Natalia & Arun Interview: The Amazing Race 33

0:01 Welcome back to the nullifier tech we've got the tnt takes for you on the amazing race 33 myself and michelle are joined here today by aruna natalia from the amazingrace33 hello guys how you doing thanks for having us we're so excited to be here today it's so exciting it's nice to see you guys very excited to talk to both of you i just mentioned prior to going live i noticed you guys have started your own channel as well where you're doing recaps of your own experience on the show how's that experience been like dipping your toes into the podcasting realm and have you enjoyed it is there more to come from the aruna natalia recaps channel yeah it's been nice being able to relive the episodes and going into those details and i was saying like major props to all the podcasters out there because we're learning all the like how hard editing is and putting things together so just major props to everyone out there but it's been really nice being able to share kind of our side of the story the behind the scenes details that you don't sometimes see you do you do a great job on editing for having done it for the first time you do a good job we started with one recap and we went back to the race and then people said why don't you guys do this so we started doing it and we like it actually yeah we were planning on doing initially and then we're like oh we like sharing our story this is good this is fun do you find it's like

1:21 Therapy to talk about what you went through and you know you can control a little bit of the narrative as well because obviously on a show like the amazing race it gets edited in a certain way so it gets made to be you know people look at you in a certain way due to that edit we spoke myself michelle spoke a lot about akbar and cherie and how akbar was being perceived due to the edit is it good for you guys to be able to get out there and talk about it and really put your own stamp on this as well and how did you feel about your edit on the show the edit on the show was that we are going to get lost in every leg yes that was just being that's the story they created that's what the edit is going to be the first two episodes we said oh okay that's but then we knew that's going to be the story that arun and natalie are going to get lost in every leg even though that was not the case all the time but we wanted to let everybody know our side of the story what exactly happened so that people understand we are not stupid or dumb we know how to read math we did make mistakes we do agree but the edit always is going to be different yeah and we're not great navigators we're not going to say we're like the best navigators in the world but there was definitely times where like we did not get lost in the edit made it seem like we were getting lost and i think the one time we got really lost was switzerland but after that we didn't get like a majorly

2:41 Lost but that was the edit you know showing us when other teams did get lost in certain areas they would always you know show us bumbling around but yeah it was so funny when you know chris would say how do you think aruna natalia are gonna go next week and i'm going do they have to drive anywhere to get in a car if they have to there may be a problem there was i think you're in greece this is the best this is the best i was screaming at the screen because you were trying to direct dad and you he was he was just having a go at you and say is it straight left or straight right and i'm like what do you mean straight left or straight right how can it be straight and left all right and natalia you're in the backseat going you're saying something that was totally not answering his question and i'm like then he's not gonna know where to go he's just gonna go a long way right and i wanna talk about navigating for the back seat as someone that's shorter sometimes it was hard for me to like see the science and then you have like the camera person so i'm like trying to see the signs from the back seat so i think that was just one interesting like thing just navigating from the back but yeah i think if you're talking about the fork where it's like it works right and it forks but if you look at it we were already in the loft lane

4:01 So that's where i was like go straight we're in the left lane but i mean clearly you know left take the left but on the floor see they took all the footage and they edited in such a way they showed that correct and a lot of times natalia is go there i said where so it was just when you're under stress that's what happens and it's easy for us to sit on the couch when we were watching the race and say how dumb these people can be then when you're really racing then you realize how difficult it is yeah and i understand because i've done a couple of races where we have to drive and i'd finish it a challenge and then i just i was a driver i just start driving and they would say hang on we don't know where we're going and i said but we've got to be quick i'm driving now you just tell me where to go hurry up tell me where i'm going and they would i would stress them out seriously because i just want to drive it's very successful to do navigation and self-driving and manual and in a foreign country and trying to be there on time so it's everything adds up yeah i think we probably have a better appreciation than most casual fans that watch the show because we've interviewed a few races now we've i've interviewed quite a few survivors from different countries that have played the game and you always get that different appreciation that a show can

5:21 Be edited in a certain way to make you feel about a team or a person in a certain way when they're out there so i always try and be as cautious as possible when i commentate but you still want to commentate and have fun with it and lean into the edit a little bit when you're watching the show it's half of the fun right exactly the truth is that we didn't do good job in navigation and that's where we landed where we landed if we had a better navigation and better driving thing we would have been in a much better position so but for us luck this season was all that self-driving and navigation yeah because we looked at it like our best legs were like the ones we weren't self-driving our second leg in london we went from nine to third and then the corsica leg with the cheese making we were shuttled around and we were able to come back from being glass so it didn't have an effect on us because if you look at the race we have done good in challenges it's the only thing the most important thing is going from one point to the other in the race and we didn't do a good job yeah and it's interesting it was a very different race i do want to backtrack a little bit because i feel like we've gone quite deep into your race already but i want to go back to the beginning right who sort of got approached to do the race that you guys both apply for the race and also were you fans of you know the amazing race before you actually did it yeah i think we were actually the only team that had applied

6:41 Our season so i had applied in 2016 with my fiance at the time my now husband and i got a call three years later from the casting director was not expecting it because i forgot we had applied thought it was like a joke ended up being actual and they were interested in my fiancee he couldn't take time off but he found out that i had blind and he was pissed no she didn't tell you we've been making our family we've been watching the races i mean we've watched every episode of the race and even my wife is a bigger fan than us and we had always wanted to send an audition tape and natalia kept saying oh we'll do it dad we'll do it dad and then when she told me that the race people had called me i said when did you send the tape what so you literally screwed me over you didn't want to do that i didn't think we were ever gonna be called back so but so he's like well tell them he's available so i was like well if you want a father-daughter pair like my dad's available and they he has so much energy i actually she had told the producers no we can't do the race and when she told me i said call the producers and tell them my dad wants to go but they wanted to know how fit i am good to go on the race once they seen some

