This review is written from an unbiased objective view. The writer is totally not salty he lost early.
After we were done stressing about the exam week we went on a fun weekend filled with excitement, treachery, and exams?
Our hosts Rik & Rik (Eva and Jurjen) gathered us at the sport centrum and then just left only leaving behind a map and some arbitrary questions. We quickly figured out that on every point of the map we had to answer a question and were ready to depart. But then one smart individual exclaimed: “wait, where is the second part of the map!?” Immediately Bart the army man jumped in and started searching everyone. We found out that Michelle had put the map in her bag and said nothing about it for some reason. We decided to split the 3 pages between Laurence, Anika and Melanie and under no circumstances we should give them to someone else.
We then departed on our journey, but we didn’t even reach the first point before we got into trouble again. Apparently Melanie gave her map to Jesse and Jesse knows nothing about it. Laurence sighed deeply, he knew this was going to be a loooong weekend.
Somehow the map ended up in Anne’s bicycle bag, however nobody suspected Anne and we just blamed Melanie and Jesse.
Then we truly embarked on our journey, with Anika and Bart leading the way and Laurence answering the questions. Everything went smoothly, except from some squabbling about the amount of red balls. Even then Laurence was on top of it and investigated closely. But most importantly, we all had fun cycling in the cool evening with a beautiful bright moon and starry sky.
When we arrived Rik & Rik were waiting for us with pizza and a tablet. We had to calculate an 4 number code with our answers that would open the tablet.
At this point we realised something didn’t go as smoothly as expected, the answer didn’t open the tablet.
We had a long heated discussion, with a strange proposition to just change some numbers so we also would get a nice answer. After this former treasurer tried his answer it turned out it was a dumb idea that didn’t work.
As our third option we let Michael just insert random numbers. That surprisingly didn’t work either.
We lost our very first game and missed out on 2000 European monopoly money.
After we were done blaming the right people and setting up our tent, Rik & Rik took three people apart (Douwe, Anne and Nathan) and led the others into the woods.
We walked to certain points on the map and got send a question each time from the three others. The first 2 went well, however the 3rd question was more difficult to find and wasted a lot of time. The 4th point was too far for the group to reach, so Laurence sprinted forward to find the answer. We solved the riddle and found an answer we communicated to the 3 people by Morse code.
It turns out everything went well and we received our first prize: 2000 European monopoly money. Because Laurence was very trustworthy he kept the money and was made treasurer.
After our win we went happily to sleep, some tents made more noise than others (Michael’s tent). We had to wake up early and even Jesse got up in time.
For our next assignment we had to find a spot marked on the map and at the same time we had to fill 2 trash bags with trash we found along our path.
“Luckily”, people are very good at polluting. Laurence and Melanie easily filled their trash bags with trash while Douwe guided us in the right direction, even if that direction was through all kind paths that city bikes weren’t made for. We easily got to the point in time with full trash bags and received more European monopoly money.
Rik & Rik lead us into the Sahara (Brabant, not Africa) until we find a giant wooden rattlesnake made for Michael and Laurence to play in. We had our lunch there but also an unpleasant surprise.
We had to make our first test, and none of us had studied for the exam! After our initial panic we got ready and made the test anyway. Unfortunately it turned out Bart and Michael weren’t ready enough. They got the least answers right and became part of the (un)dead team.
The rest of the contestants were relieved that we were still alive, and a little bit sad our friends just died, and continued on our way to the next assignment.
We split up 3 people from the team again, Laurence, Melanie and Isolde went with Rik to an observatory tower and the rest went with Rik to the beach to lie in the sand.
Up in the observatory tower Rik suddenly told the 3 people: “give me words”. We began freaking out because there were words everywhere. Did Rik mean “anja hartje floris” or “RIP Chappie”.
After we looked at the beach in the distance we saw that the other people were lying in the sand, but they weren’t just lying randomly. It was meant to be a word. Luckily there was a telescope in the middle of the platform or the assignment would be nearly impossible.
We had fun looking at seemingly bored people changing their position every time we jumped up and down and screamed “YOOOHOOO” across the lake. Some children tried to take the telescope to look at vague buildings in the distance, but we didn’t let them. Our mission was more important!
17 vaguely expressed words later, especially the letter with Perry and Nathan, the time was up and we got our reward.
After fuelling up on some deliciously homemade cake from Rik and refuelling our water we embarked on to the second point on the map; a train station in the town called mol.
The road was treacherous, mainly because of some stupid construction work, and the sun was shining intensely. As you can see Laurence felt like he was truly in the Sahara.
Luckily we had Douwe to show us the way and we made it safely to Mol train station.
Rik & Rik got us some ice cream and we were ready to play our next game. However some personnel didn’t like us running around, even though the train station was literally empty, and we had to leave. Rik & Rik improvised and gave our next location to Michael who used google maps. We could immediately feel the difference from our usual guide Douwe.
On our way back Douwe’s bike broke down, a really committed mol action or just bad luck? Luckily with the heroic efforts from Jesse, and some help from others we got Douwe to the meeting point.
At this point everyone was starving and thirsty because of the long bike trip and merciless sun, so everyone was happy we could eat some fries and snacks. Especially Douwe enjoyed his kaassouflé.
Then the train station game could be held around the lake. 4 runners were picked and the rest were stationed in a circle around the lake. The runner team consisted of Laurence, Michelle, Jesse and Nathan.
After some genius tactic made by Laurence, Nathan discarded the idea and went the other way. Jesse accompanied him.
