An American Education

Classic red phone booths, the smell of fish and chips, familiar sights and sounds of English signs and conversation…

…Definitely not Spain.

The scenery most directly pointed to Britain but how did 2 Euros and a thirty-minute bus ride land me in the UK?

Gibraltar's unique location

Gibraltar. A rock the size of Pittsford Plaza (for those of you not from Rochester, about 2 1/3 miles around), sits on the southern-most tip of Europe. A small isthmus connects Gibraltar to Spain while Morocco can be clearly seen across across the Mediteranian. This unique and teeny British territory comes complete with a complicated history and a handful of highly debated topics, important and not to be ignored. Yet, my story is not affected by numerous conquests, a unique tax situation or an abundant amount of oil tankers. It only requires a beach, some new British friends and most importantly: 

a piece of American athletic equipment.   

Through "couch surfing," a great social network, we met two locals who offered to show us around the tip-top “cheerio” streets of “Little Spanish UK.”

The shameful but necessary photo stuffed into a phone booth.

While getting to know each other one of our new friends pulled out a familiar object. It was, to our great surprise, an American football!

“Can you teach me how to throw this?” he said in a marvelous British accent.

I flashed an excited grin. My tomboy years of striving to imitate my big brother would finally be put to use!

For the next two hours three highly uncoordinated Americans attempted to duplicate an NFL game…yet after many throws directly into the sand, a dive into the ocean and a crash landing into 3 sunbathing teenage girls…we decided the simple act of spiraling the ball was a lofty enough goal for the day.

 

A view of "The Rock (Gibraltar)"

As the sun set, there I stood, my fingers grasping the laces of America, toes in British sand, Spain less than 2 miles away and only a 35-mile stretch of water between northern Africa and a lesson on the proper techniques of a killer American touchdown dance.

By the end of our visit two Gibraltan citizens could catch a football one-handed while holding a beer in the other, I think we did our job - America would be proud.