This criminal record is certified by ACRO Criminal Records Office for the purpose of a consular, visa or citizenship related application made to a foreign government.

There are weeks in which decades happen, and two-year periods in which time moves perfectly normally. Well. The sprawling evenings, the never-long-enough nights, the plastic-glitz fancy dress artefacts of those nights and long-lost laughter and unknowingly earnest smiles and the future you once dreamt of… the Part IA and Part IB, the mist at night on the Backs, the first times, the hopefully-last times, all the usual coming-of-age clichés and tickboxes.

So, thank the lord and his worldly associates, you’ll get to leave it all behind in a year of scholastic, sanctioned escapism. That one person saying it was just another ‘gap yah’ did make you doubt the worth of the BA (Hons. Don’t forget about Hons), but no matter – you’re here now, and you’ll be off soon: onwards.

“Pray to whichever of those worldly associates pulls the strings at Student Finance England”

Fill in some forms. Deliberate over nothing. Get a room. Some more forms. Buy one set of return flights, remember there’s another £1300 where that came from next spring, pray to whichever of those worldly associates pulls the strings at Student Finance England. You’re on your way, aren’t you?

Summary of convictions: NO RECORDS

You’re staring the Atlantic down. You’ve been led to the south, as far south as you can go (excluding the rest of Argentina and Chile, the Redacted Islands, and Antarctica – a region with few native Spanish speakers). Buenos Aires: ‘the city of fury’. The song which birthed that tagline is stadium-filler-stunning in a cinematic, actually-good-80s way, brash and shiny just how any self-defined, self-romanticising ′ciudad de la furia′ ought to be.

You re-listen and reminisce over the last time you heard it, staggering through the limestone grotesques and grotesque lagers of a first term in Cambridge, a city rarely recognised for its anger. You’re reminded that you’re moving to the other side of the world in 47 days: get on with it.

“Jacaranda blossoms touching hands, diesel air touching me, touching you”

With most of the paperwork done, and telepathic attempts to make anyone sign the remainder proving futile, you let yourself return to the travelling dreams you started with. A playlist conjures up urbane visions (linked here, of course), and you’re pulled right in: unpolished concrete and marble, endless streets reaching out into the horizon, jacaranda blossoms touching hands, diesel air touching me, touching you. Good times never seemed so good.

You run out of ways to describe a city you’ve never been to. The football, the music, the accent already creeping up on you, can be discussed when you get there. But, then, what about the rest? A once-in-a-lifetime trip to Argentina (you can afford it once in a lifetime). Where to? ‘Everywhere’ takes forever, give or take a day, so here’s a list of what anyone should justify a three-day bus ride for:

The Andes. They’re close, compared to the rest of the world. From the top of Argentina to the bottom, you can find mineral mountains of all colours in Jujuy; Aconcagua, America’s highest peak; then Mendoza and its 7,000 vineyards (I made that up, but it’s definitely a lot) right beneath it.

“Maladaptive daydreams do come true”

Down to Bariloche and the seven mountain lakes, the icepicks and granite spears guarding El Chaltén 3,500m upright, and the still-unfinished Perito Moreno glacier (didn’t stop you with the Sagrada Familia, did it?). From here, either carry on to the southern end of the world, Ushuaia, or cross over to Chile and see the Torres del Paine – the most dramatic of those sky-stalagmites. You’ve then got their side of the Andean wall to traverse… and the rest of Argentina… and you really should go to Brazil.

Those are all real places, real places you can go to now. Maladaptive daydreams do come true. For those of you doing third year in Cambridge, good luck. Nos vemos.