Miami-Dade police are investigating the death of an unidentified woman who was struck by a train early Thursday, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue officials said.
The woman was hit at the intersection of NE 186 Street and West Dixie Highway at about 1 p.m.
It is unclear why she was on the tracks.
This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
Look Who's Cooking
By Anna Kleyman
"What's cooking, good looking?" may just be the perfect question for some A-list celebs who like to get their cook on in the kitchen. To celebrate Thanksgiving, we're counting down Hollywood's kitchen MVPs including Jennifer Aniston, Blake Lively, Gwyneth Paltrow and more.
AP
A man walks on the beach as a rollercoaster that once sat on the Funtown Pier in Seaside Heights, NJ rests in the ocean.
SEASIDE HEIGHTS, NJ — The remains of a roller coaster that was knocked off a New Jersey amusement pier by Superstorm Sandy and partially submerged in the Atlantic Ocean may be left there as a tourist attraction.
Seaside Heights Mayor Bill Akers tells WNBC-TV in New York that officials have not made a decision on whether to tear down the coaster. But the mayor says he's working with the Coast Guard to see if the coaster is stable enough to leave it alone, because he believes it would make "a great tourist attraction."
Meanwhile, efforts to rebuild the storm-ravaged town are continuing.
Demolition crews have removed the resort's damaged boardwalk. And Akers says construction on a new boardwalk should begin in January and be ready by Memorial Day.
Marling Sequeira has her Thanksgiving all planned: turkey, trimmings and pumpkin pie at her boyfriend’s in Miami, then a moonlit drive to Walmart to snag a 72-inch Samsung TV on sale for $800.
“It’s more exciting at midnight,” said Sequeira, 22, a medical assistant who is moving into a new Brickell-area apartment with her boyfriend on Friday. “Besides that, the specials are more convenient.”
All over South Florida on Thursday, bargain-hungry shoppers will be gobbling down their Thanksgiving meals with an eye on heading to the mall.
Thursday is becoming the new Black Thursday, as the old-fashioned kickoff day of the holiday, Black Friday, creeps into Thanksgiving dessert.
“Retailers are now commercializing Thanksgiving, giving the opportunity to the consumer who doesn’t want to watch 12 hours of football,” said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at the NPD Group, a consumer and retail market research firm based in Port Washington, N.Y.
The stores’ goal, he said, is to compete more vigorously with online sites for those valuable early holiday dollars.
And retailers have learned that if they open their doors and offer deals, shoppers will come. Last year those who extended their hours saw sales rise up to 22 percent for the Black Friday weekend, while those retailers that did not lost up to 8 percent, Cohen said.
The result: this year, more than ever, shopping is seeping into Thanksgiving festivities.
Kmart is opening at 6 a.m. and Bass Pro Shops at 8 a.m. on Thursday. Sears and Toys”R”Us are opening at 8 p.m. Target is opening at 9 p.m. Loads of stores, including Macy’s, The Gap, Old Navy and Best Buy are opening at midnight. Best Buy is promising deals on such items as TVs, laptop computers, digital cameras and more.
Walmart is open 24 hours, so it will stay open all day on Thanksgiving, with specials offered at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Thursday and 5 a.m. on Friday.
“Whether you want to stay up late on Thursday night or get up early on Friday, at Walmart we have a Black Friday event for you,” said spokesman Steve Restivo. Walmart is offering price guarantees to shoppers who are inside a store between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., on three hot-selling items, an Apple iPad2, an Emerson 32-inch LCD TV and an LG Blu-ray player.
In South Florida, even entire malls will open on Thanksgiving. Dolphin Mall in Sweetwater and Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise will be first, each opening at 9 p.m., and staying open until 10 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., respectively, on Black Friday.
Dadeland Mall and Miami International Mall will open at midnight Thursday.
“We’re very excited to open at midnight and give our shoppers a head start to the holiday season,” said Sara Valega, director of marketing for Miami International Mall, which will stay open until 11 p.m. on Friday.
Nationwide, 17 percent of consumers, or 41 million people are expected to shop on Thanksgiving, according to the latest consumer holiday tracking survey, released Tuesday by The International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs.
