music on non-classical instruments. We need bottles. This is a time consuming one, which I think is good for us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we get to choose when we do it.
That's gonna be... Yeah. Mind games, if they're doing at the same— All correct pitches, on beat. Oh, how much...? (gasps) Oh, that's... that's so much more than I thought.
There's 16 bars there. (hums melody) 16 bars, perfect. It's not nothing.
I... Sam? Mhm? There is an argument for letting them fail this one. They are going to be panicking. (repeated metallic clanking) (multiple bottles clinking) Do we even need an F? What notes do we need? Are you having any luck? What? Are you having any luck? Not really. I can't really get it to work that well.
I see the argument. 'Cause I guess the risk is that if we attempt this first and fail it first... They have all the time in the world. Whereas... if we let them attempt it first and they fail... Mhm.
It's ours for sure. Yeah. I think we should proceed as if we're doing this for now. Yeah. But I could see a real discussion about whether we do a real attempt. Yeah. Depending on how...
How easy or how difficult it is. (bottles tinging) That's an F♯. (bottle tinging) I was like, how much do I have to drink from F♯ to make it be a different note? Here, I'm gonna go over there.
I'm having a lot of trouble over here. It's really consistent if I blow into it, but it's less consistent if I plink it. I mean, blowing will get different notes. (faint whistle) But I just don't know that you can do it consistently. (near-B♭ whistle) You're pretty good at it.
(alternating near-B♭ whistle in two octaves) Let's see if we can get it working this way. Yeah, okay. And see if I could do the whole thing. (sustained whistle) That's a G. That's a G. (whistle) That's an A. That's an A. ♪ (A–G) ♪ That's pretty— I think you were— you're doing that pretty fast.
Okay, we'd have to do a lot of practice, but I could probably get it. (A♭ whistling) (F whistle) Let's see what this is. (whistle) That's a D. That's a D. We need a D. So I'm gonna do in-between notes. I'm gonna do 'em in alphabetical order.
A, D. This is going pretty fast. Yeah, but I'm just really worried about playing it.
But it's fine. Okay, here we go. Ready? Can you check where they are? Yes. Our train's stuck in a tunnel. We are nowhere near Wien Mitte yet. Nope. This is not good. (whistle) C. That's a C.
We need a C. Okay, so now we need a B, which will be in between these two. (whistle) That's a B. That's a B. A, B, C, D. G. G. Then we need a B that is an octave lower.
Is what Amy wants. So that's gonna be almost no liquid. (low whistle) It's a G. It's a G.
This is with no liquid. It might just be that it can't go lower. (low whistle) Still a G. We need a bigger bottle, I think. Okay, you... I'm gonna start practicing.
I'll see if I can find us another bottle. Here's what I think is happening. I think they've already found instruments. I think they're not panicking at all. I think they are already rehearsing.
I can't read (bleep)-ing music. I don't know what this starts on. How many notes are in this? One, two, the highest note. What's the highest note we have? The D? ♪ (D whistle) ♪ ♪ (slow whistling "Ode to Joy" melody) Right? Yeah, that's pretty good. Look, man. Right? Your only job right now is to find anything that can make a lower D.
There's something else I can buy. I guess what it really all comes down to, Tom... is how hard do they think this challenge is? In some ways we're in a bit of a standoff.
Yeah. 'Cause it's like... Some— One of us has to take the initiative and go, this is the performance. And that's the pass or fail moment. Oh no, absolutely. But I keep going back and forth, 'cause... on the one hand, they have the time advantage.
So maybe we just wanna... If we can— We wanna pressure them. Well, we wanna pressure them.
But on the other hand, we want to give it a shot. Same thing. On locking this. I think twangy rulers is our best shot. Okay. We can tune them, we can lock them down, and then it's just a case of playing 'em like a piano.
Rulers, rulers, rulers, rulers, rulers, rulers, rulers, rulers, rulers. There's a plastic ruler. That, no, that's exactly it. This is your twangy one. (ruler buzzing) Come on. Cheap plastic ruler.
(ruler buzzing) Try changing the... B. Yeah. No. Yeah. That was a good shout. I'm annoyed by that. Okay, well, let's see.
Then it's six bottles, but we need to make sure we can— they're glass bottles. We'll worry about playing on the bottles. About what? Just the actual playing of things.
Yeah, no, that's really difficult. ♪ ("Ode to Joy" whistling) ♪ (mimes whistle) I've got it. You just need the stupid D! Ouuaagh! Okay, I just need to find... This is a kebab place. They do have bottles, but they're all the same size.
We need like a big, big bottle. What is this? Oh wait. It might be a grocery store. I think this is a grocery store. Oh, where... is the entrance? (breathy A whistle) Not reliably, not at speed. (sighs) Agh! I can only hope that Adam and Ben are having the same problems.
(sighs) Ben's coming back with nothing. No? There's a grocery store over there. They don't take Visa or American Express, but they have big bottles of wine. Okay, okay.
Do you have cash? I have euros, yeah. We're in the Eurozone. I'll run, okay? Yeah, it's pretty obvious... Check on them. (bleep) They're right by the station. They could complete this challenge ...at any moment. Jesus Christ. So what else? We could make wooden spoon maracas.
That's not pitched. Paper straw pan pipes. Hello.
(winces) That means having to (blows) very precisely over the right... thing, but... Elastic band guitar. I think of those, pan pipes might be our best option.
But it's just nailing the (blows) Might be worth getting them to see at least. Do you want me to see if I can get them from that shop so you can stay with these? Yeah. In case we want to try more with these. Yeah. I don't think we're getting our octave outta these.
