A few things (unas pocas cosas)

1. I am still alive even if I haven't posted very often in the past 3 weeks. I guess when the blog morphs into "Brad's travel journeys", and I don't travel, the frequency of posting goes way down.

2. Life in Santiago continues. A few highlights: on Saturday, I joined the jovenes (youth) group from church for a bible study / one-day retreat in Peñaflor, 30 minutes outside Santiago. We enjoyed worship, teaching, a fantastic spaghetti meal that cost CLP$500 (US$1.25), and planned for the upcoming youth-led retreat at the end of this month. I was on the worship committee, and suggested we have a tambourine. Reminds me of Barbados, when all we had were voices and a tambourine. And it was beautiful! On Sunday, Julie and David came over to my apt after church and we made hamburgers and played cards. I still have the ice cream (butterscotch flavor, mmmm) left over and will put it to good use this week!

3. UNC really stunk it up in the NCAA final four on Saturday. I was very excited to have the chance to watch them live, and even though the picture was current, the action on their part was as if they were dead. Oh well, the season was really great, and I hope they are very proud of themselves!

4. I'm still going through phases of loneliness here, and that's hard, but the odd thing is that this Saturday, I have more invitations to do things than I have time! (Where were you people in February, when several days would pass without me even talking to anyone??!) In the morning, I've been invited to help a friend move apartments (I guess this involves carrying her stuff downstairs to a truck), then to the youth house-church, then to have dinner with the movers & their friends. Plus I normally go jogging, clean my apartment, and rest after a hard week.

5. I've started finding some chilean friends on facebook, which makes me very happy!

6. My cousin Rebecca (dad's side of the fam) got engaged this past weekend! Congrats, RRB and Matt! Guess I'll have to pull together some more freq flier miles to head back to Augusta (or Athens, or Atlanta, or Columbus?) for their wedding.

7. I received my absentee ballot in the mail today from Pitt County Board of Elections. I have to fill it out pronto and mail it back, as post from Stgo. often takes 3-4 weeks to arrive stateside (and my ballot has to be there by May 5 at 5:00 pm).

Ok, well, that's a brief update on life. Again if you're reading this and have a blog of your own, please remind me what your website is because all my bookmarks were lost in the burglery a few weeks ago. Thanks.