The Journey

My exit from my local town was rather different to how I had idealised. There was no glorious sunshine nor throngs of teary companions bustling to give me one last hug goodbye, neither were there doves released or any sign of divine intervention. The reality was that I was woken up having missed my train with the most disgusting hangover imaginable by the satellite repairman barging into my room looking for a phone line outlet. Luckily two of my friends were staying with me and after several failed attempts to eat the corner of a piece of toast we collected my items and left. So disappointing was my exit from the Birch nest that my mother did not even come with my to station (having assured me that she did love me, but had other stuff to do...I was not fooled), and didn't even cry. Now that for me one was enormous anti-climax, the pinnacle of her creative output, leaving, without a single sign of waterworks!

During the train journey, I also developed a new disdain for the people in charge of pricing the items on the food trolley, considering everything to be exceedingly overpriced. However, this may have been biased by the fact that at the time I had 70 pence to my name, and carefully perched in the corner of the carriage, pale as a ghost with blood red eyes I would have been reluctant to serve me too.

In London I went through a typical shopping experience with my father, whereby I am frogmarched into a shop he considers 'appropriate' and am then dictated at to which items I like. Unfortunately this was in order to buy ski gear, sturdy boots and warm, weatherproof clothing, which inevitably involves technical talk. This, for males in general, is an area of intense masculinity where absolutely noone, not even the people selling the equipment, the experts, know what they are talking about. There was much talk of altitude, temperamental weather conditions and my father asserting at regular intervals that this was not a fashion parade. He also clearly got lost in the technical jargon our bland assistant was excreting and in a blind panic starting blurting out 'waterproof', 'resistance' 'durable' in the pauses in conversation whilst taking his glasses on and off knowingly and manhandling certain products in a showgingly assertive manner.

Later on, I arrived at Gatwick airport, and considering I was going on ski course, I feared that I would be surrounded by 'hooray henry' and sloaney types. To my absolute horror, I was queued directly behind two twenty-something year old, Jack Wills clad girls, engaged in a tirade of 'Yah's'and 'Dahlings' whilst filling each other in on the latest action on the K.R. (King's Road for us mere mortals). However, I plucked up some courage and asked if the were heading to Argentina, to my delight, they were going to sun themselves and meet some of daddy's friends who had a house in Spain. I later met a Scot called Ritchie who would be heading to Bariloche as well. I feared the initial conversation may have started of with a "Ey! Yooo're one of they Anglishmen aren't ye?' kind of twist. Luckily he shook my hand and no sharp items were drawn.

After some mild gambling, drinking and the standard rating of women in the bar we seemed to be getting on swimmingly, sharing a similarly poor conversational vocabulary and blunt sense of humour. For the record, and on a slightly different note, I am not a good flier.You may argue that this is not a good trait in a young man filled with wanderlust....and on this occasion I would be forced to agree with you.

The 12 1/2 hour flight was terrible, stuck in the middle seat without a wink of sleep ending up watching a catastrophically bad Steve Carrell film dubbed in out of sync Spanish. 4 times. However in retrospect Aerolineas Argentinas must be complimented on the aesthetics of their air hostesses. However, I stress, this compliment cannot be stretched to anything else. Except perhaps in the eyes of my Scottish friend who claimed to "f*****g love plane food". I suppose after haggis, microwaved rabbit testes would seem an absolute treat.

We arrived at 5.30am, and proceeded to wait for an hour in an extremely complicated Immigration queuing system. I very excitingly had my first passport stamp given very forcibly by a very large woman who's stamping I feared might break the table. I was lucky and had all my baggage arrive, but several others did not share the same fortune. Finally at ten minutes to eight we met Mark who would be our instructor for the next three months, A 52 year old, trance mad Aussie who had been in Argentina for four years. Unfortunately, after a possible, 7 minutes we heard him speak Spanish for the first time, and he speaks the language about as well as Christopher Walken speaks English....on helium, while drunk. We had a lengthy and tedious negotiation with a bus driver and after a couple of not so subtle bribes we were off and venturing into the heart of the unpredictable and completely mental Buenos Aires.