After running some laps and exchanging some cards, only Perry asked for a 12th card instead of 11 cards like the rest. Only after Laurence pointed out he had an extra symbol drawn on his instructions did he see the problem, suspicious. However, the sabotaging didn’t succeed as the runners did their job and got all the money.
In the evening Rik & Rik invited us to a nice cosy campfire. Only to terrorize us with another test. This time Laurence and Anne forgot to study and failed horribly.
Immediately after the test, the next game began as Michael “the quizmaster” Ladru began to question the remaining contestants with questions related to All Terrain and the contestants. If they die they have to give their envelope with rewards to another person or throw away the money because they don’t trust their friends anymore. Not surprisingly, the majority threw away their envelope because the most trustworthy people were already dead. In the end Michelle earned a total of €-500,-.
The night ended with a sad telegraph road next to a dying fire.
The following day we went to centerparcs where we got into paddleboats in three teams, the undead team and 2 other irrelevant teams. Douwe had to guess which team would win before we started, and the undead team already felt a certain hostility from both sides.
When we kicked off we noticed that one team was holding us back while the other team got farther and farther away. In the end this coordinated cheating helped the contestant to win another 3000 European monopoly money. After that we slowly paddled back to the shore but made a stop so Michael could push Laurence in the water.
The next test came up and this time Isolde and Jeffrey had to cool off and swim away in shame.
After everyone was refreshed we went to the next location for 2 more assignments.
The contestants were busy with the first assignment where they had to do some puzzle game and win money, they succeeded.
At the same time the dead people were bringing out the spirit of Easter by making a RPG world with only fetch quests.
The contestants got their attention grabbed by a hopelessly scared guard in a tree. He lost his sword at Jesus’ grave and would give them 2000 European monopoly money if they gave it back.
Unfortunately, half the group didn’t pay attention to Laurence and wandered off to the other characters.
Isolde was gypsy Maria(not the mother, the side chick) that needed water first to tell them she found the guardsmen’s sword and gave it to the man in red who lives in the forest.
Anne was the scholar that asked difficult Christian related questions so they could have her water bottle.
Bart was the guard of the forest that would only let them through if he got the nice cape from the Easter bunny.
Jeffrey was the Easter bunny that would only give them his cape if they found all his Easter eggs.
Michael was in his forest temple and would only give the sword, my sword, if they stacked some cubes.
After ignoring Laurence, Perry immediately found a joker and fought with Jesse about it. Everyone else was running around and searching for more jokers and eggs.
They finally figured out only Nathan can answer the Christian related questions, which he did hesitantly, while he actually wanted to search for jokers.
After almost choking Jeffrey for his cape and pushing Michael aside to do the puzzle they got the sword and went on a manhunt for Laurence.
Laurence was obviously scared of this insane crowd and tried to hide in a tree, but alas they found him and demanded their money. Laurence “accidently” let the money float into the bushes nearby as he was throwing the money at the angry crowd beneath him. Perry and Melanie quickly went for the money but still “somehow” 500 European monopoly money was lost.
Then it was time to go back and eat and mentally prepare for the next game which involved scary zombies stumbling through the woods. The contestants went into the woods one by one to find envelopes filled with money and jokers.
The undead people had a lot of fun making gurgling zombie noises and blood stilling screeches in the middle of the night. In the end most contestants made it out alive with their lives and sometimes with money as well.
Unfortunately right after the game, the contestants had to make a test again and two more people joined the terrifying undead army; Anika and Douwe were the casualties this time.
The final day was upon us and only 5 more contestants were left from the original 13 brave adventurers.
The second to last game consisted of the undead people to walk in the Sahara with a code on their back. The contestants split up and ran through the woods to find everyone and to solve the puzzle.
I don’t actually know how it ended, so let’s just say they failed horribly and didn’t win anything. And because there is no other perspective you will never know what really happened.
Everyone was anxiously waiting for the final but first we had to kill of 2 more contestants. Laurence was convinced at this point that Perry was the mole. So he was unpleasantly surprised that Perry died. Luckily Jesse also died so it wasn’t all bad.
This meant that only Michelle, Melanie and Nathan were left standing. And one of them was the mole! There was only one more test to go, however if you wanted to make it you had to solve a riddle and then you would get the location.
The contestants got 2 undead people to help them out with the riddle and the navigation to the last location. The 3 teams were:
- Nathan, Michael and Jeffrey.
- Michelle, Isolde and Laurence.
- Melanie, Perry and Jesse.
Only Jeffrey knew how to solve the riddle so team Nathan got a 10 min head start on the other teams.
Michael was asking Nathan all kinds of questions on who he thinks the mole is while Nathan was answering sarcastically. Jeffrey was rolling his eyes in the back. They arrived first on the spot.
Team Michelle was faster than Team Melanie but we stopped for an extremely important emergency (see pictures). We arrived second anyway.
Team Melanie had bad luck as Perry’s bike broke down and they had to spend a lot of time fixing it. They arrived third.
At this point Michael finally understood what was going on, his friend lied to him. He slept in the tent of the mole for 3 days and never had any suspicions. He felt betrayed and heartbroken.
The mole was Nathan, but at what cost…
Melanie had 1 less question right then Michelle, but she had a joker! So they were tied on points! However, Michelle was way earlier, even though we stopped for ice cream, and she got first place anyway.
The winner of the “Wie Is De Mol Weekend” was Michelle!