I think the benefits of my self-imposed social schedule are starting to kick in. Every Tuesday night I have dinner with my friend Pedro after my French class, Wednesday I go over to my friend Theresa's house in the afternoon and spend the evening there, Thursday I go over to hang out with the Echeverría (aka Marcelo's family) clan in my second home, Saturday night I go to a local bar with Theresa where we can reflect on the week a little before going out to dance or something like that, and Sunday I spend a low key afternoon and evening back with Marcelo's family. I think that having a plan makes me appreciate the time I spend with people more, and visa versa. It also provides me with more of the stability that has been lacking in my post-relationship life. By the way, I really do apologize for the heavy concentration of relationship oriented blogs lately. I came to Chile with the intent to meet people, learn about a different culture, and learn Spanish. Being in a relationship last semester helped me out in all of those areas, so I really can't complain. However, I am really trying to focus on the other things that are going on in my life too. 

For instance, I've been hanging out at the fire station more since my 27 year old host brother Marco is a fire fighter there. One time I even saw him slide down the pole and put on all his fire man getup when there was an emergency call and I couldn't help but feel really proud of him and point him out to my friends =) Marco is really cool. I'm not sure if I've mentioned him that much here, but I really do consider him a good friend and I can talk to him about anything and feel comfortable. I can tell that he opens up to me a lot too, which I love of course. It's amazing how much he actually feels like a brother to me, even though we've really only known each other for 2 months. When I was telling him about why I needed to go to Seattle I started crying and he didn't get freaked out or anything like some guys might and just kept listening patiently as I was getting increasing snotty and harder to understand. Anytime I meet a new guy that I want to be good friends with, the ultimate test is letting him see me cry and then assessing his reaction. So far Marco, Pedro, Marcelo, Tomas, Cachorro, and Milthon have all passed with flying colors, and as I result I really do feel close to them. I haven't put my new friends Maxi and Jorge to the test yet, but I suspect that they will do equally well... I think that I've been able to help a lot of these guys out too with advice a few times too and that they really do respect my opinion, even though it may be stated in an odd gringo accent and not always grammatically correct.