With stores opening earlier and earlier, and some retailers launching pre-Thanksgiving sales, the retail industry has officially crossed the traditional Black Friday barrier — with no end in sight, said Kimberly Taylor, associate professor of marketing at Florida International University.
A Miami man who could face deportation for an 11-year-old drug charge is not eligible to have his conviction thrown out, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
Gabriel Hernandez, now a successful bank administrator, had asked a Miami trial court to toss out his 2001 drug conviction, saying his lawyer failed to properly warn him he could face deportation to his native Nicaragua.
Like hundreds of defendants statewide, Hernandez filed his request after the U.S. Supreme Court in March 2010 threw out the conviction for a Kentucky man, Jose Padilla, whose lawyer failed to warn him that he would be deported after pleading guilty.
But a Miami judge refused Hernandez’s request. And The Third District Court of Appeal ruled that the Padilla case did not apply to past cases like Hernandez’s.
On Wednesday, the Florida Supreme Court agreed unanimously that the Padilla case is not “retroactive.” The state high court did rule that current and future Florida defendants have the right to claim their lawyers were “ineffective” for not properly advising them of possible deportation.
The issue of “retroactivity” has been closely watched in legal circles as thousands of people across the country — who could face deportation because of past convictions — sought help under the Padilla case.
Wednesday’s decision in Florida is not the final say for Hernandez.
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether its own decision in Padilla applies retroactively.
Last month, the nation’s high court heard arguments for a Chicago woman, Roselva Chaidez, who is facing deportation for 9-year-old conviction for fraud. No ruling has been issued.
Hernandez arrived in the United States from Nicaragua when he was 2 years old. Now 30 and a legal resident, he boasts a bachelor’s degree and works as a successful computer network administrator for a Miami bank group.
His one blemish was at 19, when he was arrested on charges of selling LSD.
In an outcome typical for first-time offenders, Hernandez pleaded guilty and accepted a year of probation in return for a promise that no felony conviction would appear on his record. But Hernandez insists he never understood that the plea deal could wind up getting him deported to Nicaragua.
The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday also ruled on the same issue in a companion case for Miami’s Leduan Diaz. His lawyer, Maggie Arias, said she is “hopeful” that the U.S. Supreme Court will rule differently than the state high court and find Padilla to apply to all cases.
“This would ensure that fairness and general due process are afforded to people who received ineffective advice from lawyers,” Arias said.
Most of the recent headlines about Selena Gomez have speculated on the status of her relationship with Justin Bieber. But the former Disney darling also debuted a new music video for Adidas this week in which she portrays one member of a mischievous tagger gang.
Gomez is not shy about whipping out the spray can to plaster a wall with graffiti as she runs through the streets with her crew in the ad for Adidas' Neo brand.
RELATED: Report Says Justin Bieber & Selena Gomez Split
Adidas says it was thrilled to announce Selena as the newest member of the NEO label, which Bieber also endorses.
While shot in gritty style, the video shows Selena and her follow taggers smiling and laughing as they frolic in the streets while making a mess of everything they see with green paint and streamers.
VIDEO: Selena Gomez 'Intimidated' by Animated Movie Role
Hostess Brands Inc on Wednesday appeared headed toward a liquidation, though its lawyers and advisers expressed optimism that they will find new homes for many of its iconic brands, which include Twinkies, Drake's cakes and Wonder Bread.
US Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York, held a hearing to consider initial approval of the 82-year-old company's plan to wind down over the next year.
Drain's last-ditch mediation to resolve Hostess' differences with its striking bakers' union had broken down on Tuesday.
"Unfortunately, we're faced now with the matters that were originally scheduled for Monday and were adjourned to today, to deal with the issues facing the debtor in their need to preserve and ... maintain their value in a liquidation scenario," Drain said.
Heather Lennox, a lawyer for Hostess, told the judge that the company has received a "flood of inquiries" from potential buyers for several brands that could be sold at auction and expects initial bidders to surface within a few weeks.
Joshua Scherer, a partner at Perella Weinberg Partners, which is advising Hostess, said the company was in "active dialogue" over its Drake's brand with one "very interested" party that had toured a New Jersey plant on Tuesday.
