Viva Buenos Aires!

I'm sitting in bed, mildly hungover, and decided now would be the perfect time to write my first blog of the trip, as Josh is distracted by a football match on TV.

I awoke on Christmas morning to my elderly flight steward playing 'jingle bells' on a harpsichord over the tannoy on the plane. We were an hour away from landing, and while I appreciated the sentiment, I would have preffered he kept his festivities to himself for about 30 minutes longer, so I could continue to sleep!

The flight was uneventful, as was the journey from the airport to meet Josh at the apartment we had rented for the week. I met a couple who were in their late 50s, and who literally had no idea how to get from the airport to their hotel. I had to help them buy their bus tickets, explain where they should go to change their dollars to pesos, and as they got off the bus at their hotel, the man turned to me and said, 'but how do we get back to the airport next week??' I told him to talk to someone at their hotel about it, and then wished them luck. I wonder how they're getting on without me!

Josh had prepared a wondeful Christmas meal for us when I arrived: smoked salmon, prosciutto and cheeses, champagne. It was so lovely! Then I had to nap as I was missing about 6 hours worth of sleep. Later that day we went for a walk around the local park, which is enormous and has lots of little different parks within it, like a Japanese garden, and a botanical garden.

Christmas lunch!

Our apartment is awesome, and really well located too. There are lots of restaurants and cafes and bars nearby, plus the big park. Yesterday we walked from our neighbourhood to the next one, to visit La Cemetoria de Recoleta. It's exactly what it sounds like, a cemetary. It was huge, and filled with enormous tombs and crypts, it was more like a small town than your usual graveyard, except obviously everyone was buried. We saw the grave of Eva Peron, or 'Evita' as she's more well known as.

They know how to honour the dead!

We then walked across to Plaza de Mayo, which is a big square flanked by significant buildings such as the Presidential Palace, and a huge cathedral. The square is famous for demonstrations, and there are huge banners everywhere protesting about the Falkland Islands ('they were, are, and always will be Argentina's'). Josh and I decided on the spot to pretend to be Australian if anyone asked. Josh was told at his hostel on his first night in Argentina that someone had been punched in the face by an Argetinean just because he was from England!

The Presidential Palace, where Evita made her famous 'don't cry for me Argentina' speech

Last night we went out on a bar crawl, and met some locals. It was a really fun night, although am feeling it today a bit, but we exchanged email addresses with one girl, and her friend has offered us a place to stay in his house after New Year so we may stick around here a bit longer, and hang out with them!

We leave the apartment on the 31st, and are moving to a hostel for a few days so we can meet people to spend New Year with. Am going to miss this place though!

Our balcony

TTFN Dallas

So tomorrow I leave Dallas for the unknown in South America, for five months.

Here is a picture of our vague route/plan, but I can't really elaborate further, or tell you dates of when I will be where because the whole point of traveling is to NOT KNOW. We don't want schedules or itineraries, we plan to not plan!

The rough idea is to visit 8 countries:

• Argentina
• Uruguay
• Brazil
• Chile
• Bolivia
• Peru
• Ecuador
• Colombia

Christmas and New Year will be spent in Buenos Aires, we'll be in Montevideo, Uruguay by around Jan 14th to meet up with Josh's friend Lucas, and will definitely be in Brazil by early Feb in time for Carnival, which we plan to spend with Fernanda, who is Brazilian, but whom we met in Albuquerque three years ago (study abroad programmes really are a great way to meet people from all over the world!)

That's about it, plan-wise! My flight back to Dallas is on May 29th from Bogota, Colombia, so I'm going to have to be there by then, but apart from that, you're just going to have to check back in and see what we've been doing.

Also, if anyone is interested, you can now subscribe to this blog and get an email telling you I've written something new - just add your email address in the left hand column. I'm notoriously useless at replying to facebook messages, emails, texts, etc so 1) don't take it personally, and 2) read this to find out what we've been doing instead.

Marry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone. Peace out Dallas xxxxx

Christmas Party

Last week I had my first ever office Christmas party. Instead of boozing it up at the office, or going out for a meal, we decided to do something a little different; something to remember… We went to Medieval Times!

For those of you that don’t know, Medieval Times is a staged medieval-style show, with sword fighting, and jousting, and you get a medieval-style dinner too which you must eat with your fingers, no cutlery provided (think chicken drumsticks, ribs and potato wedges) while you're watching the show. It's even set in a castle.

