Cayla Interview: The Amazing Race 33

0:02 Welcome back to the nullified take we've got the tnt takes for you on the amazing race season 33 and i am joined by a very special guest she's one half of the dominant female duo this season i should say on the amazing race 33 kayla thank you for coming on to the podcast how are you doing i'm doing amazing i thank you for having me this is honestly such a surprise and i love getting to share this experience and i mean yeah thank you for having me i can't wait to just dive in yeah well done on all of the content that you and dusty have been putting out all this season as well like i'm one of those podcasters i can't listen to anybody else and their takes because i like it to be raw and authentic especially when i'm watching the episode tonight and that way i can have my own opinion about it normally misinformed because obviously let's be honest we watch an edited show but it's a lot more fun watching it that way then sometimes immediately getting the behind the scenes so if i do ask you anything that you've already clarified or you've already spoken to that on your podcast please excuse me for that i haven't watched all of it no worries no worries well kayla let's start off from the beginning were you a fan of the amazing race before you signed up for this and who was approached first was it yourself or raquel so i was a die hard fan of amazing

1:22 Race i grew up watching amazing race survivor big brother with my mom i mean ever since middle school so i was definitely the fan of the show and raquel she was the one that was actually contacted she was you know in news in chicago and was previously on a show called love connection it was no it was not aired but her name was kind of already circulating she's as you can see great television so no she was actually contacted and she just asked me to be her partner and it's a funny story how that happened because her and i lived together in new york we're both flight attendants based out of new york so there's a brief moment where you know we really didn't spend a lot of time in the apartment we were just go but we had a bachelor night where we all sat down with our girlfriends had some wine watched the bachelor and we were like oh would you ever go on that show or if you could ever be on a show what would you do and like all the girls of course like oh my god i totally do the bachelor you know a bunch of single girls in new york i was like no i want to be on the amazing race i was like oh my god like that'd be so cool it's traveled it's right up my alley no lie maybe two or three weeks later she called me and is like do you was that you that said

2:42 You'd want to be on the amazing race and i was like yeah she was well do you want to be on the amazing race with me and i was like shut up and here we are that's such a crazy story you know and i believe very much that you know the energy and the vibes that you put out there in the universe that sometimes comes back to you so for anybody out there that's listening to this podcast and they think that you know i can't do that show i can't apply or anything like that just put yourself out there right take the risk yes having that conversation with raquel you know ended up with you being on the show so i'm quite interested as someone that was a fan of the show before you went on what was your expectations of it going in and how was it different to what you expected the show to be and i mean i guess this was an unprecedented season right yes yeah so it's really hard i couldn't nothing could have prepared any of us for what was this season you know 33 of the amazing race with covid and the pandemic and everything going on but just being a fan of the show i more so expected you know amazing race bertram he loves the costumes he loves those attention to detail you know the artistic creative challenges so i knew that there would be an element of physicality there but that was where i was gonna rely on raquel like i do see myself as a physical person i've you know played sports but my strengths was in the show and being a fan of the show and that is

4:02 You know the attention to detail the memorization that kind of stuff so i expected it to be honestly like what i watched you know ever since middle school however i did not anticipate and nor could i have prepared for it being the hardest thing i've ever done it's so hard because you know as fans of the show and as like you know just normal human beings we were the average joes of this season like we weren't viral we weren't known for anything we're not comfortable being in front of the camera we were truly average joes and so to fight for a million dollars against the people that we were up against and be on tv for the first time and just put those that enormous pressure on yourself is just something you cannot prepare for but also with that being said it's easy as a fan of the show to be like oh i would have done that or why didn't they do that and like when you're in the moment i talk about it constantly on the podcast with dusty and pitstop podcast you know you have these blinders on where you can only focus on the task in front of you and it's just it's an enormous amount of pressure and people argue that this was not a difficult season because we didn't have you know the airport run-ins or you know catching flights or sitting in a taxi cab with no with traffic or no you know control over where you're

