THEME
"I wasn't Even Going to Touch You Until You Slammed My Head Backwards"

Well, here we go again, another episode where the teams don't finish in the order that you think...

We're still in Venice as Team ATC (Steve & Dave) leaves the Pit Stop at 2:45am to take a train 300 miles to Vienna, Austria with $480 for the leg. After talking to a local at the train station, they decide to get out of Venice now and go to Padua and get a train from there. Team Rainbow (Reichen & Chip... I want to call these guys something different... maybe Team Arrogant... yeah, that's it...) leave the Pit Stop at 5:20am.

Now, to show you how everyone bunched up at the Masquerade Party last week, remember that the doors to the party didn't open until 5pm. The first team out from that party was Team Arrogant at 5:20, only 20 minutes after the Road Block started. The last team to leave the Pit Stop on tonight's episode (Team NFL) leave at 5:31. That's tight.

A discussion at the train station with Chip and a local produce another route - go to Verona, then Innsbruck and a very fast train to Vienna. Team Arrogant and Team NFL join up and take this route, along with Team Bimbo (Tian & Jaree), Team Buff (Kelly & Jon), Team Who? (David and Jeff - hey, TWoP came up with the name and it's just appropriate right now). The train leaves at 6:54am. Then, all of a sudden you hear Millie yelling "Chuck!! Chuck!!" Millie is in trouble - she's having a asthma attack in the train station. Team Clowns stay with them and give support to Millie. Team Bimbo are now having an actual argument on the train. They're not doing well as a team at all.

Meanwhile, Team ATC finds out that Padua doesn't work out - the only way to Vienna is through the Venice train station. They have now lost a substantial piece of time.

It sounds like Team Clowns (Jon & Al), Team Virgins (Millie & Chuck), Team Weezer & Geezer (Steve & Josh) and Team Friendly (Russell & Cindy - look it says Friends/Dating and I think each of them has a different view of their relationship. You can tell by the way they're talking to - or at - each other) take the same route as the leaders, but a later train one hour behind. Team ATC (Steve & Dave) are now back in Venice waiting for another train which leaves 2 hours after the first.

The first train arrives in Vienna at 6:37pm and the teams find the Route Marker in town. But alas, the great equalizer has come into play - the Route Marker has Hours Of Operation of 8am to 4pm. The teams now decide to get some sleep at the Hotel Kaiserhof.

The next morning, the teams start lining up at the Route Marker - it's an entrance to the Vienna Sewer System, where the teams will have to follow a marked route to get to the next Route Marker. As the teams go underground, the comments from the members are priceless. I believe it was Josh who said "Stinks like ass!". Wonder why Jerry Bruckheimer didn't use that for the title of this episode? Then another one, a woman's voice: "Is this potty water?" Finally, it's back into the winter cloudy daylight. The Route Marker says "chose a flagged Fiacre and find your way to Schonbrunn Palace". Phil explains that a Fiacre is a horse drawn carriage and you claim it by grabbing the ticket that's hanging on the outside of the carriage. They then have to direct their driver approximately 6 miles to Schonbrunn Palace for their next clue. the Fiacres will depart in groups of 3 or 4 every 30 minutes.

So this is how it goes down: Team Arrogant gets to the Fiacre Stand and climb in one of them. Team NFL and Team Buff do the same. Team NFL leans outside the carriage, pulls their pass of the door handle and gives it to their driver. The other teams are arriving and are standing in the line to wait for the other Fiacres to show up. There's a discussion between Team Clowns that the clue says to grab the pass to be able to go. Team Arrogant is just sitting in their carriage trying to figure out why they're not going anywhere. Next thing you know, Jon pulls the pass off the carriage and kick out Team Arrogant. Jaree pulls the same thing on Team Buff's carriage, kicking them off, only after Kelly hits Jon in disgust!