8:01 Of the picture they said yeah i think he can audition let's get it going yeah then we went through the one week audition we were flown out to la and we there was actually two rounds of auditions before we were in the very last round of auditions i think lulu and lala were with us and raquel and kayla but it was actually right before we ended up started filming so we had like four weeks from when we found out oh you're gonna be on the race to like actually going out and starting back and forth not much time to prepare for an amazing raid at this age you did extremely well in the in the physical department we'll definitely ask you a bit about that as we continue on here i just want to say hello to a few people here in the live stream as well so mark has jumped in the live stream mark welcome to the live stream we've got lovable nikki veronica as well and lovable nicky saying that's a great addition story and i listen i loved you guys as a team this season because i can relate arun to your story as a person who's immigrated from south africa to new zealand where i live now you know i know what it takes to move from one country to another country to try and get better opportunity and you move to a place where you don't know anyone i'm assuming you know and you have to grind and you know move yourself up in the world and there's no mom and dad here to help you on this side so i related so much to your story

9:22 What was it like for you guys to do this race together as a father and daughter team and especially because this race was so different i'm assuming you had a lot of down time in between legs and things like that how has your relationship changed and i'm assuming it was already very good prior to going into the race but how did that change for you guys to spend time together doing this thing yeah it sounds very cliche but we keep saying like we didn't think we're already very close so we didn't think oh this can't make us any closer we're very close but it does because we hadn't really been in like such high pace like this high adrenaline situation and just having to sort through that together just understanding communicating better together really brought us closer and then the hotel rooms i think we did get on each other's nerves a little bit in the hotel rooms like especially our season every other day we would get cover tested so there's a lot more 24 hours you're stuck in the hotel room and so i think that we're like after a while after a couple weeks in we're like okay i think i'm sick of you at this point but it's i mean it's an incredible experience that we will never forget so you have a lot of time then in the hotel rooms to go over your notes and that is beneficial considering you know other seasons they don't have all that time so yeah something about the relationship is

10:42 That normally it's the father-daughter correct so they think culturally in indian community the father is the boss and he she has to listen to everything that's not the way we ran the race we during the race we were equal partners we had strengths and weaknesses we worked on it so that's that's i think one of the things which we learned is that we can trust each other as a team and run a good race yeah so yeah and i noticed that definitely i could see that you guys were able to you know go back and forth and bounce off each other and i do have funny enough i don't know if you guys are aware but there's a very large and i think it's pretty much everywhere in the world now because south africa has got a very large indian community outside of south africa but auckland new zealand there's a massive indian community here as well so i've got a lot of friends who are indian so i know that traditional indian dynamic between the parents and their kids and i understand that and appreciate i could see it was very different it was very almost american you would say in regards to how your partnership wasn't clearly you were influenced a little bit by i'm assuming growing up natalie did you were you sort of born in america were you quite young when you moved to america yeah what was your backstory yeah i was born in india and i came to us when i was like three years old so basically like grew up in the united states

12:02 In michigan but yeah like growing up even he was did not have that stereotypical indian dad like just like he was like do what you're passionate about like you don't have to go into a certain field because that's kind of like the field that everyone goes into or just like whatever you like just pursue what makes you happy and i really appreciated that aspect of it and i didn't want it to do just because the typical indian family does certain things i just wanted her to live her life and that's the way i was brought up and those are the things which i installed in saying that hey be your own person but the mom is always going to make sure that you're in line so i was a good cop and mom was bad so but she's been she's just been a blessing she's been so independent and i couldn't ask for anything more from her good morning jimmy to you as well guys that are in the live stream here if you've got any questions feel free to ask them and if they're relevant we definitely will put them up and ask them to render natalia as well i did want to ask now you guys mentioned a little bit about working together and this dynamic and strategy that you had within the game to have an equal partnership you obviously did the first part of the league you ultimately had to go home there was a bit of a down period how did you change your strategy

13:22 Compared to what you did previously because clearly you guys would have thought about this i'm assuming and how much time did you have to prepare to do this like were you aware very early on in the process that you could potentially come back or was this again a last minute thing where they said hey listen we need an extra team to come back are you guys willing to do it so the thing is we didn't think we would go back on the rest there was a little bit of a hope that we might but we just gave up hope we carried on with that with the covet me being in the restaurant industry with no staffing i literally was working 80 hours a week so we were not thinking about the race when we got the call back we actually we got a call back only four five weeks before the race started so really no time to prepare but we were just happy and excited to get the second opportunity yeah they had called us i think like it was like six weeks before and said oh there might be an opportunity for you to come back at like pit stops and things like that we're like it's kind of weird yeah and then i think they were trying to gauge our availability and then i think like four or five weeks before they're like okay you're officially on the race they're like why like it was just so exciting because we had that little bit of hope but we didn't know and so we weren't like other teams were taking these 19 months right to like prepare and things like that we weren't because we didn't think we were gonna go back and so we were like okay prep time now like