5:23 Going i would take all of those things any day over self-drive because when we came back it was all self-drive and to be in another country with different signage you're on the opposite side of the road more times than not it was stick shift whoa buddy that was unbelievably stressful that no human being can prepare for so well it's funny you mentioned that because obviously as a flight attendant someone that has to navigate you know through airports on a consistent basis i'm well traveled like i've spent time living in america i lived in texas for nine months i lived in london for two years i obviously moved to new zealand originally from south africa and i've traveled to a lot of countries so i know what it's like to be in airports and to navigate and i felt like you guys lost a little bit of that secret sauce that thing that would have given you a heads up compared to other teams when it wasn't there so in a lot of cases it was probably even more difficult because you needed to find a different stream if you thought you had this superpower coming in that was taken away i'm so grateful that you bring that up because sometimes i forget to mention it was a massive strength of ours that you know unfortunately was kind of taken away indirectly not only just the navigation of airports themselves because i feel like those kinds of things

6:43 Could you can figure out and become accustomed to and get better at but more so like the time differences and being on the go and living out of a suitcase and having and running on little sleep and like you know the jet lag just little stuff like that and i mean it was put out there shared over and over again we had to run a different race because of covet and the safety protocols that were put in place where we had 24 to 48 hours where we were covered tested before we could be released again so that's now downtime that other teams and ourselves get but a strength of ours was going to be we can run you know burning the candle at both ends and kind of running on low fumes where other teams kind of had a level playing field because we all got equal rest in a sense where i think the natural go and go that is the amazing race was taken away a little bit so other teams could kind of catch up and get that rest so yeah i think it was such a strength that was indirectly kind of taken away from her cala9 yeah we had to find our strengths in other areas because if people had to go like we normally would have i think they would have worn down a little bit more than obviously it played out so yeah it's interesting you mentioned that i didn't realize that you had 24 hours in between legs and that definitely changes the race quite a bit there was one leg that

8:03 Looked a little bit different compared to most and i believe it was the one after you had the rowing challenge and you guys were sleeping out in tents and a lot of drama happened on that episode which we definitely will get into at some point but how was that different did you still have to quarantine for as long was it still 24 hours living in those tents or was that a little bit of a shorter leg and did you get to at least i guess have some time with some of the other teams in between scenes because one of the things that stood out for me is that in the early seasons we sometimes see teams interact either at the airport or they interact in between legs but we didn't really get to see any of that footage this season yeah so that was a massive point of communication that we got with the teams was that camping episode when we have all this down time we don't get to interact with the other teams so even though we have like you know the 24 hours where we're being coveted and waiting for results so we can safely go out and travel and safely go and run in these countries we're in lockdown i'm with raquel and raquel only you know where there might have been more contacts like you said where there were episodes where people sleep in the airport that's hours that you can have communication with teams and create bonds and alliances that we ultimately didn't have now granted we did have the 19 months of kind of time frame to maybe scope out some people on

9:23 The cast but no that campfire night was by far goes down in my book as my favorite pit stop because we finally got to all interact we are truly like camping in tents alongside a river we had a campfire which there was obviously cameras and a little bit that you get to see on like the youtube channels from amazing race they share a little bit of that but no we got to get to know each other on a personal level because even during the 19 months of covert where we could technically kind of talk and reach out to the other castmates i didn't get to see them like there wasn't travel you know everyone's going through their own thing raquel and i lost our jobs this was truly in the race we are sitting face to face with these castmates that are unbelievably awesome human beings but we're getting to you know get to know them a little bit to where each leg after that was like personal almost you know it's like you were you felt bad someone getting eliminated but you know that's one more down and getting you closer to the finale but it's like that catch 22 i guess but no the best was the campfire because we finally got to interact with everyone and we weren't like locked away in our hotel rooms away from everybody yes i get to talk to a lot of australian survivors from south africa like obviously survivor is a global franchise so i've interviewed quite a lot of them and i had a previous australian survivor