He said regional bakeries, national rivals, private equity firms and others have also expressed interest in various brands and that more than 50 nondisclosure agreements have been signed.
"These are iconic brands that people love," Scherer said.
As for the value of the company, Scherer said Hostess could be worth $2.3 billion to $2.4 billion in a normal bankruptcy, an amount equal to its annual revenue. It also has about $900 million of secured debt and faces up to about $150 million of administrative claims.
But Scherer expects a discount in this case because plants have already been closed and Hostess' value could fall further if the liquidation were dragged out.
"I've had buyers tell me, 'Josh, the longer it takes ... the less value I'm going to be able to pay you,'" he said.
Hostess decided to liquidate on November 16, saying it was losing about $1 million per day after the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union, representing close to one-third of its roughly 18,000 workers, went on strike a week earlier.
The bakers union walked out after Drain authorized Hostess to impose pay and benefit cuts, which the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Hostess' largest union, had accepted.
Hostess has about 33 plants, plus three it decided to close after the strike began, as well as 565 distribution centers and 570 bakery outlet stores.
As part of a liquidation, the Irving, Texas-based company would immediately terminate about 15,000 employees.
It said it expects to keep about 3,200 workers to help shut its properties and prepare them for sale, but that only approximately 200 people would remain employed by late March.
Hostess had filed for Chapter 11 protection on January 11, its second bankruptcy filing in less than three years.
EARLY BIRDS GET THE DEALS:
If you’re willing to brave the masses, here’s where you can go:
• Open all day Thursday: Walmart;
• 6 a.m. on Thursday: Kmart opens;
• 8 a.m. Thursday: Bass Pro Shops opens;
• 8 p.m. Thursday: Sears and Toys “R”Us open;
• 9 p.m. Thursday: Dolphin Mall, Sawgrass Mills and Target stores everywhere open.
• Midnight: Black Friday kicks off with the opening of Macy’s, the Gap, Old Navy, Best Buy, Kohl’s and other stores. Dadeland Mall and Miami International Mall open.
• 6 a.m. Friday: Most other malls and stores open by dawn or shortly after.
TWEET TWEET
Follow the action: Miami Herald reporters will hit the stores on Thanksgiving and Tweet about parking, deals, traffic and product shortages at Twitter hashtag #heraldshop. Follow the live stream online at MiamiHerald.com or watch Twitter.
Tweet with us! Be a reporter and tweet out your own experiences and tips. The hashtag: #heraldshop.
SHOP FROM HOME
Relax, have another piece of pie and shop: Amazon.com, Target.com, Walmart.com, Kohls.com, ToysRUs.com, Bloomingdales.com, shopbop.com, BananaRepublic.com and Madewell.com are among the sites offering online specials or discounts on Thanksgiving Day.
SEARCH FOR DEALS
Check online aggregators: //blackfriday.gottadeal.com/Tracker, //findnsave.com, MiamiHerald.com, blackfridayads.com, 2012blackfridayads.com, bfads.net.
Use your smartphone: Download apps that aggregate deals, including Black Friday App by DealNews.com, Shopkick, the Coupons App, Black Friday Survival Guide, Daily Shopper, Slice Price Drop Alert, Black Friday Smart Aisles App and TheFind App.
BE PREPARED
Parking will be crazy. Get a non-shopper to drop you off if possible. Head first for items that could out quickly, like electronics. Wear comfortable shoes and bring water. Be sure your smartphone is fully charged and watch your belongings!
FREE STUFF
• At Macy’s in Aventura, receive a free pair of high-definition headphones with any $75 or more men’s or women’s fragrance purchase and Macy’s will donate $2 to Make-A-Wish. Receive a free sweater when you purchase jeans from American Rag for Juniors.
• Also at Aventura Mall: At Montblanc, Receive free engraving or embossing with purchase. At Steve Madden, Black Friday shoppers can play the scratch card promotion for a chance to win free shoes and discounts up to 40 percent off.
• At A Pea in the Pod: Receive a Free Britax Carrier with a purchase of $300 or more.
