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PIANO PROBLEMS
As best friends Oswald & Danny began the piano tuning with mixed results, cousins Charla & Mirna felt very alone in a city that didn't speak much English. Unable to find Czapski Palace, they continued to ask locals who would not answer them. Mirna commented, "They would always run away from us. It's like we're the plague or something." After finally receiving directions from a hotel concierge, the cousins found the palace and chose to tune the piano as well.
As married couple Uchenna & Joyce landed in Warsaw, Oswald & Danny broke a piano string in their tuning endeavor while Charla & Mirna had little clue of how to use the provided tools. After spending an hour in vain, the cousins decided to throw in the towel on the task while Oswald & Danny soldiered on to finally tune it giving them a second place finish for the leg.
While Uchenna & Joyce quickly tuned their piano to finish in third place, cousins Charla & Mirna continued to flounder as they struggled to carry the cumbersome mannequin through the streets of Warsaw. To make matters worse, then again encountered locals who wouldn't help them until they finally found a young English-speaking girl who directed them to the laboratory. After taking the x-ray that revealed the clue, the cousins checked into the Pit Stop in fourth place.
THE NEXT LEG
In a first for the Race, just as Eric & Danielle and Joe & Bill landed in Warsaw, beauty queens Dustin & Kandice began the eighth leg of the Race at 10:54pm. Opening their clue, the duo learned they would be traveling over 150 miles to the infamous concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau where over one million people were killed in the Nazi Genocide. To get to Auschwitz, Teams would take one of two charter buses leaving at 1:00pm and 5:00pm.
NOT OVER YET
Facing potential elimination, Eric & Danielle raced in their taxi against the Guidos, but both Teams arrived together in the darkness at Czapski Palace where they chose different Detour options. As Eric & Danielle struggled to tune their piano, the Guidos picked up a "hunky" male mannequin and transported it to the laboratory. Eric broke a string forcing the pair to wait for a professional to fix it before they could continue tuning. The couple's only saving grace was that the Guidos couldn't find the clue in their mannequin after several x-rays. In the end, Eric & Danielle completed the task ahead of the Guidos to barley claim fifth place.
Stepping onto the mat in last place, Joe & Bill expected the worst, but instead received a pardon from Phil as this was the second non-elimination leg. On their dire situation, Joe commented, "On AMAZING RACE one, we were nineteen hours behind everybody else and we never caught up to them. It's certainly hard trying to think that you could actually win it."
FALLING APART?
After the first bus carrying Uchenna & Joyce, Dustin & Kandice, and Oswald & Danny left for Auschwitz, dating couple Eric & Danielle departed the Pit Start and began bickering almost instantly over money when Danielle wanted to buy coffee over Eric's protestations. An incredulous Danielle said, "I have to feel guilty about getting a cup of coffee. That's sick." Not wanting to continue a fight over this, Eric kept asking for Danielle to "shut up." Danielle finally stalked off, sniping, "You make this whole situation more miserable than it has to be. You make it so unenjoyable." Eric simply replied, "Don't worry. It won't last much longer."
PAYING TRIBUTE
Pulling into Auschwitz, the Teams all felt the gravity and importance of the moment. As each Racer lit a memorial candle on the railroad tracks, they reflected on the horror that took place here. Dustin commented, "Just being there on those tracks your imagination just rolls. People being unloaded like cattle. That's the last time a lot of them saw each other." Uchenna added, "What came to mind was all the books that never got written. All the ideas that were never tried. Generations were murdered. You can't forget that. God forbid it should ever happen again." Afterwards, in a taxi heading to Krakow, Cuban immigrant Oswald became very emotional and teary, saying, "It reminds you where I could have ended up living. It makes me very grateful to be out of there where I don't have to worry about expressing who I am as a person."
PAIRED OFF
Arriving at Teatr im Julusza together, married couple Uchenna & Joyce and best friends Oswald & Danny found an Intersection where two Teams must perform tasks and make decisions together until further notice. With the beauty queens in a lost taxi, the two Teams made the very easy decision to pair up, opting to try for the Fast Forward award. In this Fast Forward, the newly joined Teams made their way a quarter mile to Market Square where they had to climb the Fire Guard Tower of St. Mary's Church and the Town Hall Tower. As they climbed, they had to count the stairs and calculate the total number of steps in both towers.
As the beauty queens arrived at the Intersection to realize in shock they would be waiting four hours for the next bus to arrive, Uchenna & Joyce and Oswald & Danny began climbing the steps of the towers. While they agreed on 111 steps for the Town Hall Tower, three of them counted different numbers at St. Mary's Church. Uchenna became the deciding vote and his number matched Oswald's at 348. This guess proved correct and the two Teams made their way to the Pit Stop at Pieskowa Skala Castle. While the Teams jumped on the mat together, Oswald & Danny chose to give the prize, a Travelocity trip for two to St. Lucia, to Uchenna & Joyce. Oswald jokes, "We won't be giving away a million dollars though." |
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