14:42 What do we really need to focus on and like you mentioned that scotland leg you know it was really big downfall for us so one thing is just we realized that we can't be too nice to each other even though we were trying to be equal partners someone had to put their foot down so that was kind of the dynamic that changed a little bit and then also you know we wanted to make sure we were practic we did practice navigation a little bit before we went surprisingly it's different when you're actually on the race but we wanted to have more of a strategy on how we were going to approach navigation going into it and we also practice dancing so we did the father-daughter dance and she just wanted to do a boring dance i said no we need to spice it up i don't know if you guys have had a chance to watch i've seen it so we did practice some dancing and we didn't really have much time compared to the other teams so but we were just happy and excited to get the second opportunity yeah super good yeah i'm running through the dance in my head now i'm just thinking of you around doing this bit [Laughter] so quite interested you know you guys had obviously come back you had a strategy for how you were going to take on detours and roadblocks what was the strategy who would do what type of challenges i'm assuming that you would have said you're better

16:02 At doing potentially memory or puzzle you're better doing physical what was the strategy there and how closely were you guys able to follow it because i'm sure you go in with a plan to these types of races you've got an expectation and as soon as you get out there everything goes out of the window because you're under high pressure right we actually did a good job because the strategy was anything physical that i would do and anything artistic or anything to do with smarts memory puzzles we're talking about book smarts not street smartness so i would do the physical aspect of the challenges and i think we did a good job sticking to it so if you go look back at the roadblocks i've done all the physical ones and you have done most of the yeah i was kind of jealous because he his reasoning why you want to do the physical ones because they tend to be more of the adrenaline ones and he's like he has a lot less of life to live so he wanted to experience all these things he's like you have time to do that like the canyoneering thing like i really wanted to do that helps or the alps too but he's like he wanted to experience these things so i you know for those things when we need i was impressed arun i just want to say with the canyon thing that you had to run through the water and i was impressed you had some pace on you were you were passing people on there like crazy you're very fit for your

17:22 Age and you know is there any other you know reality tv adventure shows that you'd like to go on because i feel like you'd fit in pretty well hey my next thing is to go on survivor i'll do my best to get on survivor i will see what happens so that's what i want to go on next yeah and natalia you do you have any aspirations to do is this is this it for you or are you going to do something would you put your hand up to do another type of reality tv show i always said amazing race is probably the one reality show i would do but you never know if there's something that's interesting i would definitely be up for him always we're very competitive so any challenge we're always so would you do something like challenge i don't know i don't know i would probably do something that like survivor interests me i don't know about this like as you saw in scotland like i'm very nice that's probably my weakness is very i like to help people and when people saw me helping like for instance of the bagpipes that's her personality she can't so then i might like i would like i would want to do it to prove to my like alter ego that i could have that kind of like social like conniving kind of a personality as well in a reality show so i that's kind of yeah i'd be interested in doing something like that with more of like the social because i think i like to do survive because i think i have the skill set whether being social i can deal with being with no food for days i don't have a problem

18:43 I could sleep anywhere so i don't need any comfort so i think i will be well-suited to be on survival what we're all doing looking at you around there was a drone shot and it was i think it was to start when there was the last four teams and you like he phil said go or someone said go and you just ran so fast out of there i actually rewound it just to watch you again because you were so fast and i'm like oh my god he's like 50 something and he's just pelting out of there so you do really well i think i'll survive actually i was so proud of myself because i thought i'm gonna be a physically i might be in hindrance but i was able to keep up with that and i don't go to any gym i don't go work out or anything all i do is work and but i played sports in my living i played a lot of cricket i've played softball baseball so i used to be very fit during my younger days and i continued to keep myself fit you missed playing qriket moving to america i didn't play much but i played at a very high level back in india if you guys know of anil kumble do you guys know of the if you know cricket anil kumble we used to play on the

20:03 Same team oh wow it's like a national sport are you kidding me south africa so i know what you're talking about you know new zealand's got a pretty good qriket team at the moment as well i think they're up in the top two or three and test cricket at the moment in the world so yeah qriket is a big thing over here but i can imagine it would be a bit of a cultural shock moving to america and it not being a big thing and especially how long ago did you move to america arun like how many years have you lived there i've been here since 95 so i used to work on the cruise ship before that so basically i've traveled around the world and so i've seen a little bit of the world yeah because the world's gotten a bit smaller it's easier now with the internet you can you can watch qriket anywhere in the world you can you know watch it on demand but i think back then it would have been a lot harder to probably stay up to date with everything and in america what's your sport of choice do you watch sports in america now have you got a new sport of choice over there now football is football and golf i watch a lot of football i'm crazy but i'm a big detroit lions fan and i watch either golf or football i watch any sports even curling anything any sport he loves boards it's not really a sport now i know now i know who i

21:23 Who i have to get on the line if i want to because i still find it hard to understand american football and the rules because it's not a big thing outside of america you know i've been trying to get into it so many times but it's just complicated you know so i now know each message so much strategy into american football it's crazy i mean you it's just so much into it yeah now you both mentioned that potentially you know a show like survivor potentially could be something that you'd like who's the players that you know i'm assuming you guys have watched not just the amazing race but survivor and other shows as well who's the players that you would play the most like you know i know you'd play your own game but who would you know like to emulate if you if you could play the perfect game out there and arun will start with you who do you think you'd be able to play like i would play like ozzie robotic i'm sorry would you be the provider or the challenge beast i would be a combination of the thing depending on where early on i just want to stay low and later on prove that i could do well in challenges so i would not start off very strong to start the ming i don't race or start the survivor season lovable nikki i said this season ahead so many wonderful teams arun natalie you're so positive

