"Are you sure you wanna go? You can stay here if you don't want to…" Mom soothed me and removed my tears with her thumbs.

"Yeah. Dad spent so much money on this. I have to." I said between sobs. We were about to start our fourth year of high school and it's a tradition at Forks High to go skiing in Argentina. It's expensive, but the school pays half of everyone's trip. The trip lasted a week; actually five days because we had to stop in Uruguay to get on a boat that would go to Argentina and it was about 36 hours to Bariloche, our skiing location. These holidays went from September 10th to September 17th… and somehow I was distressed because my birthday was September 13th and I would be spending it alone with no family and no friends.

My only friends were Alice Brandon and Edward Cullen. Alice came from England the year before and Edward from Alaska. Until then, I didn't have any friends. For some reason, I had this desperation of being popular, going out with everyone and get along. But I didn't have that. Of course, some girls and boys from Forks High would get along with me but just at school. Outside it, it was as if I'd never exist.

"I swear to God, you'll have the best time! When I went when I was your age, I had the best time. I was just like you, with very little friends. But you'll come back with more friends than when you left. And your birthday… I don't know how to explain the fun you'll have. I know you'll have a great time." Renee said as she hugged me and I cried a little more.

"Bella? Sorry to interrupt but its 11.30pm and you have to be at the airport at 11.45." My brother, Peter announced.

I wiped my tears and grabbed my suitcase, hand luggage, pillow and blanket for the airplane. We got into the car and Peter drove us to the airport.

"Bella! Oh my God, can you believe we are going? This is so exciting! Now I can use my new Snowboard!" Alice squealed and hugged me as soon as I got out of the car.

"I know! I'm so excited!" I squealed back. It was true. I was excited. Drinking my ass off every night, partying every night and seeing snow? Hell yeah!

Mom and Peter were speaking with Alice's parents while we chat by ourselves and greeted our Forks High classmates.

"Okay everybody! The airplane will leave soon. Here are all of your boarding passes, tickets and passports. Please follow the coordinators towards migrations. Thank you, and have a wonderful trip. We'll see you when you get back!" The Principal announced. Nobody from the school would be going with us. They never did. The agency hired coordinators to go with us.

"Have fun, honey. I love you. Please call whenever you want." Mom hugged me and kissed my cheek.

"Have fun, Bells. You'll have a great time." Peter said.

"I'll call you every day!" Mom yelled just as I was passing Migrations.

We went through security and no one had a problem. Except for Felix Volturi and his brothers Demetri and Caius. They had cigarettes and alcohol in their hand luggage. Stupid idiots. They thought that they were cool but they were not. Nobody ever dared to with to be one of the Volturi brothers. Or sisters. Jane and Heidi were a year younger and older than us, but they were trouble makers. One time, they locked themselves in a bus bathroom when they were going on a field trip and smocked in there. They were 10 and 11 years old at that time.

We were in the Free Shop and everyone was with their shopping carts buying chocolates, drinks, perfumes, teddy bears and all kinds of stuff for the trip or their families. Alice, for example, was getting her cart filled with Kit Kat and Nerds and perfumes and a teddy bear. I just settled with a pack of gum and Nerds. My Mom had packed my bag with cookies, chips and Coke. She was always like this. Everywhere I went, she'd fill my bag with food.

Once everybody was on the plane, the air hostess made the usual "Two emergency door at the back, the side and in the front" speech and ordered us to fasten our seatbelts and enjoy the ride. I was sitting next to Alice and everybody was yelling and excited taking pictures and laughing. Somebody had brought their speakers and had put music. Others were filming with their film camera.

"Isn't this exciting? I'll finally learn how to Snowboard!" Alice day dreamed.

"Alice, you don't know how to?"

"No. My Dad had gotten me the Snowboard for my birthday so I could learn in England, but when I was about to learn, he got transferred here." Alice smiled.

Alistair Brandon was a very serious guy. He was rich, powerful and highly successful. He was a really important business man and apparently he had made a company he worked for earn a lot of money so he was transferred from there to the office in Forks to make the same thing.

I wish my Dad would have given me big gifts like Alice's does. He's Charlie Swan, the Chief of Police and he made my Mom's life miserable when he got involved in alcohol. He blocked her bank account, her credit cards and tortured her every day with threats. They got divorced two days before my trip. Since he became an alcoholic, I didn't get along with him. He would pay for my Education, Medical Insurance, trips, etc. I had faced him, telling him that he had a problem and needed to control it. Since then, he's been better and I've gotten along with him well.