No. Come on Adam, where are you? (chuckles despairingly) Folks... He has the bottle of wine. Got it? Yeah. Okay. We should be able to make this work.
Okay, get the tuner out. (whistle) C4. C4. (whistle) A3.
(low whistle) What's the (bleep)-ing order? If I can go below a G3, what is that? (low whistle) E3. We're almost there. (deep whistle) D3. D3. Okay. Okay. Do you wanna practice? So I'm gonna practice a little bit.
Practice a little bit. ♪ (whistling "Ode to Joy") ♪ Okay, can you check what the tempo needs to be though? What's 140 BPM? In seconds? Well, just beat it out for me. I just wanna make sure I'm going fast enough, or if I could slow down, that'd be nice. (metronome ticking) That's 140? (whistling) (metronome flickers off and on) Really? But again— That's so (bleep)-ing fast.
Sam, I've been standing here for... a good five, six minutes now, just doing that with many different tone generators. Mhm. (glass tinging) And I'm sure... with a laptop and a microphone, I can analyse this and prove the pitches, but I...
Yeah, I mean, it doesn't help that we have... No. a street going by. I could not find paper straws. Okay. I mean, a couple of thoughts... would be like one, I think if we got...
a taller, narrower glass. Yes. I think the pitch effect would be more pronounced based on water. Champagne flutes, tall glasses, test tubes, anything like that. Yeah. Let's try that.
Okay, well shall we get rid of these and then... Ugh, yes. ♪ (whistling with metronome) ♪ This is the hard part, is getting this. 'Cause that's only one (bleep)-ing note. ♪ (whistling in stereo) ♪ Raagh! Wouldn't we want this to be near this? Yeah, maybe that is better.
(metronome continues) (slow testing whistling) I hate how long we're spending on this. I know we're not technically under any big time pressure right now, but I wanna be travelling. I wanna get to new countries. Just to gut check, we definitely want to continue trying, right? (stammers breathily) Yeah. Well, we wanna at least put the pre— How much have they rehearsed? I don't know. Okay, I need to do it successfully twice in a row.
And then we'll be ready, okay. (whistling with metronome) (in montage) Da da-da da da Da da-da-da da da. (whistling overlapping) (metronome continues) How you feeling? Insane. Yeah. I feel insane. Have you tried locking in? I'm still looking for twangy things. Well, there's twine, but that's not...
That's not twangy enough. I mean, if you're confident about... I'm really like... There are rulers. Right. Oh, and this one's aluminium.
So do you wanna just buy one, twang it, see if we can get a pitch out of it... If so, come back and get the rest? Okay. Okay. Right, here we go. Give it a good twang. Yeah. If this twangs and if we can get an octave out of short and long, this is the easiest possible solution.
This is... It's aluminium. It should twang. Yeah. Lemme find somewhere to twang it. Where are you from? New York. America.
New York City? Yeah. Oh yeah. East Side. East Side. East Side. Yeah. I like East and West.
Yeah. West Coast, Tupac. Can I do a photo? Yeah, real quick. I gotta focus on this.
(whistling to metronome) Peace, brother. Say, East Side. East Side. How are you feeling? (metronome stops) I'm so scared. If I do it one more time perfectly, we're going for it. Okay. (whistling with metronome) (ruler twanging) Maybe? (ruler buzzing semi-tonally) Come on. Yeah?
I mean, certainly getting a note. Yeah. Question is, can we... Can we get an accurate note? (ruler buzzing testily) (sighs angrily) (deep D buzz) Oh.
That is a D. Yeah. (whistling over metronome) I think we gotta go for it. Alright. (metronome continues) Okay, this is the one. You got this. Okay, here we go.
Three, two, one, go. ♫ (whistling "Ode to Joy") Yes! Ohhh! Let's call them, let's call them. Let's (bleep)-in' go! Let's go.
Caption+ by JS* caption.plus | @caption_plus Hello. Welcome to the ad read. We know that sometimes you get a little bit bored with these. So Adam is going to play us a beautiful song in the background to entertain you. Take it away.
Now, here's what we have to tell you, okay? The next episode of Jet Lag: The Game is up right now on Nebula. Uhh... yeah. Nebula... Sorry. Nebula is a streaming service that is home to all sorts of really good content. Not only just every single episode of Jet Lag one week early, but also we do a podcast there.
Yep, an aftershow podcast called The Layover. It's good. We talk about the behind-the-scenes.
Tom will be there. We try to justify our strategy. We chat with Tom. Yep. We've made other shows for Nebula too. Remember when we took you to Utah? Yeah, we made a show called The Getaway, where essentially we had... six contestants, and we sort of...
tricked them all into thinking that they were all... basically the mole, but only... ...No. They all thought that they were the secret saboteur and they were all trying to not get discovered but they were all playing the same role. We take a trip across the whole American West.
Yeah, but it's six people all trying to... stay covert, and... Just watch the trailer or something. I don't know. I'm so distracted. Anyway, fortunately for you, we've got a promo code for Nebula if all of this sounds enticing. Uh-huh.
Do you remember it? I don't remember it. It's nebula.tv/jetlag. And that gets you 40% off. That's $36 for an entire year of streaming. Watch all of our stuff, and... we haven't even talked about all the other Originals and all the other creators on there.
There are a bunch. You probably already watch them. Keep going. It's good stuff. Alright, Adam, let's wrap this up into a grand finale. nebula.tv/jetlag Watch the next episode now. Thank you for your support.
(wheezes) (applauds softly)
2025-03-21 17:49