• At Destination Maternity stores & destinationmaternity.com: Get a $75 restaurant.com certificate when you spend $125 or more.
• At Motherhood Maternity stores & motherhood.com: Get a $50 restaurant.com certificate when you spend $75 or more.
• At Dolphin Mall all Black Friday Weekend: Spend $350 or more on your MasterCard card in a single day at the mall and receive a $25 MasterCard gift card.
Most of all, have a Happy Thanksgiving!
INA PAIVA CORDLE
Seated in a wheelchair, her hands wrapped in white bandages, former Broward Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin waited in a hallway of the Broward County Courthouse Tuesday for a hearing that never took place.
Wasserman-Rubin, 65, had expected to appear before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Spencer Eig at noon for a status report on her pending criminal trial for public corruption charges, which she has contested. But the hearing was postponed until February, she said, after waiting outside the courtroom for nearly 15 minutes.
The former commissioner said she will need the extra time to recuperate from recent hand surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome, and to undergo additional surgery for Deep Brain Stimulation, a procedure used to treat neurological symptoms such as tremors and stiffness for Parkinson’s patients.
“It will give me more relief,’’ Wasserman-Rubin said of the novel treatment. “It will increase my mobility.’’
She explained that the procedure involves cutting her skull and implanting a device called a neurostimulator inside the brain to deliver mild electrical currents to parts of the brain that control movement. After about a week, Wasserman-Rubin said, doctors will fine-tune the device, which she compared to a pacemaker.
A second device, which she described as a battery, will be inserted in her chest. Wasserman-Rubin said the procedure also may help reduce the amount of medication that she is required to take.
“This is not the type of life that I want to keep living,’’ she said.
Wasserman-Rubin had been scheduled to go to trial earlier this year, but it was postponed because of her health.
She stepped down from the Broward commission shortly before the Broward State Attorney’s Office filed criminal charges against her in July 2010.
Prosecutors charged that between March 2002 and April 2005, Wasserman-Rubin voted at least 15 times to support or fund grants written by her husband, Richard Rubin, for the Town of Southwest Ranches.
Investigators found that Rubin received three $15,000 bonuses — in addition to his regular compensation — for his work on successful grants that were supported by his wife. The town paid Rubin $1.1 million to write grant applications between 2001 and 2008, according to court records.
Prosecutors charged Wasserman-Rubin with seven counts of unlawful compensation and conspiracy to commit perjury, and they say she broke the law by voting on issues that resulted in a “special private gain” for herself or close family members.
Rubin, 67, accompanied his wife to the courthouse on Tuesday, but he had no comment on the charges. In June, Rubin completed a 10-month federal prison sentence for tax evasion after he pleaded guilty to underreporting his 2005 income by about $120,000.
Earlier this year, Wasserman-Rubin rejected a plea deal that would have allowed her to plead guilty or no contest to two felonies in exchange for two years of house arrest, eight years of probation and reimbursement of prosecution costs.
Had she accepted the deal, Wasserman-Rubin risked losing her state pension — an estimated $4,895 per month — her attorneys said. Her pension account has been frozen until the charges are resolved.
If convicted of all five charges against her, she could face from five to 55 years in state prison, prosecutors have said.
The Amazing Race bid farewell to long-haired music industry veterans James LoMenzo and Mark "Abba" Abbatista on Sunday night, and ETonline caught up with the pair to find out how hard it was to have their bags stolen in Moscow, if they ever made it out of Russia, and what they thought of two other teams taking their cash, in an interview filled with lots of laughs.
James: (Plays the ET theme song on his guitar).
Abba: That was James by the way. How are ya?
ETonline: I'm good how are you? I'm sad to be talking to you guys honestly.
James: Oh we're not… we're happy.
Abba: I'm not. (laughs)
ETonline: Because I wanted you to keep going. Oh my gosh it was so hard to see you--
James: Who says we're out of the race yet -- Abba?
ETonline: You're still out there racing, right?
Abba: There may be a gas leak in James's house, uh...
James: No, there's a gas leak in this Russian prison cell...