10:43 On the channel last week to recap the latest week of what happened over in australia which was a pretty hectic one as well with a lot of drama but you know one of the things about having a previous player on the show is he spoke about the fact that when you go on these shows you're truly there with people that are you know really unique and that they're eight personalities these are very charismatic people that you want to become friends with so bonds just get created that much quicker out there so i'm kind of interested you mentioned that you finally got that opportunity to talk to different teams and obviously there was 19 months in between where you guys could scope different people out obviously no alliance talk would have happened let's be real you know especially for this podcast definitely that wouldn't have happened but you know you know when you're out there who are the teams that you were closest to and you know obviously you have a podcast now with dusty how surprised were you that you were shown not liking dusty on the edit and they really made a big deal of showing your reaction every time you celebrate it yeah so it's just so funny like i we became so close with everyone but if i had to pinpoint certain people kim and penn definitely were our strongest allies or friends again there were no alliances this season and that's the truth honestly everyone wanted to run their own race and give it their all but with that being said kim and penn were the first team that we met in the

12:03 Charlotte airport when we first started pre-covered and again we're like these two single girls kind of like all over the place just having a good time and like they were truly like our like mom and dad of the race they had this sense of calmness and like looking over us granted they were you know our ultimate downfall in the end but no like kim and pepe can ask a question on that sorry to interrupt your train of thought but it's something that we i had a chat with michelle about this who's my co-host on the channel and kim and peen being these lovely two older people they were like a mom and dad on the race do you think that's what sort of lowered their threat level when they should have been seen as the ultimate target yes i mean i think easily everyone just in their young like egotistical mind or like oh they're like these older this older couple and like sometimes like couples don't always it sometimes brings out the worst in you know a couple team dynamic that definitely would was not the case in kim and you know with kim and penn but i definitely helped it helped them fly under the radar initially coming back from covid i think they didn't fly under the radar so much because people kind of like got to know like okay like they're like comfortable in front of the camera and they know what they're doing and they have such a great awesome relationship between the two of them and if you're a fan of the amazing race you know what wins

13:23 Is a good healthy team dynamic and they had that so yes i definitely think that helped them be underestimated initially for sure to go back to and that kind of that kind of answers the question and i thought it may you know if i was out there i'd probably be the same i'd be like i'm a young guy i can outrun them but they were clearly they had so many skills that just transferred really well to the race and a lot of the roadblocks and things like that came up just go back to the dusty question obviously you know you are close with dusty now you guys do a podcast together how surprised were you that they really honed in on your comments and your facial expression every time dusty was celebrating and living his best life so listen like i am someone like i talk with my hands i talk with my face i can't control it like there's no hiding it my mom is always like your face is gonna speak your truth you know i truly in the moment like i'm best friends with dusty even going back and during that moment i'm best friends with him but we all have this understanding of i want to kick your butt like i want to win i want to beat you and if there's moments of him getting in his head like there were some moments where like i just couldn't help but like poke the bear a little bit you know because he would do the same thing to us like you know before the finale leg he's like i hope you guys realize this is the first time that we're all running together we don't have the 15-minute lag like you

14:43 Know you guys haven't ran this race yet with us on even playing field you're going down today it's like that's just like the competitive nature in us young adults you know as two genuine people that love each other but it's so funny i did get a lot of heat for like the oh they want to show their muscles and whatever that's just my personality like i'm self-deprecating i have poorly timed humor but also from a level of like caring about him he was like foam was like coming out of his mouth smoke was coming out of his ears after that kayak and he's like yeah like you know went from last to third and he's just like he was just so in the moment and so intense where like just the friend of me wanna be like dude that's freaking awesome like smile crack a smile please so it was almost like trying to crack a joke and getting your friend to like get out of that headspace of oh like i was at last and i'm like dude crack a smile you got third you're good you know i obviously caught some heat for it but i don't regret it dusty knows it's all love there but yeah dude i'ma poke the bear where i can because this is a million dollars and however i can get into their head i'm gonna do it yeah listen i fully appreciated that and i think that we went on a journey with your edit both raquel and your editor throughout the season where in the beginning we didn't really get to know you guys as much and as you became this

