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London Amazing Race — Afegirls Style!

Who doesn’t love the Amazing Race? I mean, what’s not to love?  A group of people, competing in pairs, travel around the world following clues and competing in bizarre challenges.  Afegirls are low-key obsessed with the show and hoping it stays on the air long enough for me to turn 18 so that we can apply (audition?) to compete.  We even got the boys to watch a couple of seasons with us.  Fast-forward to London.  Amazing Race wasn’t exactly top-of-mind, but we’re obsessed enough (and had just binge-watched an early season right before the trip) that it wasn’t far-from-mind either.

Racing at the British Museum

So, on the afternoon of Day 3, the British Museum was on the agenda.  We weren’t planning to spend a ton of time there — we were kind our toured out from our morning at the Tower of London.  But we felt like we should stop in and at least see the Rosetta Stone.  I mean, it’s the Rosetta Stone — the key that cracked Egyptian hieroglyphics! And for some reason it’s in London! Crazy!

When we walked into the museum, we looked at a directory and saw that Egyptian galleries were upstairs.  We wandered upstairs, where Jonny and my mom stopped at another directory and started arguing about whether the Stone was going to be in the second floor galleries (which were kind of hidden and out of the way) or on the main floor.  I stood in the middle of them and acted like I actually had an opinion, while my dad stood a few feet away, mesmerized by something on his phone.

Finally, my mom got fed up with the argument, declared, “We’re playing Amazing Race — first one to the Stone wins,” and pulled me downstairs, where we found the Rosetta Stone right where she thought it would be. My mom and I proceeded to wait for thirty minutes for it to dawn on my dad and Jonny that the attraction was downstairs.   We all thought that was kind of fun, so we decided to keep playing.  My dad found an internet list of the Top Things to See at the British Museum, and we set up a few rules.

1. Take a selfie with the object for proof (both team members in the photo, so no splitting up), and each picture is worth 1 point
2. No asking for help from another tourist or employee
3. You cannot disturb anyone at the museum (aka: no running)
4. Return to the meeting spot when the 35 minutes are up, or you lose 1 point for every minute that you are late

We take our Amazing Race very seriously, it’s no joking matter. Sadly, my mother and I lost.  Wandering the museum for 30 minutes looking for the Rosetta Stone gave the boys a huge advantage in knowing where everything was, which meant that I was sleeping on the couch for the rest of the vacation, and my brother got the second bedroom.  However, our loss inspired us to kick their butts a few days later.

The Race Goes City-Wide

We ended up having Saturday completely free due to a screw up with our tickets to the Warner Brothers Studio Tour. We had a few ideas to fill our time, but finally agreed that we needed a family Amazing Race rematch; except, this time, we would play city-wide. We decided to keep the same teams (Afegirls rule!), and my mom and dad came up with the challenge list. You earned one point for each completed challenge with photographic proof of completion.

Challenge List:

1. Visit one new Harry Potter site (we had been to King’s Cross Station and to the Theater)
2. Find Isaac Newton’s grave
3. Find the pelicans in St. James Park
4. Go to the middle of Tower Bridge
5. Buy something from an establishment that has been there since before 1800
6. Find Speaker’s Corner
7. Travel from one challenge to another by means other than car or train
8. Find an animal statue
9. Go to the Globe Theater
10. Find Temple Church
11. Find one of Nelson’s noses
12. Take a picture with the Royal Guard

We started our race at 11:00, and planned to meet for lunch from 1:00 – 2:00 in Trafalgar Square.  The rules required us to arrive no later than 1:00, and,  for every minute that we were late, we had to stay at the restaurant an extra minute after 2:00. The race ended at the London Eye at 4:00. For every minute we were late at 4:00, one point (one picture) would be subtracted.  Any and all cell phone use was allowed.

Who won?  I think that goes without saying . . .

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Want more Afegirls in London?

Check out:

–  Our complete one-week London itinerary.

– Afegirls’ guide to planning the London trip

– Our guide to London Food & Lodging

– Our top 10 list of things to do in London with teens

– A day out in Dover: Castles, Cliffs and Tunnels Galore

Trip Date: July 2016

Kids’ Ages: Jonny 16 and Emma 14