ETonline: I was really bummed to see you lose your bags, that was just awful to watch. How did that feel? What was your reaction when you saw that the cabbie left?
Abba: It felt great! It was a lot easier without the bags… No. Let me correct you too because we didn't lose our bags, this was a cabbie drove away with our bags and conscious act of theft here we got out of the cab and he drove away.
ETonline: Oh, okay.
Abba: And so you know, we were like fifty feet away from the clue box, you could see it, and you know we just thought we were running up and getting the clue and coming back, we had not paid him at the time, and apparently he thought that the bags were more important and more valuable than the money we owed him, and as soon as we got out of the car, boom he went.
ETonline: Wow.
Abba: So again it wasn't some act of you know kind of foolishness or you know, slack part of anything on our part, it was really just a bad situation. And the reason to why my passport was in there was because we had come out of the pool and I didn't have a towel, and when we put our closed on they were soaking wet because I couldn't dry off. And that's the reason why. I mean normally my passport, I sleep with it when I travel. And so again, just weird things happened and it got us.
James: I have a confession Abba. I slept with your passport too. Maybe this isn't the place.
ETonline: On the show it wasn't really clear, because I know a lot of the times on The Amazing Race people will leave their bags in the cab and so I just assumed watching it that that was what had happened, but the way you describe it, that's much worse.
Abba: You know I would bet, and I'll probably go back and take a look at this, that every single team did exactly that. And that was the first and only time that we ever separated from our bags. In the bamboo challenge we actually put them down and I tied them to the bike that we were in. So, okay I sit corrected that there were actually two times that I ever remember leaving the bag that was not in our possession like that.
James: Throughout the race I kept telling the Sri Lankan girls, you girls are out of your mind, don't leave your bags in the cab cause they were doing it with impunity, and I thought well you know, you guys are just risking it. So it wasn't like we were, you know not aware that could happen or weren't thinking that couldn't happen. Again it was all at the moment, we were rushing, we thought okay let's just get up there, get back in the cab and move on. So that's kind of why we took that shot.
ETonline: Yeah, that guy probably made a lot of money off of all the stuff you had in your bags.
Abba: Well we actually had the lightest bags ever in race history. We were under ten pounds on our bags so good luck to him he stole the wrong ones.
ETonline: Ha!
Abba: But you know, we had to comb our hair with a fork the next day because you know we didn't have a comb.
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ETonline: (laughs) I was going to ask you guys that because besides the fact that you ended up getting eliminated from the race, I mean how hard was it to be in a foreign country with basically only the clothes on your back?
Abba: Yeah it was a little bit uncomfortable. Especially cause it was raining and cold. (laughs)
James: Yeah, actually it was freezing that night. ... Having lost luggage many times, it's not the first time we've ended up somewhere without or stuff, you know? 'Cause we've traveled [while] touring [with a band] for years. And that's almost commonplace to have your bags go away for a day or two.
Abba: It was rough for me because I had contacts in, and my glasses were stolen and I'm pretty not much functional without my glasses, so having contacts in every day and waking up in the middle of the night in a hotel and I couldn't see where the bathroom or something was and I couldn't walk anyway because you know… That was pretty hard to go through a daily situation of nothing but contacts.
ETonline: Totally.
Abba: But you know what, you MacGyver things you know, as best you can.
James: Strapped on some glasses backwards on his eyes.
L: How long did it take you to get a passport and get out of the country?
J: It is an interesting story, tell her why we couldn't get it right away.
A: What happened is that you just can't get a passport ... There's also a Russian visa for entry and exit, so you're dealing with two different governments at this point. This happened on a Friday and a Saturday, and Tuesday was the Russian day of independence like our Fourth of July. ... So not only did we get hit with lightning, we got hit with a hurricane on top of that, and then like an electric eel came and zapped us and then we were stung in the face by a bee. ... We wound up having to go through the bureaucracy of the Russian system which is a very procedure-driven, it's not the easiest kind of culture to be in sometimes, there's no flexibility in it, everything is very much by the rules and very you know, that's the way it is and you have to jump through the hoops. But you know what we got lucky with some of it and we were able to get the passport issued, the temporary passport that got us home, and then the visa that allowed us to get out too. So, and there's a little bit more story to that but um there was actually a letter of diplomatic immunity that was granted, that is how this thing happened.