16:03 Badass all-female team out there really doing well taking names you know even for myself it took a episode or two of digesting this no listen kayla and raquel they're playing to win this thing and you've got to do anything you can to get to the end and win a million dollars like you said it's a lot of money so you know how did you feel about how the fan reception was and how people saw the move where you guys left lulu and lala behind because obviously there was a lot of personal things going on and then obviously you guys made that choice where at first glance i was like man that was that was a dirty move but then in the next recap i was like you know what if i was them i would have done the exact same thing yeah and it's so funny watching back and you know we do a podcast with lulu and lala where they had raquel and i on there just to kind of like explain our side of the things you know in the moment it's so emotional like oh how dare they it was hard for me to kind of speak on it initially because i didn't do that roadblock but now obviously in hindsight raquel picked the only female guide to do that canyoning challenge and when lulu and or sorry lala lulu la i'm still to the state i confuse them but it was lulu raquel and they're doing the roadblock and they had initially had a bond of let's find the clue together because it was like if you passed the clue you had to do it all over again now looking at it that clue is right in front of your face like you can get it now

17:23 Lulu helped untangle it and like you know waited for raquel but to wait for raquel she kind of had to wait for raquel to grab it and hand it down to her so i think it was a miscommunication of we're gonna do the whole four eyes are better than two to find the clue and at that moment raquel's mind she was she was like well once we find the clue i've in a sense like you know completed what we discussed as far as working together but i think the fault initially ends up being on the guide that raquel had she goes okay you have the clue like do you want to go do you want to go faster because like hell yeah i want to go fast and so she's like i honestly just like blacked everything out and my guide was like i'm the only female guide going against these other male guides thank you for picking me and like i want to i want to be smoked my way through it so raquel was like yeah no question let's do it and in hindsight i we truly feel so bad but would we change what we did no because i fully had confidence that lulu was going to be fine and so did raquel to where it wasn't ever a moment of we thought that they would get behind or even get eliminated by us just moving forward in that challenge that kind of stems from just the way that raquel and i view like women empowerment and i know that i'm not going to be

18:44 Not everyone's going to agree with me on this i didn't think that they needed our help i don't think raquel thought that they needed our help in that way you know so for them to kind of be like oh like this is a perfect example of like women not supporting women it was never supposed to be something like that it was just i thought that they were fine raquel were like oh she's got the clue she's good and like we kind of just like never looked back you know i just we feel terrible looking back i guess there should have been more communication of like let's stick together to make sure that the boys don't overcome but then i look at it as like if we stuck together and like if we would have fallen behind on the kayaking like maybe we wouldn't have gotten second again that's a selfish move and it's not gonna be the public favorite but we genuinely that's why we didn't do alliances i wanted to root for lulu and lala and we were all about girl power but i wanted to run our own race me being a fan season 32 not a fan favorite you know like a lot of people had these alliances that carried them through and i was like i don't want that if i'm gonna make it to the final i want it to be because of raquel and i's performance i feel bad about it but i completely understand where they're coming from and where that was kind of a letdown on our end i apologized for it was never deliberate but i mean it's just that's the race man we were i think the real ones i think the real ones

20:04 Understand and like i said i mean i had to check myself even because when that happened immediately lulula was my favorite team this season so i was like how dare you do that to my girls you know and then and then i had to wait for the next episode and i was like you know what i can't blame them for it and it's kind of where double standard sometimes comes in because if this was two guys teams out there would it have been seen in the same way i don't know people would have just said it's a ruthless cutthroat move and they're gonna go to the end and potentially win the season now talking about being an all-girl team out there you know i had a conversation with lulula last week where they spoke about some of the difficulties of being an all-female team that i as a viewer didn't even appreciate or realize because it didn't make its way onto the camera necessarily but she mentioned that there were some cultural shocks when you went into certain countries when it came to communicating with locals and things like that and she said that they had an experience of that in greece and potentially you guys had something similar as well but they didn't want to talk to that what specifically happened out there and what made it difficult as an all-girl female to navigate through some of these countries that culturally are a little bit different i guess to america yeah so lulu and lala had a unique experience just because one they look identical and so i think for like two females to be running up to like a group of males in greece it was just a little bit like whoa like what's coming at me you know and then there's cameras and you know all that good all that stuff

