Whenever I wonder whether we did the right thing by moving here, I think of this photo. It was taken in late February, which is a beautiful fact in itself. There aren’t a lot of places I’ve lived where you can be outside, dry and reasonably warm in February — certainly not the UK, where we lived until November.
During the dead of winter in London, the sun started going down before 3 PM, so soccer (ie football) would not have been an option in the late afternoon. That makes a difference, because my husband can catch part of the class on his way home from work.
As a Brit, he is a big football fan, so he is especially enthusiastic about our daughter’s interest in soccer. The coach told us that she handles the ball well for a two-year-old. True, he probably would have said the same thing to any parents — especially because we hadn’t paid for the classes yet, and hadn’t decided at that point whether we were going to — but it was still thrilling to hear.
She calls it Soccball — a fusion of “soccer” and “football.” I think she might be onto something — a new language that unites British and American English.
Reverse Culture Shock 