ETonline: (laughs) Wow.
James: We would have had to stay there for over a month (laughs).
ETonline: How long did it take?
Abba: It was I think six days.
ETonline: Wow.
Abba: I looked at James at one point I said, "Hey you know what, if we had won this leg, we would have got say a trip to go somewhere." So this way here we got our six day all-expense paid trip to Moscow, you know?
James: (laughs)
Abba: And that was kind of how we felt and it was like you know what like alright, we're over it we're out of the race, we have to kind of re-transition ourselves, and even though we're doing this all day long at least at night we can drink voluminous--
James: Vodka!
Abba: Vodka (laughs).
ETonline: So on Sunday night's episode in the last closing scene, you see that you are in a car with a priest. Can you tell me how that happened?
Abba: (laughs)
James: That was our speed bump, if you recall we heard the speed bump. ... So we were the only ones that had to do that, that's why you kept seeing our faces on the speed bump sign, and that was actually his church which was conspicuously placed throughout a bunch of roads going in the same direction. So it was a bit of a challenge, we knocked it out pretty quick. We were kind of hoping that, you know, maybe he'd put in a good prayer for us or at least he'd open up his collection box and the passport would be in it but obviously he wasn't a very good priest because neither one of those things happened (laughs).
ETonline: Unfortunately he couldn't materialize your passport for you (laughs). ... I also want to talk to you about another turning point in the race this season, another major, major event. What did you think when you watched the episode where the twins took your money and shared it with Trey and Lexi?
James: I was dumbfounded because we were convinced that we had lost the money. I mean just lost it, like it just slipped out of Abba's pocket along the way. So that was the first, I mean we kind of discovered that with the audience watching the show, you know. It was kind of weird to all of a sudden look at these people we'd been running around with and go, 'Oh my God, look at them!' But you know, my take on it, Abba's a little different, there's no rule against picking up somebody's money if it's fallen on the floor, you know, and part of the game is to kind of compete and get ahead and stuff like that. I don't know if it was a scrupulous thing but you know I don't hold really any animosity towards them. I think it was kind of, you know it's bad taste to have to be shown on TV doing something like that. And I was really surprised that Lexi jumped on board as well. You know, and to me it is kind of a part of the game, maybe not the most, [moral] part of the game. I don't know.
Abba: Yep, and as he said I don't totally buy into that kind of situation. I mean, I don't condone what happened. I think under the circumstances that we were the only people in there, it was a substantial amount of American money, and they knew it was, and so I'm disappointed, kind of shocked at Trey and Lexi. Not so shocked at the twins. But you know what, it happened to us, we didn't know that that had happened until we saw it on television that week. Previously going there we had been in a van as our cab and I had fallen asleep on the back bench and that's how I thought the money was lost. You know I wasn't going to accuse anybody because I didn't know that, and now, looking at it in hindsight, I just don't think that looking in the rearview mirror is the best way to go forward. So, you know, it happened and I think that you know I was very happy the way that we kind of dealt with it level-headed and--
James: It created a really great experience anyway, you know? Despite all that we did get back on track relatively quickly, so I mean it kind of [ended up being positive] in a strange way.
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ETonline: Yeah, I thought it was pretty amazing that in a country like Bangladesh where there's clearly so much poverty, that you were able to replace that money with everyone being so generous.
Abba: Yeah. And you know what again if we had had the money, we would not have had that life experience, and I think that quite honestly for me, that day was probably one of my highlights of the whole race, you know? Because it's really like the generosity of strangers giving you something that, you have no chance of ever paying back, and it really is just like, why are you doing this, you know? And then it kind of makes you feel guilty about all the times that maybe you could've reached out your hand to somebody and you didn't, you know? And you're kind of like, God I feel somewhat terrible about myself here, but at least at the same time it's like there's these angels around us that are you know, kind of like -- wow.