Reichen narrates that the clue says "as soon as you see the horses approaching you may go and claim a tag..." so this is going to look ugly. The horses approach and everyone goes tearing toward the carriages. There's asthma-plagued Millie running like a "bat out of hell". All of a sudden, the camera goes into slo-mo as Chip and Millie fight for a tag as a carriage passes. Chip gets it, Millie gets another and it looks like Jon has the third. Chip starts calling out "I only got one". What the...? They were in a little alliance with Team Who? to get a tag for them. Guess that didn't work out. Millie climbs into her carriage with a "God, he's a jerk! He is.. such a jerk. Oh my gosh." A little later we see Chip coming up to Millie's carriage and Millie saying "Did I do that?" to which Chip replies "It's not your fault". It turns out that somehow, Millie cut Chip's lip during the scramble for the tag. And then Millie says the title of tonight's episode: "You know, I wasn't even going to touch you until you slammed my head backwards because you started the manhandling crap". Hmmm... OK, that's it - Reichen and Chip are in my Black List. They need to be taken down.

The first team to Schonbrunn Palace is Team Bimbo. They find the Route Marker is a Detour. Phil explains tonight's choices of "Mozart" or "Beethoven": In "Mozart", teams must carry a string bass 6 miles to a house where Mozart wrote The Marriage of Figaro. The house is well-known and finding it should be simple, but lugging a bass fiddle across town could be exhausting. In "Beethoven", teams must carry a portfolio of sheet music 11 miles where Beethoven wrote a famous letter known as The Heiligenstadt Testament . It's not a physically demanding task, but in a city where Beethoven occupied at least 5 different homes during his lifetime, finding this little-known house could take a while.

Everybody takes "Mozart" - except Team Buff. They're going to the Beethoven Memorial, but Kelly complains that Jon is doubting everything. Team Weezer & Geezer decide in their carriage to take the Fast Forward. Phil: In this Fast Forward, teams must search the Palace grounds for [this] ballroom and put on formal attire. Then each team member will have to successfully cary a tray of champagne-filled glasses across a dance floor full of waltzing couples. The first team to cross the dance floor with all their glasses standing upright can claim the Fast Forward. Well it took a few tries, but they do it. They can now go to the Pit Stop via train - the Seeschloss Orth in Gmunden.

Team Buff is on a subway or train car asking people where Beethoven memorial is when someone on the train says "which memorial?" Confusion ensues. Team ATC is in their carriage, knowing they're in last place. They give a nervous giggle when the read the Detour that says that "each house is between 5 and 15 miles from here."

At what appears to be a bookstore, Kelly finds out that Jon was right - they're not going to the correct place. Team Bimbo & Team NFL trick Team Clowns into thinking that they didn't know where the house was - they waited until The Clowns left and ducked right into the house, earning them the next clue: "Make your way to the Route Marker at the base of the Donauturm..." - an 1,150-foot "spire" overlooking the Danube River.

Team Buff finds a "cute little old lady" that showed them where to go and they get the next clue.

The teams start arrive at Donauturm, or The Danube Tower and find that the Route Marker is a Road Block. In this Road Block [that] team member will take a 460-foot bungee jump off this immense tower. This gigantic leap is the tallest tower jump in all of Europe. Nothing really unusual happens - everyone readily accepts the challenge (though Millie starts to have another asthma attack at the top of the tower, and Dave does the Road Block to save Steve's knee).

It turns out, that getting to Gmunden isn't all that easy, as Steve & Dave find out as they take a train to the Vienna North station, and Team friendly gets tickets to Gmund instead of Gmunden. Team ATC now has to go to the Vienna West station instead, and Team Friendly just happen to find out they're going to the wrong town and have to go to a different train station, loosing 45 minutes in the mix-up.

Team Weezer & Geezer is Team #1, Team NFL #2. Team Arrogant #3, Team Bimbo #4, Team Virgins #5, Team Clowns #6, Team Who? #7, Team Buff #8.

There are a lot of cutaway shots to Team ATC and Team Friendly on trains, discussing being last and what their chances are.

It's dark. Figures emerge and walk on the mat. Team ATC arrive as Team #9 and can't believe they're still in the race. Team Friendly - Russell & Cindy, arrive last and are eliminated from the race. (Or, as TWoP says - Philiminated!)

Next week - race cars! Chuck has a panic attack! Team Bimbo causes a "showdown in Marseilles"! And we see the title of next week from ATC Steve: "Just check you're tires when you pull out because.. Oh, God, you'll never know what will happen." And it's said as a threat to Tian! The Chicago way!