22:43 I cannot stop smiling and we have had like your cast has been so great to talk to as a whole everybody we've spoken to have been so positive natalia i want to give you an opportunity as well who would you play like if you were out on survivor yeah that's a hard question i think don't judge me from the last season i think i would probably stay a little bit under the radar to start with and then i think just give it all after like merge and try to yeah try to play that social game and like i think i would try to like have like little mini alliances and try to like cover all my grounds and just be very sociable with everyone and i don't think people would notice kind of that and that kind of be my strategy yeah i think that if you go like i mean you guys know more than me you've already been casted for a show but i feel like if you go and try and get cast of one of these shows that's the exact opposite of what you tell them you would do if you're out there you're like no i'll play like drea i'll just go and cut everybody change alliances lift right and center you know i'll go down the flames and then when i win the million dollars i'll put it all on black over in vegas you know that's what that's the kind of people they want to see on the show going back to the amazing race though who are the teams out there and we talked about your cast members being you know lovely people we've had the opportunity to speak to lulu and lala we've spoken to kayla and dusty so far as well and raquel will be next as well on the podcast

24:03 Which i'm looking forward to who are the people that you don't even need to mention them specifically but who are the people that you gravitated to the most while you were out there and you know how much opportunity did you get to connect with other contestants out there because i know the show was a little bit different it was a little bit harder to in between legs really connect with people so for us actually we didn't get any opportunity to do any associate with any teams because we were eliminated and then i'm guessing the other teams kept in touch so they were much closer when we went back they were happy that we came back because without us the race wouldn't have continued but at the same time we always had that saying that they've not didn't hate us but they were just there if there was a youtuber and we would we were probably the team that was going to be u-turn and we knew it you know we were getting a lot of the chances and things like that i think yeah before coming in like the teams we it was kind of intimidating because we knew that once we got eliminated in scotland a lot of those that those days after we got eliminated the teams had got an opportunity to get really close so we knew coming in we were kind of like with mike and bo the outsiders because we had bonded a lot with mike and mo because we went to sequester and so coming into that we knew we were kind of at the bottom but when we

25:23 Did come back we got to go camping we got to spend a lot of other time with those teams and we really bonded and got really close during it we are very close to the other teams just to say we really thought kim and penn were the most well-rounded team so we basically knew that unless they didn't do something stupid that they would win the race because when you look at the overall thing they were very well-rounded yeah i'm kind of interested you know obviously you mentioned that going back to the race you didn't have that same bond you didn't have the ability to talk to teams in that who would you have you turned if you got into an opportunity to get ahead like was kim and pen that team did you immediately see them as their threat or were you like most of the others who thought dusty and ryan would be the team that ultimately would win the whole thing yeah i think we would do we probably will differ in this she'll probably say dusty and ryan but i would have said if i had the opportunity i would have u-turned kim and pen i was like because there was a time like especially that corsica leg after the cheese there was a u-turn that would have been a perfect opportunity for us to use the u-turn on dusty and ryan so i think there was plenty of times for us where we would have had that opportunity to use it on dusty and ryan so that's why i would say just to help us move progress forward no but he's asking if

26:43 You had the opportunity yeah that's what i'm saying if like if we did have u-turns would you have u-turn because a lot of people are like oh we wouldn't have used it like we would have because we were at the bottom of the pack all the time so we literally would have you turn somebody because we just wanted to get to the top yeah i think it would have been different i don't think we would have used it if we were in the like top two teams or top even three teams but once you're in the back of the pack it's a totally different like mental state you're in and just constantly being that from when we came back and that switzerland like we already knew we had a speed bump that like that wasn't aired so we knew already like it's either a micro mo on us between us going out that like there's no other because it was just not an ordinary speed bump it was a full-blown challenge where you had to drive for almost 45 minutes then the challenge was pretty i mean it took about 30 or 40 minutes to get the challenge and then drive back another so it was about two three hours so there's no way they made sure it was fair that one of the teams is going to continue it's that's a long way away for a for that to happen isn't it three hours no i said the drive you're talking about four yeah like 40 minutes i actually said to chris that i didn't think anyone would uten

28:03 Anybody else because everyone is so friendly and everyone seems to love each other i think they'd have to be really stressed to have a u-turn happen yeah i just i think it would have been interesting to see who you turn who and if it really did happen michelle you know in these shows anything can happen people might go a different phase when actually come time that they make decisions which benefits them because if not then they're not really racing for a million dollars they're just racing to be nice yeah also they might just be telling us this on some of the interviews because if they do get back out there then people will think they're nice and they would never u-turn anybody but then when they get the opportunity it might be a completely different race in an all-star season now you guys have raced once out there if the opportunity were to come back and they said listen we're getting an all-star crew together we're going to do another race and we bring some of the better teams back are you guys do you have your bags packed you're back out there again to do this craziness all over again would you put yourself in your places it's so funny you asked we were looking at the bags today and then i said i'm gonna keep this ready to go [Music] you never know she said you're crazy i said jay stranger things have happened i was on the amazing race nobody in the million years would have i have to pinch myself and say am i on the

29:23 Race you never know so we i for sure will go back on the range yeah i would definitely go back if we were asked again yeah we would drop our bags because we have some unfinished business to take care of because if it was a normal season and if we had traveled to other parts of the world whether it's south america asia and it was not all self-driving i think we would have done very good if you look at our challenges we've done women good in the challenges it's what we have struggled is getting from one place to other so i think we have some unfinished business to take care of we go to other parts of the world and there's more stress with catching your own flights and there's equalizers there was no equalizer this season so i think when you go in a normal season i think we have a better chance of doing being in the top i think you've seen it interesting if you went to india especially because i don't think we've ever had an indian national actually go back there on a season so it would actually be interesting to see you and in india and i can speak three or four different languages so that's going to be i think even in asia or in south america i think if it was not just to europe