Abba: I'll tend to look at it as, if that didn't happen that day we would have never had that experience, and you know again it wasn't something fatal, you know we said sort of through it that a lot of times you know you're gonna to make mistakes trying to stay away from the catastrophic ones, well we hit one of those (laughs), you know? But I think just going through life if you bend and don't break, you're probably better off. And I think that you know it was a nice gesture of the Bangladeshi people. You saw throughout the race, we had support of a lot of the locals. Everywhere we went with the children in Bangladesh, and the people helping us with the bamboo, and if you look there's always a circle around us that are sort of smiling and enjoying what it is that we're doing. And you know, I think that that's sort of a testament to James and I, and I hope anyway that that's why they were there, because they wanted to be with us. And we could respect their culture and their local customs, and you know, who they are, and I'd like to think that's some of the experience of us traveling, you know? That we're not scared of this stuff that seems so exotic and so foreign sometimes the first time that you see it.
Abba: And even the poverty that was there in Bangladesh, it's awful, you know? I mean the conditions that these people are living in -- they're there right now today and have the same conditions. But the spirit of the people in some of the poorest places that I've ever been has been the most wonderful spirits that I could find. Anywhere. And you know it's just I think a nice reminder sometimes and people use it as that positive kind of reminder, then you know what, it was a lesson that we learned, and hopefully everybody else could kind of benefit from it.
ETonline: Yeah definitely. Has it changed how you live your life daily now that you're back in any way?
James: You know what, I've always kind of had an open heart for people, and more so than a lot of people in my business. But this has kind of reinforced that. When we were stuck in Russia we were at the police station, and we were trying desperately to find our passport, we just couldn't make a connection language wise with the guy on duty, and we had to fill out a form. And so you saw this fellow come walking up and I asked him could you help translate. That guy stood there for hours. Hours. He had just come home from school, and he had his smoothie he was gonna sit down and eat, and he gave us all that time. And, I mean, I was amazed, I am forever thankful to him. It didn't get us the passports, nonetheless he gave us all that time to try and help us. I mean there are so many great people in the world and I think you know, we get the kind of the thing of being ugly Americans, you know that kind of strips off once you see the generosity of people with maybe a little less. I mean not so much [with this guy] but certainly Bangladesh. I came away with so much renewed positivity for people in general throughout the whole world.
Abba: I think we kind of came across as being kind of serious and it's really not the way that so much of this was, you know I think we had a whole lot of goofy like moments through things, and there were people that helped us. Again we wound up even going into the final pit stop, there was a really pretty girl that was jogging along, and it was kind of like I put out my thumb like hitchhiking and she laughed, and you know she walked up to the pit stop with us, and we kind of hugged her, and when we were in Moscow the first time again there was another very pretty woman that was dressed in this business suit and she was the one who kind of helped and walked with us, and got a cab for us. Going on to the one plane that we wound up getting on going into Russia we met these two women that were I think from Ireland or Scotland, and they got on the plane and we wound up going down the runway with them holding hands and like singing and dancing, and like you know. I mean it was just so much fun that like we had, and you know obviously they can't show everything but you know what it's like we enjoyed the experience.
Abba: And I think that's really something everybody should take [away, that] there's so much stuff in the world that you could just kind of unbelievably enjoy. Try to eat something different today. Say hello to somebody you've never said hello to before, you know just do something different, whatever it is. And I think that if you have that attitude, life really opens up and maybe these people were all around us all the time but you know what, it's like a clenched fist can't receive the gift. So if you open up your hand sometimes you might be surprised what falls into them. And not just when you need something. And, again, I think our experiences of traveling have sort of maybe taught us that slowly along the way, and maybe you saw some of that. I'd like to think that that's sort of how we live our life, and I think it was pretty accurately represented.
ETonline: One last question: Who do you think of the remaining pairs, who do you think will win?
Abba: I'm gonna go with Monster Truck.
James: Yeah me too.
ETonline: (laughs) You guys know they're not in it any more, right?
A: They're not? Who are you voting for?
J: They only let us watch TV for forty minutes at a time here in Russia.
A: Yeah we're still in Russia by the way. Did they tell you that?
You can catch the remaining teams on The Amazing Race on Sunday nights at 8/7 c on CBS.
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