They were showing some lame action movie on the T.V and they served us chicken with lettuce, tomato, eggs and pea salad and a tin of coke. For dessert, we were served chocolate and vanilla ice cream. After dinner, we were all tired and we went to sleep.

I woke up when Angela, Charlotte, Leah, Carmen and Kate, some of the girls I get along with, were sitting on their knees and chatting and listening to music. I looked at my side and I saw Alice with her eyes covered with an eye mask made out of pink satin and white lace around it. She was being warmed up by an expensive looking cream colored fur blanket and her head was resting against a small feathered white pillow. Her head was tilted towards me – I sat on the window side – and her mouth was slightly opened and snoring. I laughed at this situation and took a picture. We'll laugh about it, I'm sure.

The air hostess passed with her trolley and woke everybody up for breakfast. We were having a croissant, toast, fruit, ham and cheese and we could have butter and jam if we wanted to. I asked for extra ham and cheese and a glass of orange juice.

The airplane journey lasted all day. Everybody kept on speaking, listening to music, reading magazines, books, and eating, taking pictures. At lunch time, we were served pasta with Bolognese sauce, a side bowl of chicken soup and a bowl of French fries to share with your sitting partner. To drink we had a tin of coke and for dessert we were served mint ice cream.

The day went flying by – literally – and before we knew, it was night time and we had arrived to the Airport in Montevideo, Uruguay. I glanced at a big clock hanging on the wall and it indicated it was 12.30am.

A line of four buses were waiting for us outside the airport. Two for girls, two for boys. We were told that we had to take the boat in a place two hours from here. I got into a bus with Alice where Angela, Charlotte, Kate, Leah, Victoria, Bree, Senna, Mary and Tia – just to name a few of them – were sitting in. We put the speakers in the maximum volume and headed towards our destination. Everybody was really tired so we slept the whole way.

We got towards the port and were told we had a two hour wait. The boar was leaving at 4.30am. We waited patiently until we were told to go through migration and security. Once you got out of there, you had to climb some stairs and there was a lounge with a canteen, chairs and tables to wait. Some of the girls had brought a can of Pringles so we all ate and laughed together. Soon, we were all moving and were heading towards the boat.

What I saw when I got into the Eladia Isabel was definitely not a boat. It looked like a cruise ship. There was a garage for cars, an entertainment center as soon as you got in and to your right there was a free shop. To the left, there were golden stairs that took you to the toilets and there was a huge opening with brown leather, semi reclining seats and a huge canteen in front of it. It was full of windows with tables in front of it, ideal for drinking coffee and eating breakfast while you watched the sunrise. The golden stairs continued and led to a door that took you to the outside of the boat.

We were served a doughnut and a regular coffee for breakfast at 6am and some of us decided to sleep and others to go to the outside to see the sunrise. I decided neither and sat with friends chatting and laughing and went occasionally outside to see the sunrise and take pictures.

At about 7am, the Free Shop opened and we avalanched into it. It was filled with people from different schools all around the world, baskets in their hand and buying whatever crap they saw. I had decided to use my dollars for the return home and my Argentine Pesos in Bariloche. Right now, I wasn't going to buy anything. We got some of the coordinators to buy alcohol for us. We bought it according to the room we slept in. My room consisted of Alice, Angela, Charlotte and Mary. We bought Absolut Vodka 100, Red Label Johnny Walker and Caramel Baileys. By the time we had decided what to get, there weren't much alcohol choices to choose from.

At 8am, we arrived at Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was cloudy but I didn't care because we weren't staying there. We immediately went to the parking lot of the port and were told to get into the buses. There were two of them. They had two floors and they were long. Freakishly long. The "popular" group got into one bus and the rest into another. Just like that, we made our way to Bariloche. In the first floor, there were comfortable full reclining grey leather sets, but those were for the coordinators and four or five of us. The seats were little. On the second floor, there were four seats that had a big window in front of them and curtains. If you sat there you could see the landscapes perfectly without turning your head and getting torticollis. I sat by the window with Alice on the sixth line of seats. At the front, all the girls were seated while the boys were at the back of the bus.