30:45 Certain teams benefit by going to europe and certain teams don't so it was just if it was a normal season i think it would be different yeah i think some of those countries that you go to where it's not your western european first world countries like for instance like i mean i mentioned africa before you know asia south america potentially you know some of those countries it can be a lot more difficult to navigate as well so it's definitely something where you guys didn't get the opportunity to show what you were made of talking about these different countries though and the different cultural differences that you go from leg to lake i'm assuming there was still some cultural shocks as you were out on the race and things that were very different like can you talk to some of the things that for you sort of was a little bit difficult to navigate through i'm assuming scotland was one of them because it was probably very hard to understand them at times i've been to scotland before i know that it can be hard to understand them so it probably didn't help if you tried to ask for directions what were some of the difficulties culturally i guess for you guys when you were traveling yeah definitely the language barrier i think actually in scotland i didn't have a bad time understanding what he did i couldn't i said is he speaking english like he would go out with like the directions as it is english is a foreign language it's not my mother tongue so you as it is i have

32:05 An issue with english but then going to scotland i couldn't understand a lot of times i was like do you understand you actually were pretty okay with yeah and scotland was fine i think greece was really hard with like getting the directions there especially i had the large like the biggest language barrier and i think also in switzerland some people were apprehensive when we were like going up to them and i think like you after a while said like maybe i should just go because i was like younger woman going up to some of these people because i don't know we got you got yelled at i have one incident well i thought then said i the not security that the camera people said let's go let's go because one guy was literally went cuckoo he just he just started yelling and he said he hit all these people yeah but anyways it was just like not a good situation so we were like a new approach is a big part of getting directions and navigation as well which is not really shown sometimes on camera but like the people you select you have to be kind of selective because each person you ask you have to have them sign a waiver it takes time so you don't want to continuously be asking people but in general i think we didn't have that many like other teams probably had more issues but we overall we didn't have any major issues that way now i have a question

33:25 For natalia not so much for you roon so the first time you went you pack your bag you get on the race and you think you're on the race and you think i don't need this in my bag why have i got this in my bag what did you change the second time in your flag what did you take extra what didn't you take yeah so the first time we brought we thought we were gonna be hungry all the time for some reason we bought all these like granola bars and clif bars never ate anything so we're like i'm not breathing that back i did bring a little bit more makeup the first time i didn't like i know some past season people brought like blow dryers i obviously didn't bring anything i just bought very basic like foundation and mascara going the second time because you are a camera so it's like yeah it would be like completely bare-faced and then we bought just a lot less clothes i think that we brought he only had like two shirts and we were just doing stink laundry pretty much the whole time the second time yeah so yeah i think it's good that you're the only season you've had that chance to like amend and change things so yeah i had that question in my mind recently and i thought oh yeah i can ask you're yeah you reduced your weight by almost six pounds from the first and to the second oh that's good yeah we weighed it so i think it was like 15 pounds the first time so we were aiming for like 12 pounds and then i think i ended up going

34:45 Down to like 11 pounds and i think you were like 12 pounds the second time so that's good yeah because especially this season it was quite difficult we noticed that there was a few legs where you had to they for some other reason the producers thought listen let's get these guys to run up as many staircases as we can and some of the challenges you guys could not like it looked like nowhere you could put your bags down so i'm assuming there was some very strict covered protocols in regards to where you're putting your bags down and things like that so you had to keep it on you at all times so other people couldn't touch it and things like that is that the case where you were pretty much told you have to have this on you at all times because other seasons it felt like you could put it down a little bit more and do a detour in the meantime and then go grab your bag again right yeah the clue would specifically say a lot of times like take your bags with you like you're not coming back to the car so that's why you see the teams will be carrying our backpacks and a lot of things i think there were a couple stairs like the corsica leg where you didn't have to take your bag and we were in the shuttles and i think we benefited from seeing that teams were carrying it and coming back to their shuttle so then we knew we could just leave it in the shuttle so we got like kind of being at the back of the pack actually was beneficial then but yeah a lot of times it was or even it said keep it in the trunk of your car so like trunks yeah one episode we were showing it a lot of teams had actually struggled with that they only showed us but

36:05 That was that straightforward but like it specifically said put it in your trunk so otherwise i don't care i'm leaving my bag in the back seat but like it tells you specifically where to leave your bags yeah so i'm kind of interested you said you would do the rice again you would definitely go out there and race again now you've had the experience of racing you could almost say twice already because you've done the leg and then you came back and raced again what would you do differently if you had to go out there what i'm assuming you're wiser for having run more legs going back and running it what would you do differently if you had the opportunity to go back out there's one thing for sure i'll navigate and shield drive going forward can you drive stick now natalia so i didn't know how to drive stick i took lessons before we went the first time but he was just more experienced at and being like in the adrenaline it's we're not having as much experience as him it seemed like better for him to do it but yeah that's something we would definitely switch no but that this is it's what we learned correct it would probably make more sense for me to be navigating and for her to be driving i think that would really help us go a long way otherwise i'm not too sure if we would change anything else yeah i think it was just the just making sure we had navigation packed would be like our main thing just yeah we would not want to get lost again yeah that would be our thing but if you