21:24 But the experience that we kind of had you know like when you're in the us it's just it's almost like just like that social awareness it has nothing to do with the culture it's just we got lost at one point in greece or we had to like take a wrong turn and raquel and i were very much so like before we ever make a turn let's stop and ask someone it might take a second but i'd rather take a second to get hey we're still going in the right direction opposed to take 15 minutes because we went in the wrong direction and yeah just in greece just where we were specifically it was heavily male dominated like i don't think other than the woman who served us the souvlaki at mamos i don't think i saw a female every single person we asked directions from was a male and again like we're obviously foreign we have cameras behind us it was almost like a play it safe i don't know like i don't want to help you kind of thing to where it was it was kind of hard getting assistance yeah just because we were two females coming up to them that clearly weren't local in the end i don't think it had a big play and like the outcome but it was the first time where i was like ooh like i this is i don't think very comfortable for the men of greece that we ran up to like in that setting

22:45 So yeah it's interesting it's the things that you don't necessarily realize as a fan you watch the show that sometimes there can be these differences in different countries that can make it very difficult to race and it's i think it's a subtlety really that i didn't pick up on at all how did you feel about you know as a fan playing this show being out there potentially missing out on so many other locations like for instance asia as a continent you know africa south america there's a few places you couldn't go to obviously you would have been happy just to play the show to begin with but do you feel like you know you missed out somewhat and would this make you hungry to go back and do the amazing race again so my initial my initial reaction going back knowing that we had to do it in a coveted safeway i was like oh like i was really hoping yeah to go i wanted to go to south africa i wanted to go to places in asia that i hadn't been to like new zealand i was just like i just wanted to go to those countries that are so vastly different from my own country you know but then the first place we went all staten in switzerland it was just breathtaking and i'd never seen that before and then we went to lugana switzerland which i never heard of breathtaking then corti corsica breathtaking tour like initially i was like oh we don't get to go to these places and then i very quickly humbled myself

24:05 Down and was like i've never heard of any of these cities i've never been to this these areas of these countries and i wouldn't be here nor would i ever find out about them if it wasn't for the amazing race you know and that's what i love about the show is it just it brings light to so many new places in this world that i would have never known you know does it leave me with that hunger of like i want to go to just because again europe for the most part is a little bit more comfortable for americans maybe i shouldn't make that blanket statement i'll let people speak for themselves but just as someone who travels like europe is a pretty comfortable place in my opinion to travel whereas like if i were to go to south africa and these places in asia where you just see these absolutely blatant culture difference it would have been exciting i wanted that and so does it leave me with a little bit hope that like they would they would ask me back and i get to see some of those things i hope so but yeah my initial reaction i was a little disappointed but then i very quickly was like oh no these are epic locations like unbelievably beautiful like bertram and elise like 10 out of 10 like blew it out of the water with the places that we got to go to yeah i think south africa you'd be fine like you'll find that the culture as a south african having lived there for 18 years of my life growing

25:25 Up and still i go back i go back very often like i go like obviously at the moment i can't because everything's locked down for new zealanders we're not allowed to travel as much at this stage but you know i will go back probably at some stage in the middle of this year or the end of this year it's very western to a big degree it's still got its roots and it's got the african culture to it but i think you would find it easier to navigate but there are certain areas in africa like if you were to go mid or central africa where there would be a big cultural shock you know because it will be very different and similar to countries like certain asian countries where the language that they speak isn't english you know and that could be interesting but you guys did i guess experience a little bit of that language barriers in some of the european countries as well yes we experienced it in greece we experienced it in portugal lisbon honestly even in glasgow scotland the accent that they had was so unbelievably thick that getting directions was probably the hardest throughout like looking back hindsight glasgow was actually the hardest country for us to communicate in because of that thick accent but that's the stuff that i love you know and that's the stuff that i wanted to experience like going on the show and it might not have been to the caliber of what i had initially anticipated but my

26:45 Expectations were still blown out of the water for sure now i know that you're not a fan of sardines and you said you would rather not eat it but if you had to choose between the sardines and the mega cheese which way would you go oh that's so hard because i didn't actually have to eat the sardines but when you look at the can when phil like opened it up i was like oh i probably picked the sardines because at least those look more moist like y'all this maggot cheese was so dry it lingered in my mouth the whole day so it wasn't like oh i did it i put it down we can move on no like the rest of the day like tmi i was like burping it up and it was just like you when you put your mask on it's like right in your nose i was like oh it was horrible i would pick the sardines for sure i honestly would probably pick sardines over vegemite too i know that's like an australian thing but like i'm like not for me again i'm not from australia or new zealand originally i don't get the vegemite thing either but like saying that out loud they might just take my citizenship back and kick me out of the country sorry to put you in that position now you mentioned quite a few locations that you travel to over in europe like if you were to talk to fans that watch the show and give them a little bit of advice in regards to those countries which ones would you i guess want to travel back to or say this is like