We stopped at noon at a gas station that had a restaurant and the coordinators said that we were going to have lunch. We sat on the chairs and two young waitresses served us the food. It was spaghetti that looked funny and the sauce looked like someone who had been on tomato soup and meat for too long had thrown up on it. Many of us decided not to eat it. I was starving so I took a few bites of it. After we were all done, we had to wait for the coordinators to eat so we all went to the kiosk and bought more stuff for the trip like chips, candy, cookies, and drinks. Alice and I decided to share a packet of cigarettes.

Rain started to fall followed by a loud thunder and storm, leaving the whole restaurant and kiosk with a black out. I thought that rain was something I wouldn't miss but I guess I was wrong. Shortly, we returned to the bus and continued on our journey.

"I have an idea!" Makenna yelled. "Let's have a party! We just put the speaker and dance." As much as I loved Makenna, she was kind of crazy. The bus wasn't fit for parties. Then again, the aisle was long and the bus being narrow wouldn't stop them.

"I'll put the speakers on!" Siobhan squeaked.

"Yay! Party!" Alice smiled and jumped in her seat clapping her hands. She got up and I followed her. The music coming from the iPod was at its fullest and we tried to dance and made a human train along de aisle. At one point I sat down and Emily started to dance in a funny way and everybody laughed.

By night time, we stopped at another diner and pretty much every girl had to use the bathroom. They looked… disgusting. There was no toilet paper in any of the stools, they were dirty and when a cleaner walked in and we asked for toilet paper, she said we had to pay her 10 pesos. Luckily, I saved the day and remembered my Mom had put toilet paper in my bag just in case. We then proceeded to the huge dining room and we ate chicken with mashed potatoes.

Three more buses arrived after us – buses that belonged to Uruguay but the same agency we were traveling with – so in order to leave we had to wait for them to finish eating so that we could continue altogether. The bus drivers opened the bus for us and we sat at our seats. Knowing that it would take a while, the people from the other bus got into ours and we started to sing, urging them to make a catwalk along the bus. At about 11.30pm we were again on the highway, making our way to our skiing destination. We fell asleep almost immediately. Some on their seats and one or two on the aisle. At the middle of the night, we had to stop at customs. I woke up when two big men dressed in black pants and green, flashy vests passed next to Alice. They woke up Angela and Eric that were sleeping on the floor and told them with a serious voice to go back to their seats. The coordinators had advised us to keep the alcohol in a custom blue and white bag they had given each of us and to keep it with the big luggage.

The sun coming in from all parts of the bus woke us up and we thought that we were going to stop for breakfast but we still found ourselves driving. Two girl coordinators came up the stairs and handed us each eight passes to eat once we got there.

After a long drive, we started seeing that we were getting closer. Mountains started to appear in front of our eyes together with green water – almost transparent – lakes and then a blue water river.

A sign saying "Bienvenidos a Bariloche" welcomed us to the base of the Cathedral that looked like a mall. Stores were everywhere to be seen; chocolate stores, hotels, skiing stores, kiosks, everything you can imagine.

Our luggage was taken by car to the hotel that was at the top of the base and we walked to it carrying our hand luggage and stuff. I called my Mom but barely paid attention to her because I was in awe. The base was like a big, big road, except that cars didn't go buy up to a certain point. We saw a canteen that had reggae music and people sitting outside it, enjoying a beer and food. There was some sort of tricky hill we had to climb in order to get to the longest stairs God has created. Once we were back on the road, we saw that snow had fallen recently. I was excited.

"Snow!" I screamed. I loved snow. I loved it more than the sun.

"Bella! Pay attention to me! You'll have all week to see snow!" She laughed. I apologized and saw that a friend had grabbed a snowball and started throwing it at us. I told my Mom I loved her and to send my love to Peter. There was a dirt road that we had to walk that was sort of on rise and we could see the Hotel we were staying at. It looked like a big, squared, three story, white house. As soon as we got in, our entire luggage was there and we were served hamburgers, French fries and orange juice. We were then told our assignated rooms and we were in room 31, on the third floor. All of the boys' room was on the third floor.

Our room was awesome. It had two opposite bunk beds against the walls, a big closet and the greatest view of the mountains. It had another room with one bed and a night stand. Right next to it, there was the bathroom that was sort of small but as long as it had a toilet, bidet, sink and shower, we were okay. Apparently, our room was the only one with a long mirror on the wall and with another bedroom.

