This one time, in BA

As Amelia so rightly pointed out in our last post, I’ve really not banged on about going to Buenos Aires whatsoever. As you’re all clearly not sick of my stories yet I’m going to talk about it once again.

While Amelia and Jack took a romantic trip to La Serena, I accidentally ended up on my own couple’s getaway to Buenos Aires. Due to unforeseen circumstances I left for Argentina with just Charlie, readily prepared for assumptions from everyone that we were a couple, despite having met only twice before.

BA is amazing. The city has so much character and atmosphere; it’s like a shabby Paris with all its beautiful architecture and wide boulevards lined with outdoor cafes. The place is huge and each of its districts are extremely different, in terms of both character and wealth. The night life is also great, or all 30 minutes that I experienced of it before deciding I needed to finally end my 44 hour streak of no sleep. I spent the next half day awkwardly making trips to the 8-man dorm bathroom to be sick. Shout out to the cocktail Possible Seizure for making this possible.

On that note, we really weren’t that safety aware in general. On one of Charlie’s nights out, he ended up leaving the club temporarily for some air, falling asleep against a car for an hour and a half in a backstreet, then waking up at about 4 and re-entering the club until 8. Strong.

We roamed through some more dodgy streets as obvious tourists when we went to a match at the Independiente stadium – the atmosphere for this was unbelievable, especially given that the result was 5-3 to Independiente. The entire stadium jumped and fist pumped in unison, and fans were climbing the fences around the pitch.

I also woke up one night to two fellow dorm-dwellers having sex next to my head. So that’s good.

Upon returning to Chile, I had to persuade (lie to) the authorities to let me back in the country, given that I knowingly left without sufficient documentation to re-enter. So I’m now technically an illegal immigrant. Despite all this we finished the trip pretty much intact, having gained a severe amount of weight from Argentinian steak and alfajores (these are a kind of chocolatey cakey biscuit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOKKPJzr-4w), and lacking only a bank card, some stolen clothes, and a fair amount of money and health.

Plaza de Mayo

Power couple

Very inconspicuous tourists

BREAKING NEWS: We finally spent time apart

A lot has happened since our last post. There has been laughter (Amelia got weed on by a stray dog and the locals pissed themselves). There have been tears (Elle got too drunk and cried because she wasn’t allowed to take a  different stray dog into our apartment). And potentially the most shocking plot twist of all: the two of us have actually spent a significant portion of the last month away from each other, leading to several ‘where’s your girlfriend’ related questions. The gist of it is that Amelia has a lot of friends and Elle does not.

For the hectic month that has been September, I have hosted not one, but two visitors from home. 

Given the hype of all the ACTIVITIES we’ve been doing here in Chile, the pressure was on to show first Megan, and then Jack, what it’s all about. Under these circumstances, I found myself on a random fishing boat in a remote coastal town, nearly broke my leg on an off-piste ski slope, and mistakenly dragged someone who doesn’t speak a work of Spanish to an unsubtitled show at the Santiago planetarium (sorry Jack). That said, it was the perfect excuse to see a load of awesome places outside of Santiago, including La Serena, Zapallar and Valparaíso.

La Serena with the ultimate idiot abroad

At one with the ocean/finding ourselves in Zapallar

Valparaíso, a city of street art

Gone fishing

Just getting some ice poured on my head
by Manuel Pellegrini's best mate

Oh, and I don't know if you've heard (she hasn't mentioned it once to a single person), but Elle went to Buenos Aires, so she'll be writing a post on that.

As soon as the visits were over, Amelia met the rest of us at the beach town of Viña del Mar for the biggest celebration in the Chilean calendar year, dieciocho. Essentially, the whole country sacks off the entire week and instead engages in daily barbecues and drinks far too many ‘terremotos’ in massive carnival settings with fairground rides and nightclub tents. Terremotos translate to ‘earthquakes’ and consist of fermented wine and a scoop of pineapple ice cream. See below for the aftermath of said terremotos.


Amelia awoke from her lil nap in the taxi
and entered the hostel in style

We also went to a bar on Alex’s 21st birthday called Spazio Badoynk (or Spaz as we lovingly labelled it), did some weird dancing then ended up in the Casino, where we discovered that Ally actually has a gambling problem. Much persuasion was later needed back in the hostel to tear her away from her Paddy Power account, drunk naked and angry.

Spot the gambling addict

Elle finally lost the 'I can drive I just don't have a pink licence'
argument when she spectacularly crashed into a curb

It’s fair to say it has been a good month. Other ACTIVITIES included a bike tour through a vineyard, salsa classes and Abbie head-butting the occasional Chilean.

However, post-visitor issues Amelia is currently experiencing:

• Having shared a room with someone every night but one from 25th August to 21st September, I am officially scared to sleep alone.
• I actually have to do some uni work.
• I must now return to spending a disproportionately large amount of ‘alone time’ with Elle.