Footballs.

Thanks to a friend's brother visiting for the Olympics, my building has recently become the home of what I'm convinced is the only American football in London.

You may remember me mentioning that we recently went on a mission to find one, but despite the four floors of sports equipment, Sports Direct let us down. (Everyone kept telling us to just use a rugby ball, but there's no way that would work, as not only are there substantial differences in their shapes, but also let's be honest...I need the laces to know how I'm supposed to hold it.) So I was really excited when I found out one had been brought from home.

We rallied a group of people to go play, bringing with us both kinds of footballs. After a quick warmup with the European version, we busted out the pigskin, and held a mini-tutorial on how to throw it. At first, my sloppy spiral (more of a wobble, really) was looking pretty good compared to the other guys' attempts. Sure, they'd never so much as held an American football, but is that really relevant?

Anyway, they caught on really quickly, and soon we were playing with both footballs simultaneously. The best moments were when someone received a pass from one person at the same time that another person started another pass. You didn't have enough time to think about it, so the frantic attempts to catch/stop/duck all at once were pretty hilarious.

And one of the guys made an interesting observation. Whenever an American football came flying at a European who wasn't feeling confident about catching it, he'd try to stop it with his foot instead of his hands. On the flip side, when a European football hurtled toward an American, we typically stuck out our hands to knock it away. It was pretty interesting. Plus, it was a lot of fun.

Oh football(s). How I love you.