28:05 The highest one on the list you've got to see it the switzerland one to me was amazing with the mountain by the way where you could see all the different countries in one spot i would imagine that would be pretty high up is there any other locations that you would say this is a must if you ever get to europe the two hands down lugano switzerland it is on this massive lake that across the way is italy stunning like literally took my breath away like i was just like everywhere i was looking it was just this tropical magical place in switzerland across from italy i was like what where am i we actually some of the cast and i we have a plan to go to lugano to do a little vacation but the second place was corty corsica it was it's just these insane marble cliffs that are ancient i mean ancient and it almost looks like the buildings are like carved out of the stone of the cliff it was you're just so high up and it's just like that coastline and i'm just big on like i want like a vast difference in what i'm used to and that corti corsica was just so ancient is like the word i just keep coming back to that you truly i just felt like i was like in this magical fairy

29:25 Tale like land i was like where am i you know where that lugano was just that like beautiful tropical like this is where i want a vacation and have a cocktail so lugano and corti corsica hands down i will be going to both 100 i'll remember that if i go to i've got plans to go to france in 2023 and maybe do a little bit of a european trip as well so i'll remember if i do forget i'll reach out to you guys to remind me of the two names of where i should go visit when i go over there i wanted to ask you obviously you guys you know went through a little bit of difficulty losing your jobs during this period of time and you know coming back to the race how difficult of a decision was it to come back do the race with everything that happened at home everything that went on over the last couple of years was this something that you guys took quite a while to decide yes this is right for us and then secondly who were you shocked not to see come back so it actually did take us a little bit a little back and forth i was always gung-ho of i want to go back i will go back like i hope they bring us back raquel was a little bit more so yeah we went through like a really hard time mentally just losing our jobs and granted we got them back within a year because of like the government grants that the us gave and you know just the way that the airlines were able to recover themselves

30:46 But we went into it going furlough being told this could take years for you to go you to get you know get your job back where we were like we had quit our previous careers to become flight attendants and so we were like what are we gonna do like we had to move back home with our parents it was just like a complete shift of what we knew to be our day-to-day life and that day-to-day life encompassed travel so not only did we just lose our jobs but now you're gonna take away the travel aspect of it and i don't mean to sound insensitive but like it's really just like how we identified with ourselves was being able to travel and be on the go and see new countries and see new cities and that's being taken away because of this pandemic so add on now i don't have a job to where when we were asked back it was an easy decision in the sense of wait we get to travel again like they found a safe way to do this like yes like please like we want to go back with the also the added element of we did struggle mentally with kind of like our identity and like we did we lost our careers and can we go back and be on camera like is this going to be socially accepted that we're traveling again but again cbs an amazing race and elise and bertram found this unbelievably safe way to do it to where not a single person caught covid just

32:06 The protocols they had set in place to where it was such an easy decision because the second we got back and we got on the plane i could see it in raquel like she's my best friend i know her and i saw i was like we like feel like ourselves again like we're on a plane going to another country which we haven't done in 19 months like we're getting a piece of like our identity back like the amazing race was just a bonus but like just getting be able to like travel again it was a no-brainer for us but the people that i was really shocked that didn't come back were spencer and anthony i think that they were a massive threat a big physical male duo and they had honestly like run the race with such ease i was shocked i was shocked that they weren't back i also was shocked that coach and connie weren't back when i found out why that obviously made sense coaching connie had a baby little elijah rock but they just had such this hunger for like they wanted to win and they were one of the first teams we saw in the airport so when they weren't back i was like what do you mean coach isn't back like where is he at like i know he wants this million you know so those were the two teams i was disappointed and shocked that weren't back i feel like we as fans really missed out not seeing those teams come back they were two early favorites