37:25 Think about it we didn't get majorly lost it was really just small things after that but that does one left instead of the right is all it makes to lose the race michelle you look like you want to ask something no i was just i was thinking about the left and the right again i could remember about it that scene was amazing they did you guys dirty they did you got more so natalia they didn't italia he didn't listen to me though he's like what are you saying and i think it was because he couldn't see me because i'm sure and so since i was behind him he couldn't like see if i was moving my hands or like my face because he would kept telling me like i can't see you and so i think like when like where we were in the convertibles where i was sitting next to him we didn't find a navigation because he could like we were literally right next to each other so a lot of times i'll be like natalia you're sleeping now i wanted to ask you know obviously natalia i saw you do the bungee jumping on this race have you done that before was there anything else that you had to do where you thought i would never do this before on the race or was the bungee jumping one of those most scary moments that you had on the race for me personally i've always said i would never ever bungee jump unless

38:45 It is for a million dollars like i just it's not my thing in new zealand is where it was invented everybody bungee jumps over here so yeah like you can bungee jump off bridges you can bungee jump off the sky tower in auckland you can they've new zealanders find a place for you to go and budget jump they put the bungee jump caught up and you can go but i've so far been able to avoid it for 34 years of my life so how did that feel like i was excited so i've been skydiving before but it was my first time bungee jumping but i live for like all the adrenaline so the when we read it's like who wants to get down we thought it's dancing so i'm like not you for sure because you're not doing any dancing i opened it up and it's like bungee jumping he got mad because he wanted to do it that was on my bucket list but i didn't want to do any dancing so any choreographed dancing let's let me if it's just dancing i'll do it anytime yeah i was so excited because that was the one thing before going on the race i said i wanted to do was bungee jumping and the fact that i got to do it i was over the top we got lost getting there so the kind of excitement went down a little bit you did it so fast it was not even funny she said how whatever put it on and within two minutes she just jumped and she was smiling and she was the only one and i'm like hey natalia great job yeah you have to do it fast you have to get there and

40:05 Jump off otherwise it's just you're standing there thinking god what am i doing with my life seriously so what was the what was the toughest if that wasn't the biggest one for you the biggest obstacle what was the top toughest obstacle for you on the roadblocks natalia roadblocks interesting yeah we amongst the cast we're actually talking about people who did the bagpipes versus the fishing nets because i had done both and which one was actually harder and for me i thought the fishing nets actually it took me a little bit longer i did the bagpipes really quick but just understanding initially what to do with the fishing nets took a little bit of time but once you get it's fine getting the knots and doing that but just that initial starting and looking at the technique took a little bit so i think out of that those that we did that one probably for me and a rune for you know you had a couple of exciting moments well i believe you were the one who went up the mountain as well and had to go and see the all the countries which to me was probably the most breathtaking so you got to see something as well that natalia didn't get to do so i guess it's tit for tat but you know what was the i'm assuming that was one of the greatest moments that you had on the rice and something the alps was one of the most beautiful things even though it was not easy it was pretty physical going down was good then i thought we were done i cut to get my ticket and they're gonna

41:25 Take me some i didn't realize we had to climb back i remember i remember you're like oh i've wasted a helicopter and he's like where's the flags because when he had opened up the clue he thought he was gonna have to like look out like that i identified the six flags so i thought oh i they gave me the clue and then they said oh you're all set i said oh i don't need to identify the flags and then i have to go back so it was but that was beautiful me even though i did take a second to just look around and then start running back up and i did pretty good in that challenge so i was very proud that i was able to keep up with ryan and i think it was ludo yeah who so which of the roadblocks for you were the biggest struggle out there why i know row your boat gently down the street what sorry what was going on there i don't understand you were just going into the docks and like he's actually paddling the opposite way he should be going the opposite way i don't understand tell michelle that she needs to get in there and show us how it's done michelle you people have asked me time and again that was the moment i had to shine

42:46 It was just like the super bowl at the world cup finals that was my moment and i said when it when it says i'll do it i said he volunteered he saw the boats and he was like this is fine i do it even though i've never ruined a boat in my life i said i'll do it because i thought oh this is going to be what is so take two panels and i have no idea what i guess what i was doing wrong at being the experts told me i guess that you have to do synchronize both the paddles at the same time whereas i was doing one so it was one was going back so literally going in circles when i was doing this way i was going backwards i'm going front i okay i know it sounds funny but that i'm not even sure how i choked i mean that was just a big choke yeah and right i was gonna say ryan got your got your name before you could go back out and get it out he's just taking my board it's nice i should have just jumped in the water and pulled the boat yes would listen for anybody in the future if they play it if it's not against the rules clearly

44:06 Stated on the on the instructions i'm assuming you can do it you could do it and that's that was the because the other five roadblocks i did very good i always took over teams that's one of the reasons why it kept us in the race because i was able to the other five roblox i killed it the moment i had to shine this is your time maroon okay here comes the biggest choke in amazing race history hey at least you're going to be memorable yeah i'm sure they're going to show us five six seasons from now they'll show arun just going in the water yeah i'm famous for two things donald wears your truces and yes so at least you're famous for something exactly if you're memorable you guys have always got a chance to come back remember that the crazy bald man he didn't know how to wrote the book i always feel i always feel for that girl who had the watermelon straight to the face because we always see that over and over still on the screen even this season we saw that so no it was very memorable and i think the other thing i wanted to ask natalia i believe you were the one who did the columns at the end of the chat to do obviously this was when the race was already done but how difficult was that to do how long did it take for you to get through that because to me as a fan looking at that i thought that was one of the more difficult roadblocks that you could potentially do yeah actually surprisingly