Medieval Times, Dallas

When you arrive, you are assigned a knight, and he will be the one you are cheering for during the show. We had the Red and Yellow knight, Lord del Font - champion to the Count of Perelada. There was a King and Princess announcing the ‘tournament’ who spoke in terrible attempts at English accents, and you watched as the knights battled for the Princess’ hand in marriage while eating your dinner. We also had unlimited alcoholic beverages which obviously made the show even more exciting, with every cocktail consumed!

it was a 'knight' to remember

All the waiters and bar staff had to address you as ‘m’lord’ or ‘m’lady’ which got a bit annoying after a while but not their fault I suppose. Our waiter looked like the main character from the film Antz which I found hilarious, although no-one else could see it. Come to think of it, I’d had quite a few piña coladas by this point…

Anyway, there was also a falconer (is that a word?) who sent his falcon flying over the audience. He has a long rope thing that had meat attached to the end, which he swung round to make the falcon fly. (On an immature side note, I am genuinely intrigued if anyone gets pooed on during these shows. Luckily I did not find out the hard way, but I’m sure it must happen!)

One man and his bird

It was a fun night, getting to meet everyone at work’s other halves, and getting quite drunk with them! Going to work the next day was not so fun, especially as a few of us decided to go out drinking afterwards, despite having had unlimited drinks at the show. I got home at about 1am and had to be at work at 9, which was an hour later than usual (forever grateful that our start time was pushed back a bit, don’t know if I could have struggled to get out of bed any earlier). 

To everyone at my office, it was a great night to end a great year of working with you great people. Thank you!

I'll miss you guys!

An Ode to Hugh

So I thought I’d write a little blog about my little bro, as I miss him and have also told a few stories about him recently which have made me laugh. Hugh is my insane partner in crime, and is probably the only person to have seen quite how mad I am, other than my poor mother who just despairs in the fact that two of her children should probably be committed. We have a very similar sense of humour, and spent a lot of time together this summer watching Friends and Gavin & Stacy, irritating everyone else as we know all the words and quote along with them. Actually, we normally spoil the jokes for everyone else because we mostly say the punchline before the character on the show does.

Hugh and I haven’t always got along, mostly because when there’s a four year age gap between any siblings, they’re going to fight. I used to slap him really hard on the back when he annoyed me, mostly at the dinner table, as I have a huge intolerance of people eating with their mouths open. Granted he was only about 7 but still, I knew what he was having for dinner, I didn't need to see it as it was being ingested. We got past the physical violence stage and I do feel quite bad about it now, but I’m sure he didn't suffer too much? (Sorry Hug.)

One of my first memories is the night Hugh was born. I remember coming out of my bedroom late at night and seeing my mum’s friend Dimity on the landing, and being really confused. She told me that I was going to have a little brother or sister in the morning when I woke up, and to go back to bed. The next morning, I woke up with chicken pox. Really unfortunate timing, as it meant I wasn't allowed to visit mum and Hugh in the hospital in case I infected him. I maintained that I didn't mind but apparently it wasn't my choice.

When Hugh was about 18 months old, it snowed quite heavily. This was going to be his first experience with snow, and my mum spent about an hour bundling him up in 50 or so layers. My older brother Ben and I had already been outside playing all morning, and I was getting a bit fed up at being really crap at snowball fights. Ben had good enough aim that he pretty much hit me every time, whereas I was yet to land a return shot on target. Anyway, mum brings Hugh outside at last, and he’s wearing so many layers that he can barely move. ‘Finally,’ I think. ‘I’m sure I can hit him with a snowball, and he can’t throw back!’ So I pack a nice hefty snowball in my hands, and sure enough, hit right on target (hardly surprising as he can’t move). I can still picture him, falling straight backwards without even being able to put his hands out to break his fall at all. He screamed bloody murder, and my mum had to take him back inside, despite her taking so long to wrap him up and let him see snow for the first time. I didn't feel too bad though, I finally won a snowball fight!

Hugh had a lot of cuddly toys when he was younger, and most of them had really original names like Ted the teddy, and Cushion the cushion. He was given a crocodile toy for Christmas one year, and wanted to call him Croc. Ben and I persuaded him to think of something more original, but he didn't know what else to name it. ‘Name it after something you like,’ we said, thinking he might call it Thomas after Thomas the Tank Engine, or something like that. He thought for a second, and then said, ‘Yoghurt.’

To this day, I still bet that he is probably the only child ever to have named a reptile after a dairy product.

My grandfather's neighbour once asked Hugh what he was giving up for Lent. He was 3 or 4 at the time. His answer: Girls!

Hugh went through a ‘comedy’ stage, of telling really unfunny jokes to anyone who would listen. He made up his own jokes, and his classic punchline was, ‘I’m bigger than you’:

What did the wardrobe say to the bed?

I’m bigger than you

What did the car say to the bike?

I’m bigger than you

It was irritating, to say the least, and one day it got too much. ‘Stop telling I’m bigger than you jokes!’ we yelled at him. He looked a bit offended, as he clearly thought he was being hilarious, but he did stop for a while. Then he piped up with:

‘What did the table say to the other table?’

‘We’re the same size.’

Probably the funniest faux-pas Hugh made as a child was when he was about 7 or 8. He was trying to tell my grandparents that he was ambidextrous, but got his words a bit muddled, and announced in front of everyone that he was, in fact, bisexual. Now that’s comedy.

Miss you Hug! Merry Christmas :)