33:26 Of mine as well so i hope we do to see them in a future season and they can make an exception for some of these players that didn't get to finish their race i do want to ask you know you guys came back and did extremely well like you had a third fourth and a sixth place in the beginning but then you just consistently started kicking butt like going to second place second place two first places leading into the finale you know what is it that you guys went and worked on and did you work on anything when you went on to this break because you had a very unique opportunity where other races have never had the ability to go on the race see what their streams and weaknesses are get a bit of a taste for it and then get to go and work on it yeah so the biggest thing was the driving and navigating initially when we went on the show raquel did not know how to drive stick i did i like learned that was like one of the first ways i learned how to drive a car when i was like 14.

34:21 So i knew how to drive stick so i was like that's gonna be me like we'll figure out the navigation but then it was funny when we go on she's like kayla i don't know how to read a map and i was like what this is gonna be a problem as it showed in scotland but that when we went home and were asked back i was like raquel you have got to learn how to drive stick because i can a map is my best friend i'm like the biggest nerd ever like when i go to like touristy destinations i know i can use my phone i'm like do you guys have a map somewhere like i just love a freaking map i will like i'm obsessed so i was like i want to navigate i want you to drive because i'm also from the south i'm like a 10-2 grandma kind of driver whereas like she grew up in chicago she's like laying on the horn going over curbs like she's the more aggressive one it was the best change for us just from a mental standpoint too like i was supposed to do the bagpipe challenge and everyone talks about how our roadblocks were off balance and we went into it wanting to alternate but i was so stressed out from driving in scotland and getting lost and her not being able to navigate and just the stick shift looking on the opposite side of the road to where when we get to the bagpipes i'm like raquel you have to do it that was not initially our plan so the driving we got to correct that

35:41 Which majorly came into play but other than that we just learned to slow the race down a little bit raquel has a very good way of sitting with things and she's like let's not overthink it pause it's almost like the you know the whole turtle saying like you know this the slowest what's that turtle phrase the slowest one wins the race or something yeah something like that yeah i obviously the slowest one doesn't win the race but when you slow it down and read the clue and pick the right partner to do a roadblock or what are the two detours like a big one for us in lugano was the sausage and case or bartender race both of us bartended when we got fired or furloughed from american to our hasteful us would have been like oh let's just do bartender race that sounds fun we'll do wine it'll be great but then we're like hold on 12 bottles of wine and we have to get them from two different locations and carry them like sausage and cases get them at one it's like we learned in hindsight for 19 months of the race doesn't have to be as complicated and as stressful as it was if we slow it down and take our time and like think about how do we put our best foot forward and like ignore everything else and we really did that we reflected on each leg and kind of made corrections as we went

37:02 It definitely showed like i said when you guys came back you did extremely well consistently there was that improvement throughout and i was going to ask you about the roadblocks which were a little bit unbalanced what was the strategy in regards to deciding who would do what roadblock so we were going to try and keep it 50 initially but then we very quickly were like we have to be more smart about this because just going back and forth one or the other like we need to play to our strengths and the strengths that we divvied up were she was gonna be the muscle like the physical stuff because we're both physically capable but she definitely has more upper body strength and it's just more getting the job done whereas the other challenges which would be attention to detail memorization create creativity like i was gonna be the strong one in that sense just because i've watched the show before so i know just like the domades i should have done that like i would have known you have to plate them the right way or the veins have to be a certain way but like that's just that comes with being an avid fan and watcher of the show which raquel wasn't so our strategy in it was if it's physical raquel's gonna do it if it's attention to detail it's gonna be me

38:22 But again these roadblock clues they don't say hey who wants to roll some domades hey who wants to go bungee jump they're very cryptic so we had to learn when we get to a place and get a clue that says roadblock let's look at our surroundings like where are we how can we use what our surroundings are to make the best guess of is this going to be physical or is it going to be like detail-oriented so again you can have a strategy going into it and that would be the biggest thing that i would say to anyone who hopefully wants to be on the amazing race or how do you prepare you can prepare but these clues are so cryptic it's almost hard to divvy up who's gonna do what roadblock michelle if you're listening to this interview that's what you need to pay attention to michelle has applied many times for australian amazing races she's gotten fun the casting process a few times and i'm sure she'll get on so eventually i think that you know attention to detail was also in my opinion ryan and dusty's biggest flaw in the game because they just seem to run at 120 all the time in every single challenge and i'll definitely ask dusty a little bit about that as we do the interview with them one of the things i wanted to say is you keep underestimating yourself when it comes to strength i was extremely impressed when you picked raquel up to get the clue from out of the tree and in that podcast i said kayla for the challenge

