Luxury, fancy dress and strapping men ... Rugby may be the game for me

It was rather amazing to contemplate, as I strolled toward the towering metal struts of Twickenham's stadium, that in 14 years of living in the UK I'd never attended a professional sporting event. (Unless you count polo and horse trials, which always seem more like popping into a Ralph Lauren commercial than watching an athletic activity.) It was time for me to break in to the world of British team sport.

Rugby was the game, and a friend's corporate box was the setting. I expected to like it. I can enjoy just about anything from the luxury seats. Fact is, I loved it.

The game itself was a revelation. Like most Americans, I had only the sketchiest exposure to rugby, associating it with a minority of very rich kids from the East Coast. The last time I saw a match Michael Jackson still had his own nose and I was loitering with sorority sisters next to a Northwestern field. The game? We could never really figure it out. We were really only there to watch the boys. Big, muscular, quite remarkable boys.

This time someone actually explained to me that you can't pass the ball forward; a basic fact that revolutionised my grasp of events. Better yet, this was a Sevens tournament. Teams of just seven men, as opposed to the normal 15, play seven-minute halves with just one minute between. It makes for a fast paced, rapid passing game that's over in a quarter hour. While two teams play on the field, four others are prepping on the field's margins. Tackling is fierce and padding is limited, creating the possibility of grievous injury at every turn. Boredom is impossible.

Evidently Sevens are a bit of a minor league, showing off the skills of boys on the brink of the big time. This was the second day of an international tournament that laid on a rapid-fire procession of matches. Earlier in the day I'd gotten to cheer on the Americans who made a valiant effort but lost twice. Able to put my allegiance behind my second passport without a crisis of conscience, I was amply rewarded. England powered through the tournament and made the final, against traditional powerhouse New Zealand. They were down 21-0 at the half and things looked grim. Then they shocked the hell out of us, scoring four tries in those seven fleeting minutes and sending the crowd into convulsions of rapture.

The drama on the field was matched by the entertainment off it. I was unprepared for the fancy dress aspect of English Rugby, where it is evidently de rigueur to coordinate costumes with your friends and turn up in masquerade. I saw a pirate crew, monks, cowboys and Indians, comic book heroes, one Pink Panther, two Winnie the Poohs and too many cross-dressing men to count. (They may have granted me citizenship, but the English man's love of female dress, like the popularity of Marmite or the propensity to whinge constantly, is an aspect of national identity I will just never grasp.)

I could have been perfectly happy being part of this madness in the regular stands. Viewing it all from a box just elevated the fun to a higher level. Two servers took care of five of us, meaning my champagne glass was rarely more than a third empty before a hovering arm topped it up. We tucked into a four-course meal at lunch time in the privacy of our suite, all crisp white linen and fine wines as the lads outside the glass wall tackled, ran and strained for our entertainment. Outside to the terrace to watch more action and get more top ups (by now had switched to a chateauneuf du pape as robust and fruity as the boys in tutus a few rows down), and then suddenly it was tea time and the table indoors was groaning with more food.

After England's stunningly unexpected win, we went reeling out into the streets of Twickenham, dancing along with the festively attired ... and now well sozzled ... crowds. Too crowded, in fact, to attempt the train, so we wandered to a leafy bit of the Thames riverside and settled into a pub garden, admiring the glimmering twilight and reveling in the first properly warm night of the year.

After all that food, drink and excitement, I finally found myself on the 9:15 train and was home and in bed before 10:30. Satiated, sleeping soundly and dreaming of big, muscular, quite remarkable boys. Twickenham or Northwestern fields: Some things remain constant through time.