I had to call paypal and they helped me figure out something that had to do with my cache and needing to manually type in "sandbox.paypal" in the url when it is directing me to a non sandbox site.....
Although, there are still two things happening:
1) I just completed a successful payment on paypal and redirected back to the page where I filed out a mock registration form. After completion of this I now have TWO new members showing in my members list: The one with the email where I paid for paypal, and the second one that I created with the registration form.
2) I can not find ANYWHERE that I can place the code generated for "advanced variables". I put in the membership level ID, I get the code... but then, WHERE DOES IT GO??? What does this even mean? Since I don't understand where it goes, I don't understand the use for it.
Thank you for your time.