Dearest Cameron,
Thank you so much for the e-mail! en serio, i've been meaning to send you a nice hefty e-mail for a couple weeks now and just haven't sat down and done it. I figured that, as long as I was writing about my goings-on, I'd put it on the blog, but don't worry- it's still written to you... i'll just be careful not to mention the stash.
we had an epic party saturday night- lots of chileans and foreign exchange students. met some cool people, including a mexican guy who invited me to visit him in mexico city and a chilean guy who invited me over for seafood.
my spanish is improving. i got a better final grade in my intensive spanish class than one of the native speakers. (!)
i talked to hermano colombiano juan. he wants to come visit, but i think i'd rather go visit him there. colombia sounds kickass.
My roomates are cool. liz and i make dinner together a lot. grocery shopping is easy, seeing as we don't even have to leave our building to go to the store. you have to tip the baggers here... i didn't know that for the first couple weeks. hopefully they've forgiven me.
I don't know if you saw my few pictures, but from my balcony you can see cerro san cristobal, which is a mountain/hill that is a city park. anyway, i went and took a walk the other day from my apartment and crossed the hill. where i entered the park is one of the nicest areas of the city- german-style houses and street lights and stuff. once i got to the ridge i saw that on the other side of the hill is a neighborhood of shacks. so i walked down a muddy road among funky little tin-roofed houses, kids playing in the street, chickens, etc. i knew that there were super poor areas of the city, but i thought that they'd be more on the outskirts rather than right on the other side of the park down the street. there's such a difference between rich and poor here. not that there isn't in the US, but it's more pronounced here. rich people generally still see pinochet as a national hero.
i started a portuguese class. it's super cool. also, a couple brazilian sisters started helping me learn. i want to get a book and have them help me read or something. hopefully i learn a bunch and then meet up with chelsea in rio for xmas... that's sort of my idealistic plan.
i want to meet your friend who's down here. i have a good crowd going, so i can introduce her to some people. hey, you should come down to santiago! i mean, i'm down here... and so is shannon... and 7 million chileans. well, concider it.
take care!
love

Gus