Oh Santiago, why must you rain so?

Hola!
Yes, it is still raining here in Santiago; the couple who owns my apartment keep apologizing for the weather-the worst winter they and their friends have ever experienced here, of course. Despite the nasty weather I am still enjoying myself here, just spending more time indoors than I normally would. Not as exciting as my Paris days, but still good. Earlier in the week, Monday I think, I decided it was time to start making all my meals, and headed to the Carrefour (a cheap grocery/other stuff store) after class to store up. It's in the zona nueva, a looong walk from my house, but no worries, I'm young and strong...right? By the end of my shopping I had two big, heavy bags of stuff, and about a 30 minute walk ahead of me...not my best idea. However, to proud to break down and take a bus, I manged to make it all the way home, occasionally stopping to rest my arms and switch hands...I'm kind of an idiot sometimes. But now I have lots of cooking supplies! Yay! I decided to try and imitate the curry chicken dish Florette and Laura made, and although it ended up having waaaay to much sauce, I have to say it came out pretty good...I was proud, even took a picture :). Oh, I also went out to dinner with my roommates Biaggio and Samuel Sunday night, which was really nice. Unfortunately, Samuel is going to visit his girlfriend, and is going to be gone for the next four weeks :(. Oh well, he'll be back. Dinner was really interesting though, we talked a lot about Poland; he was asking us why we thought it was so impossible for the Polish to come to the States, even to visit. Apparently just about all the other countries around him have been getting admitted more within the last year or so...but not Poland (who he says are very pro-America, ex. the war in Iraq). I couldn't really give him an answer...didn't really make sense to me either. He also talked a bit about the Polish view towards Russia (EXTREMELY negative); he mentioned that he finds all the Russians to be very rude, stand-offish, and have an "I'm better than you" kind of attitude...of course, his opinion is probably pretty damn biased, but it was interesting nonetheless. I also tryed "pulpo" (octopus) for the first time at dinner; it actually wasn't too bad, although I don't feel the need to order it myself, haha. Also, I am doing this post completely backwards as I remember things, I had a nice night on Saturday. In the evening Florette and I went over to Sam and Laura's place (which is really nice, perfect hangout place), and played Scattegories for a long time, which was actually really fun (plus I won most of it with my mad gaming skillz, which is always a plus...;). Biaggio came over later and we all headed out to find a cafe and get a drink. We sat around talking, Laura filled us in on some of the kenyon drama we missed. Apparently there was a big argument going on through allstu (emails that everyone gets), as our school newspaper (the collegian, produced/written by students) had pubished an article with an inflammatory title ("Rape at college, fraternities at fault"?, or something along those lines), that really upset members of Greek life. It's always been a little tense on campus when it comes to Greek life, lots of mixed feelings about it in general, but apparently it got pretty ugly. As a member of a sorority, Laura said it was like the worst month of her college experience. The other news was that there was a big drug bust or something; which is interesting, sometimes I forget that hard drugs exist on campus, ah well. In any case, it was interesting to hear about what has been going on back in Gambier; after drinks we walked around and found a cheap cafe for some dinner. Very good, and more interesting conversation. At this point Biaggio got a call from one of our friends on the program, and we planned to meet up with them at this cool bar not far from my house, called Momo's. It's really neat, in the old district, and in the downstairs of this cool stone building. It was a good time, and we ordered a pitcher of sangria, my fave! haha. Florette, Laura and I headed out a bit earlier than the others and made the treck home, overall a really great night.
This week I've been spending lots of time coordinating travel plans, and getting really excited about all that kind of stuff. So far we've got plans for a trip to Southern Spain, Madrid and environs, and hopefully by the end of the day we will have finalized a trip to Marrakech! I'm really pumped, and Florette, Laura, and Ryan will hopefully be coming to most of these as well, yay! Last night Laura invited me over for dinner along with Florette (and Sam too, as she and Laura live together). It was a nice dinner, Laura's a great cook, and afterwards I taught everyone how to play Eucker (I don't actually know how to spell this, but it's a really great card game-dad knows it). Another fun night at their place, and I headed home late to finish up some homework. Tomorrow Sam and I are heading to London to stay with Ryan, which I'm so excited about!!! Will post when I get back and tell you how it went, should be a great time.
Love you all,
Brit