by Gina Scarpa

This week on The Amazing Race, teams are headed from Istanbul, Turkey to the beautiful city of Moscow, Russia. Instead of the usual "let's throw everybody on the same flight" technique, this time around, teams can choose from a variety of options. Jaymes and James grab the first flight, along with James and Abba. Trey and Lexi, and their buddies Natalie and Nadiya, board the second flight, while Abbie and Ryan, and Josh and Brent, hop on a third flight. Unfortunately for that last group, their flight is delayed and they miss their connecting flight, which puts them more than 6 hours behind the other teams. Wuh oh!

At Zurab Tsereteli Sculpture Park, teams must wait until 9am then get their clue that takes them on a trip to find Ivan The Terrrible's guards. The guards hand out a Detour, Alphabetize or Synchronized. In Alphabetize, teams visit the Russian State Library that houses 24 million books, choose librarian, and have to find four books by looking through hundreds of card catalogs. Considering I don't read or speak Russian, that's a big no. Synchronized seems way more fun, where you learn a routine from a group of experienced swimmers.

It turns out Trey and Lexi's strategy of looking at the letters as shapes instead pays off and the are the first to finish, taking off for The Luzhkov Most to search for the trees of love. The twins get frustrated with the swimming and try to use their Express Pass but Jaymes and James convince them to stay and keep trying, especially with the other teams behind them. Besides, they're not trying to risk going home either so it's better to keep the girls right where they are. James and Abba leave the library pretty quickly to try the swimming instead of unfortunately for the rockers, they're not much better off there.

At the trees of love, a Detour awaits, where one team member must figure out which key (on a GIANT keyring) unlocks 10 locks around the tree to release a race ribbon. Trey flies through the task and gets his clue, a ruble. On the back of the ruble is a picture of the famous Bolshoi Theater, which is the pit stop for this leg. When he and Lexi arrive first, they found out they've just won a trip to Maui. Hmm, that sounds like a great honeymoon spot, doesn't it Lexi? I can feel Trey sweating from here.

Back at the airport, Abbie and Ryan decide to run the rest of the leg together with Josh and Brent. They must be convinced it's a non-elimination leg because I see no good reason to do that. By the time they arrive in Moscow, the library is already closed for the day so they have to do the swimming challenge. Abbie and Ryan are so awesome at it that I'm feeling they could secretly be synchronized swimmers, while Josh and Brent are anything but. I'm not even sure they know how to swim but I need them to learn fast because I do not want to see them go home.

Unfortunately, it seems like if the farmers aren't going home, the rockers are. Their taxi driver has taken off with their bags and passports and as we all know, you can't continue the race without it. Phil tells them they have time to track it down but in a city of 11 million people, where the heck do you look?!

To be continued...

The Amazing Race airs Sundays at 8/7c on CBS.

(Image courtesy of CBS)

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