45:26 I surprised myself i got through it really fast and they said i did it actually faster than some of the testers and i just took my time i kind of knew we were in last so i guess maybe a little bit of the nerves were gone and just like paid attention to the details i was looking at the arches and i knew there was two columns so as you went down it's kind of hard to see some of the columns but i was really looking at the arches and was able to get the number 106 and i was excited about that you did it pretty fast but it was thanks to my wonderful performance we didn't even give ourselves a chance yeah at that point so it's so tough i mean you guys if you did one thing right in that league you could have been in the final three racing for the final three and what does it work like that you're out of the race here do you go on the same plane as the rest of the guys going back so you actually on that same plane going back and what does that feel like sitting in the obviously these teams are quite excited and you know well we're not actually participating in this race and how other people around you i guess were they cognizant of the fact that listen you guys have just missed out on this opportunity like talk a little bit about some of the off-screen dynamics they're going back and just missing out so close to the final three yeah so yeah so we were actually on the plane as phil's giving his little spiel we were ducking behind a chair so you couldn't see us but we were on that plane flying back to l.a

46:46 And i think at that time we had come to terms you know with being eliminated we felt good about our journey and so i don't think there was any like animosity or like us like it was fine interacting with the other teams and we were proud of them they had raced really well and so i think it was it was a good dinosaur and i if you go back to the scotland leg it was very emotional that i literally cried because i felt that we had this opportunity and i couldn't sing or dance because if you look at our bio the two things my weakest thing is singing and dancing her weakest thing is navigation we got both in the same leg i was so emotional about it and i literally couldn't sleep for two months about the whole thing said i let her i let natalia down but this leg we ran a good legs the best we put our best foot whatever it is it didn't work out so we were okay and we knew the three teams which were going to the finals had run a good race so we were pretty okay with that yeah and we have we have a good relationship with the other team so that probably helped also i actually paused when phil was on the plane giving his spiel i actually paused to see where you two were and i couldn't see you down either side and i'm like there somewhere i don't know where they are

48:07 We are right behind phil actually you can see a little bit that plane didn't look like it had like an entertainment system or anything in it when i looked at it so you guys couldn't watch movies or anything like what were you doing for all their time on the plane is it pretty much just playing card games or yeah we were like thinking about what because we didn't know where we were going so we were like looking out the windows we're like do we see mountains like where are we because we had no idea but yeah we that's one of the craziest things about this season is you had no idea where you were going it's just like you land in some random place is it russia where is it transmission i don't understand that i don't understand why they would have kept that a secret from you guys and i can imagine that would be horrible getting in a plane not knowing where the next location is going to be it's almost like you're being abducted but i think it was a big part of the season is that they didn't want you to prepare in the plane and that was part of the race strategy this season so they didn't want us to know yeah because even initially we didn't know if we headed to europe or are we going to south america because we knew with the covet there were certain places we could probably going but we didn't even know like we're like are we flying east like where so it was just interesting because i'm a planner

49:28 So having that airport time and being able to prep and be like here's the popular food in this area or that we didn't have any of that and so that was kind of i think a disadvantage of the season again but we named the chartered aircraft big phil and after traveling on big phil we can't go in economy anymore it was just like first class i mean that way i'll give you my hats off to amazing race and the production team they did a wonderful job keeping us safe make cool with protocols where not one case of kovitz so i give it to them that they did a great job yeah that's amazing no cases that the whole time it's just fantastic i actually thought you were going to come down here because australia was letting in quite a lot of production for tvs and movies and i thought oh maybe you'll come down here but no it's obviously better to stay in europe where you can do a few different countries and it was easier yeah i think we're actually supposed to go to australia on our initial the initial leg and also i think nepal was on so we were excited we were like oh we're going to go all these countries because when you get your passport they have a stamp visa stamp we had nepal on it so we were thinking oh we're going to go to nepal but it didn't happen yeah so obviously you got to travel to

50:48 A few locations and sadly there's a few that you didn't get to travel to is there any of those locations that you went to that you would say for anybody that's watching this interview and that watch the amazing race this is like the number one or number two location that you guys have to go and visit because it was amazing being there like where would you recommend people go and visit i think switzerland is probably what i would want to go to the santa's mount doubts again so i would definitely say that was one of the highlights i would definitely say switzerland just the mountain it was so beautiful and that was the one second where we're like look where we are right now like we literally like had goose bumps i know a lot of the other teams will say logano we have kind of bad memories because we got really lost that way i'm just a bunch of jumping but logano was just like just beautiful and maybe corsica was yeah because i would have not thought about visiting corsica but then after being there just like yeah up in the mountains and everything it was just completely i would definitely recommend course go to what while you guys are mentioning corsica michelle did you notice the greater looked like it was the same greeter that was used like so many years back yes i saw that there was a post in the group and someone had actually screenshot him yeah i hadn't realized they used the same greeters in you know subsequent seasons i had no idea that's crazy to see like i mean i didn't pick it up

52:08 This is what i said like i'm a fan but i'm not a fan to that level and the people that pick those things up amazing how the fans the super fans how much of how much they follow how much they are into all these reality shows and how much homework they do it's just mind-boggling yeah that's why this survivor is so funny i know it's off topic but we've got a guy on the season called roxroy and everybody tried to find him before he went on to the season but he's not on social media so no one could find anything on him so even when they had the spoiled cast out there who they thought was going to be out there he was the only one that didn't have a cast photo on it like so they just had like this blank photo to say this guy's name roxroy's on there we don't know who he is and for the super fans online not to be able to find something you know that this person is off the grid as can be thank you so much for coming on board and talking to us today here i want to give you an opportunity to let fans of the show know thank you were big fans big fans coming onto the show playing this game and we love seeing fans play the show so automatically when we see a fans out there you mentioned you were probably the only team that actually applied for it but it was a lot of people that were recruited for this season what sort of message do you have for other fans out there that are thinking about playing this show like you know what are the things that they should look out for as two people that watch the show and you went on there and then you had to