39:43 I know the challenge cbs is coming pretty soon i don't know if you're a fan of the challenge or any you mentioned survivor you've mentioned some of the other shows out there reality tv in general is this something have you closed the chapter on this are you open to other opportunities in the future i hope to god not i haven't closed it i am just i'm such a fan of this stuff you know again my mom got me into it i watched the challenge because of my mom and i know that appeals to like you know the younger crowd and stuff but no like i hope i hope to god that this is not the closing door for me that's why i was so emotional at the end of amazing race like i looked at this as like a once in a lifetime opportunity and like now that i got a taste of it i'm like i can do this like i can do this stuff but yeah it's just like in my nature like i'm self-deprecating like i don't want to be that overconfident cocky person i was shocked raquel couldn't lift me up i'm like okay i know i know i ate a lot for dinner last night but like you should be able to lift me up on your legs i was like i got this no i'm definitely i would like to consider myself a physical threat but oh my god i just again i've been such a fan of big brother amazing race the challenge it's just so funny you know being a fan and like a normal a normal person you don't ever picture

41:03 Yourself as getting that opportunity so let me tell you when that doorbell rings my bags will be packed i'll be ready to go i will at least tell you that like please well you did it the right way around you went onto a show first and then started a podcast i did it the wrong way around i'm talking about the shows before i go on there so i'm doomed from day one if any real super fan listens to any of the podcasts that i talked to i'm sending the good vibes your way i'm getting good energy you would be entertaining like i hope i hope i see you know maybe they'll be like a war of the worlds amazing race and you'll get on you know the new zealand one and it'll be a whole thing the challenge australia get at me right welcome i'll come i'll meet you at war of the worlds when we do the challenge you know so but no kayla it's been so much fun talking to you i really appreciate you spending this time with me today i know you've got a pretty busy schedule on that side do you want to give the fans maybe a little bit of a heads up where they can follow you any projects that you may be able to talk about that you can publicly make available i know you've got quite a few things going on at the moment this is all your opportunity to plug it yeah so i mean personally if you want to follow me on instagram it's at kayla lee but yes i do this podcast with dusty and originally it started to do like recaps of you know our season of the amazing race but we honestly just like fell in love with the experience and we felt like we kind of had a knack for it

42:23 We're both fans of shows and you know kind of doing what you do it's so inspiring and it's pit stop podcast you can find it on youtube but we also have an instagram as well for that it's at pitstop underscore podcast underscore and we're here to answer questions guys again we're the average joes this has been an incredible experience and if you guys you know don't get your answers from our podcast if you decide to choose and listen to that shoot us an email it's pitstop podcast33 gmail.com it's dusty harris and myself so one of us will get back to you because yeah this is such a cool thing and we want to share it with the world and i can't thank you enough personally chris and just everyone out there who's just been an outpour of support and love and kindness it's been unforgettable honestly like this has been so much fun well i'll keep a very close eye on your podcast channel obviously i love podcasting myself as well so really looking forward to see what you guys talk about next on there so guys go and give them a follow i will make sure to put the links in the description of this video as well so you can easily find it kayla this has been great just as i close off if you stay for one minute i'll have a chat with you afterwards as well guys please hit the subscribe button if you like this hit a like on this we are on

43:43 Our way to 500 subscribers now on youtube which is a massive achievement for a small podcast that only started about six weeks ago and when we get there we are gonna make an australian survivor buff available i know it's not amazing race necessarily but those things are very rare they go for about 750 on ebay at the moment so a decent chunk of change even if you don't want to hold on to it which i would recommend you do because there was only 100 of these made so that will become available to one of the listeners of this podcast and we'll catch you guys next time and thanks as always bye