After getting comfortable, we went down to the base and bought some last minute things, like skiing gloves, scarves, snow goggles, or bought whatever we wanted like chocolates from the chocolate shop. They had the best chocolate in the world. They sold milk or white chocolate teddy bears filled with caramel. They were delicious. I went to the mall and bought some snow goggles and later went to the skiing rental place – as did everybody else – and tried on my skiing boots and ski's.

Afterwards, we were sent to "The Moon", a place on the underground that had two floors. The upper underground had a ping pong table, bathrooms and a couch in front of a T.V and a PlayStation. The bottom underground had a pool table, couches, a bar with bar stools and bar tables. It had another big room adjacent to it where the dance floor was situated. The walls in this room where black and white checkerboard and the floor was black. On the end of it, there was a DJ cabin and a stage.

We sat down on the floor from the dance floor and got all the rules and regulations from this trip and the hotel. The rules were the usual. No drugs, no alcohol in the room, no smoking inside the hotel, no getting in and out of the windows, no girls in the boys bedroom, no boys in the girls bedroom, etc.

Sometime after that, I decided to take a nap and then go down to the lobby where everybody was sitting down, watching reruns of Friends, and waiting for dinner.

After dinner, we showered and got dressed. The feeling of hot water against my shoulders felt good, as if it was melting the cold that my stiff muscles were feeling, relaxing them. I squirted some of my favorite strawberry shampoo and quickly rinsed my hair. I got dressed into a pink cotton dress with ruffles on it, blow dried my hair and passed the hair straighter on it and put a little make up on. I got into some short black velvet boots and a leather jacket. Money, cigarettes, cell phone and photo camera in my handbag and I was ready to go to the pre-party down at "The Moon."

Alice and I ran into Edward who was looking hot as hell, wearing a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt.

"Hey, guys! How are you enjoying Bariloche, huh?" Edward smiled, a bit drunk.

"This is awesome!" Alice yelled. The music was so loud we could barely hear each other. We made our way to the bar and poured ourselves a glass of vodka and sprite. Alcohol has a very quick effect on me so half-way of my second glass, I was a little drunk. Okay, drunk.

"Heeeeeeeeeeeey Eddieward!" I slurred and hugged him by his shoulders. "How are yooooou?"

"Are you drunk?" Edward laughed. His golden hair was messy, his apple green eyes were sparkling and his sweet angel like velvet voice was as sweet as ever.

"I know! Let's play I have never!"

"Bella, I don't know…"

"I'll start! I have never French kissed with…. Tyler Crowely!" I drank the entire fifth glass of the special drink.

"Everybody! Let's make our way out of the underground. We'll go out dancing now." Seth, a coordinator announced.

The club we were going to was located at the base of the mountain, where we were staying, and it was called Zeta 4. It had two floors and we were on the second floor. We left our jackets and coats in the wardrobe and started drinking again. I had a few more vodka sprites and a couple of Red Bulls. We danced the whole night until it was time to return to the hotel. The whole walk to the hotel, I was hanging on to Edward's arm. He was not that drunk now and I couldn't stop laughing and laying my head on his shoulder. Alice was a few steps ahead of us.

"The River was deep but I swam it… Janet!" I started singing.

"The future is ours so let's plan it…" Edward's sweet voice continued.

"Janet!" Alice, Edward and I sang.

"There's a fire in my heart you fan it… Janet!" Alice sang. "I've one thing to say and that's…"

"DAMN IT, JANET! I LOVE YOU!" We finished and laughed.

Once we got to our rooms, we went to bed. The day left us all exhausted, but we were all prepared for the adventures we would face in the next week.

Eladia Isabel: It's the name of the boat I rode when I went to Bariloche.

Cathedral: It's NOT a church. In Spanish it's Cerro Catedral. The Cerro Catedral is the mountains that you can access by the air chairs that are located on the base of the Cathedral.

I went to Bariloche when I was 17 and had the greatest time ever. It is true that when I'm drunk I sing glee songs with my friends; Valerie, Damn it Janet and Total Eclipse of The Heart being our favourites.
About the chocolate teddy bears, that is true. They are the best. They have all types of chocolate it makes my mouth water just remembering it.