As a child my favorite sport of all time was soccer. I would get up happily on those hot summer mornings and drink my juice and toast in my rubber flip flops. Once the rest of the family had finally gotten ready, I would slip on my pink flip flops, drop my cleats in my bag and head out to soccer practice. Sometimes it was soccer camp, depending on the week. However, think of how my world was shattered when my father came home after a fun family day playing at the park in his mens flip flops to tell us that he was unexpectedly uprooting our family and taking us and our kid flip flops all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. What was our destination, you might ask? He was taking us and my mom’s womens flip flop collection all the way to England.
In only a few short months, the movers had come, the house was packed and sent out on a ship over the ocean and we were wondering what had happened. During this time, my mom told me we were going out shopping. I grumbled a little but went to put on my rubber flip flops to go with her. However, she had other plans in mind. She made me go back twice. First, I had to change into nicer clothes (rhinestone flip flops instead of beach flip flops) and second, to fix my hair into something decent. Once we were finally out the door, we stopped at my best friend’s house to ‘drop something off’ only to find all of my friends there waiting to give me a surprise party.
That is my last memory before I woke up in a quaint little bed and breakfast in Prestbury, England. I slipped out of the crisp, white covers, slipped on my flip flops and stared out the window at a peaceful stream bubbling along across the street. This initial view of England was much more pleasant than finding out that girls don’t really play soccer in England (or ‘football’ as they call it.) A sport reserved for boys on the whole, they didn’t even have a soccer team, let alone soccer coaching at the all girls school I attended. Talk about total, complete disappointment. My cleats looked very sad in the corner of my room and my pink flip flops were unused to going across the freshly cut grass to sit down by the goal. It can be very difficult to be a girl in a man’s world.