We managed to get the janitor from Misam's apartment block to allow us to have our party on the block roof, which, when I see the flyer later that afternoon, is nicely expressed with the words "15 floors above China town, we will celebrate Christmas with you!"

Camilla's Colombian boyfriend Fabian has so nicely made us the flyer and it looks great with a picture of us tree girls on it. I attached the flyer in an email and send it round to all my friends. Most of them already know about the party, but this is just the official invitation and mostly for fun really.

I decide to make "oliebollen" as a national dish from Holland, something we normally really eat with New Year, but I somehow can't think of something special we would eat with Christmas. I search on the Internet for the recipy and also come across a German tradition of "Glühwein", a nice warm wine with spices and orange.

I find this a funny idea to give our party a bit more Christmas and winter feeling, while we are in the mitts of summer here with around 35 degrees, so I decide to also write down this recipy. I have a little chat with the guy working there as I pay him for the time I have used the computer. Even though my house is surrounded by Internet café's and I go to different ones, I use them often enough to, in each one of them, know the people there.

I walk around the corner to the supermarket "Disco", which might not be the cheapest one, but I think I will have most luck here with finding all the necessary ingredients. I smile at my own amazement of the crowd of people as I enter. Of course also in Argentina they know the concept of `last minute Christmas shopping', but to my relief I see a note saying they will stay open during the Christmas Day.

"Good", I think, because I am lousy in planning ahead what I want to eat the next days. A long while later I come back home with full bags of shopping. Gaston, Owen, and now even a third friend who came over from Scotland, Mike, are all lying on the terrace. Mike has come over during the Christmas holiday from University to surprise visit Gaston here. It sure was a surprise! But as always, we have managed to fix him up a place on the sofa, next to Owen, and I equally enjoy his company thoroughly. The sister of Gaston has moved in to a hotel her parents are now staying in after also arriving here, so in short, Gaston could now officially start his own tourist agency out here!

I start my cooking in our little kitchen after first having opened all the windows. I need some air and wind in this already warm house while I am going to hang over the frying pan for hours and hours preparing my little "oliebollen", which literally means little bolls of oil. They are made out of dough, raisins and apples and then made into little bolls as you fry them and then sprinkle them with sugar. Normally, to let the dough raise, my mother places it above the central heater in our house in Holland. Here, however, I place the huge bowl right in the mitts of the guys hanging out on the terrace, under the blazing sun! The guys have pulled out the little baby swimming pool that Gaston had given me for my birthday and have created an entire pipeline system of empty bottles connected to each other to supply it of water without having to carry water buckets! Is this laziness in its ultimate state? They are all waiting for my first `oliebollen' to pass their tasting test, any excuse just to get their hands on whatever it is that spreads that nice smell from the kitchen. I need to quickly run out of the house to take the bus a couple of blocks to the girl's house to borrow a skirt from Celine to wear to the party.

As I cross the park on my way to the bus stop Pablo and the guys are lying there, eating gigantic buckets of delicious ice cream. I sit with them for a while, happy to be out of the kitchen and in the sun. I have to listen to their macho jokes as I complain of my hard work, saying that they like the fact that for once I am acting like a woman should: standing in the kitchen all day. I quickly have this joke turned around as they rub my shoulders to relief them of my cooking stress. Now who is laughing?! Happily, regained with my new energy, I get in the bus and pick up the skirt. I have the keys to the apartment of the girls, because they are all traveling or gone home for Christmas.

In the evening the party is a big success. Everyone has brought food to the extend that there is even too much for us to eat. We play a game with the little gifts we have each bought, so we even all get a little something. The view from the 15th floor is amazing when entire Buenos Aires lights off fireworks at twelve o'clock and we look out over the whole city. Then the noise that reaches us of party fibe's becomes irresistible and we go down to join the city in a big night out.

We take different taxies to go to the same party, which sounds easy enough but turns out a real ordeal, ending with the taxi driver getting into a fit of laughing at all the different telephone calls we are having to see who is where and where is where. In the end we turn up at a wonderful amazingly designed old house with people partying everywhere. We discover half of our original party crew here and party on.

Camilla occupies the toilet straight as she comes in, with Fabian guarding the door for her. I worry if she is going to be ok, but later on I see her dancing away again and conclude she is absolutely fine. Then some friends call me that they are standing outside but are not being let in since the bouncer says the party is to full. I try to talk to the bouncer and it seems he convinces himself to have the right, in order to do me a favor, to lean in to me and place his hands on disrespectable places. As soon as my friends come in they need one look at my face to tell I am not feeling well. I tell them the weird situation that just passed and they get angry and threaten to beat him up.

This macho display, however, is also not getting me anywhere to feeling better so I tell them to rather come and enjoy the party with me so I can shake it off. In the morning we take a taxi back with some friends to Misam's apartment. She has found a cute boy and rather soon shuts her bedroom door! We are all laughing and hang about on the terrace. Then as everyone is going home one friend of Misam, Patricio, asks if he can stay the night as his house is very far and later we all have to go the same direction anyway.

This is true, for Misam and I are invited to have lunch with some far related Italian family of hers in San Isidru, where Patricio lives nearby. I agree that he can stay and we share the futon sofa. As we lie there in the dark, at some moment in our cloud of drowsiness we start looking for each other and hold each other as we kiss. I think of Pablo. It is really not working out well between us, as he has come to terms with himself of not allowing himself to get any feelings for me as he knows that one day I will have to leave him and go back home.

For a moment I am thinking I will feel better with meeting other men, and to let myself enjoy this moment, here and now, and to get him out of my head. But I soon see this is the last way to get Pablo out of my head and I decide to sleep the few hours I have available to do so. Before it feels I have even closed my eyes I see Misam running around with make up and perfume trying to erase the traces of last night party to be presentable at the family Christmas table.

I quickly follow her example and before we know it the three of us are on our way in the train. Patricio and I collapse on the floor where we sleep a little more leaning on each other. As we come to his stop he gives me a sweet kiss and gets out. Misam and I show up at the huge land house where we have our lunch already waiting for us, prepared on a beautiful long table in the garden. Unfortunately our hangover does not allow us to eat as much of the food as we would have liked and it's a big effort to sit up straight and make polite conversation, but as soon as the eating is done and our stomachs can relax of all the different smells, we allow ourselves to lie back in the grass next to the pool where all the young ones of the family happily splash away.

Misam cries a few tears for not having been with her family at home with Christmas. I look up to the sky as I lie there on my back. I think of all the experiences I have made, the people I have met, live yet to come. I sent love to my family in Holland, my parents and my sister and her boyfriend. To Italy, where my brother went with his wife and two kids to see her family there. To all my friends around the world. I am thankful, I have a lot to be thankful for. And I smile.