53:28 Learn it the hard way is there anything that you could tell fans to make their journey and one of them is on this podcast she's applied for it quite a few times for the amazing race australia what's the advice you would give michelle and other fans that want to go out and do the amazing race i mean for me i would say age is just a number i mean i have had several people reach out to me and say hey i am 50 years old i don't think i can make it on the race and i am a good example age is just a number and when you get on the race when you send your audition tapes just be natural just be yourself don't try to put on a show just be yourself tell them what kind of a person you are and that's all it is so just be natural age is just a number and if i can get on the race anybody can get on the race apply like don't just say like oh i can think i could be on the amazing race but take that chance because if we didn't we would have never and you got a call back after three years so you never know so you just keep applying and apply 20 times of whatever it is just if you really want to get on the race listen to podcasts listen to what you can learn about the race we didn't do that much of it because we didn't have the time to get ready for the race but if you have the time and you want to be on the

54:48 Race listen to as many podcasts and listen to the experts listen to what the racers are telling you that's what will get you on the race just be yourself yeah just be your authentic self and really focus on amazing races with your relationship with your partner and like what's unique about that relationship because that's a big part of it when they're casting the one thing they want to know it's okay for you to be fighting that makes good tv that's what they want just show them you fight or if you get a lot no that's because that just makes good tv correct you know in survivor they want good tv so somebody like dusty he wants to but that's yeah yes i mean that's how he is in real life too he's such a nice guy but did the edits show that but he's the most humble guy if you get to know him in person so i can tell like i've seen his instagram lives the guy does so much for his community he gives back so much that's why i was so frustrated when i saw people make very silly comments online just based off like 30 seconds that they saw on a tv show you know but again it's one of those things you put yourself out there in the public domain i guess that you're always going to have potential criticism coming your way as well and that's why so many people don't want to be the villain team and that's why everybody's nice on the show because they don't want that backlash on the social media age

56:08 But i think that's such valuable advice you gave there i mean we had mark here in the chat saying that he's applied seven times and i know that people have gotten onto the show after years and years of applying on the amazing race on survivor it just every time you apply you've got a chance if you don't apply you don't have a chance so just keep applying and it's the same for you michelle you know just keep applying michelle's gotten close a few times hey if you don't buy the lottery ticket you're not going to win the lottery so exactly continue to apply and be yourself yeah aruna natalia what's next for you guys you've got this youtube channel i'm assuming that when the amazing race comes back out it's going to be hard for you guys to completely not pay attention to it we've heard that the amazing race 34 has been renewed we're all very excited about that because you never know with the amazing race it doesn't get that approval or the renewal as easily as some of the other reality shows which is a big shame because i think it's such a great show and you know we get to see around the world where people travel and it's an adventure show it's in my opinion it's a lot of fun and it's a show in all realness like i'm a fan of all these shows but if i could choose one that i would want to take part in i think the amazing race would be the most fun to do what's next for you guys will you be talking about the amazing race on your channel are you going to be doing other things on the channel give us a little bit of

57:28 Insight as to what people can do and where they can follow you i don't see why we shouldn't be doing it i think maybe we'll continue to do it so we have been put thought into it but i think we might continue to do it yeah i think we people have been reaching out like already like once 34 comes out you know we're going to be invested in again so we'll probably there stay tuned there might be some stuff we're going to be releasing some we did a packing video we're going to be launching soon on our channel oh that's good i love packing videos i don't want to put you guys on the spot here but you know could we potentially see the nullified tank versus aruna natalya draft pick for the next season where we do some draft pick on the teams and we will see who runs between the two channels let's do it i know you guys like the challenge so you know so yeah i mean listen you guys have got a great personality i've really enjoyed talking to you've got such great positive energy i do hope that you use your platform you know even if it feels like maybe there's other people out there that were you know they had a little bit more fame even before they went out there i mean look at him nearly a million subscribers i do hope you use this opportunity to make more of it and do something on your channel it's like you guys said similar to applying if you don't put yourself out there you know you're not going to be able to potentially reap some success and benefit out of it and i'm sure they're going to

58:48 Be people who will want to hear from previous races about certain topics and reality tv and that so i hope you use that platform to do that also arun for people that are i guess over there where you guys are where can people go to go to your restaurant if you want to plug that out i'm a franchisee of a dunkin and baskin restaurant dunkin donuts and baskin robbins so i have four locations in metro detroit so they could always come to say hello to me awesome message and we'll let you know the locations yeah all right hang on there as i just closed this off guys and we'll say goodbye to you when we stop the recording for everybody that's still here thank you so much for watching today please consider subscribing to the channel hit the like if you like this content we will be doing some more interviews i've been talking to raquel she'll probably be on next and i'm trying to get kim and pen on the podcast at some point i know they're a little bit harder to get a hold of because they do have a busy schedule but we're gonna work very hard to get more amazing race races on the podcast and maybe even some past amazing race contestants that didn't participate this season i think it would be really interesting to do a few interviews with them and like always guys thank you so much for watching put a like on the video and see you next time bye