What You Learn When Buying Bracelets from Moroccan Orphans

Since early January I have been living in Barcelona, Spain and I've been lucky enough to be able to travel to other countries and cities around Europe. Whether big or small, with every place I have visited,
I have learned something new about people, cultures, and history. This past weekend during my visit to Morocco I not only learned about the people and culture, but I also learned a few things about myself that may or may not surprise those who know me best.

I woke up at 5:50 a.m. on Thursday to catch my flight to Seville because that is where we were leaving from for our trip to Morocco. My flight left at 7:10 a.m. but because the airline website was down I was still in Barcelona at 9 a.m... after my flight had already left. Not only was the website down for the airline but their computer wouldn't read my credit card to purchase another ticket to Seville. So 3 hours later I was on a train to Seville and my planned 2 hour long trip was now 6 hours. Needless to say after my previous weekend in Amsterdam, 2 nights in the hospital and now this ordeal, I was not a happy camper. But I had to keep reminding myself that I will probably never get another free trip to Morocco again in my life so shut up and put a smile on.

Finally got to Seville and stayed in a hostel with 5 random people. One of the girls had to be confused or on drugs or something because she said she spoke english and spanish but when anyone tried to talk to her in either language, they had to repeat themselves at least 2 times for her to understand what was being said. I had never been in such a weird situation. Who knows what could have happened in the middle of the night...so I slept with my shoes on that night.

The next day we explored Seville for a little bit. The city was pretty cool and very different than Barcelona because it was pretty calm and tranquil and has a lot of green spaces, something Barcelona is not/ does not have.

 Then we took a high speed ferry to Africa, where I met a few new friends who are pretty awesome!

Hours later, we finally arrived at our hotel which was probably the nicest building/ object/ thing within a 5 mile radious. Everything in the town which we stayed seemed to be run down and reminded me of a city that was abandoned and is recently beginning to populate again. It was unlike anything I have every seen in the past. The food they served us at the hotel wasn't bad But even though the wifi at the hotel was the slowest piece of technology since the first computer...

...waking up to this outside your window isn't half bad!

The first day in Morocco, we visited a town called Chefchaouen which is also called the "blue city" because almost every building is painted blue.

Picture every wall of the city like this.

The walls of the city are so bright that they make the sky look like it's darker outside than it actually is but they paint the walls blue to immitate the sky to prevent masquitos from going indoors. They said that if the walls are blue the masquitos will mistake it for the sky and won't try to go in to the buildings. This is a prime example of how developing countries go about solving their problems versus countries like the United States. What would you do if your neighbors started painting their houses and the streets blue? 

This city was unlike any city I've ever visited in many ways but I was taken back when we were on our tour through the city and walked past multiple women washing clothes in rivers and any water source available. When I say I was "taken back," I don't mean it in the sense of not being aware that people don't use washing machines or dry cleaners to wash their clothes, that would be dumb. Of course, we know of and learn a little about these other countries that don't have the advancements or "luxuries" that we have in America. It would be a serious question of character if you weren't surprised or taken back in the least bit after witnessing, first hand, how people live life in a place where tap water isn't even safe to drink or air conditioning doesn't exist. I realize that it probably sounds ignorant when I say those things but regardless of where you've been in the world, we are all a bit ignorant until you experience this kind of life. 

After our lunch on the roof-top of this restraunt, they let us loose to shop and practice our bargaining skills. I learned pretty quickly that bargaining isn't something I should do very often because I would end up getting frustrated and walking out of the store. 

In a store where we saw them hand-making everything

There was one instance when I got frustrated at one store and said "forget this" and walked out. 10 minutes later I was confronted by another vendor of the same store because he thought I said "f**k you" instead of forget you. Luckily my friends heard what I had actually said...but needless to say, bargaining isn't my thing. 

But I did get one of my favorite shots of my trip during our tour.

Another interesting thing about Chefchaouen... 

There were a lot of 8-11 year old boys walking all over trying to sell bracelets to you. The only way you could get them to leave is if you say "NO" five times or just bought one, so I bought one. Then I later found out that these boys are orphans... That was a bit shocking to me. We've all seen the movie Annie, but her life in that movie was nothing comparable to how these kids live, i'm sure!

The next day we went to a small beach town called Assilah. During our tour we learned about a tradition of painting walls of the city through out the year and the winning painting remains for the following year while the others are painted over for the next years contest. This is probably why it was my favorite of the places I had been so far, partially because it reminded me of being back in Austin.

My favorite 

I also got another one of my favorite shots here in this city...

When I was buying a painting from an artist here, he told me that my spanish was very professional but I think he just wanted me to buy the painting. But he also told me that Americans buy houses on the beach and retire here.... I wouldn't mind retiring in a place like this one bit!

Before our grand finale of the trip, we stopped at the beach.

I did a flip or two

And finally for the grand finale of our Morocco trip, we went on a camel ride. Of course, because it wouldn't be a complete trip to Africa without a camel ride, right?

we became friends

Her name was Layla 

After our camel rides, we headed back to the high-speed farry to get back to Spain and it is safe to say we were spent. 

I looked like a Mococcan Santa Clause because of all of the gifts I bought

Our bus got back to Seville at about 3 a.m. and we finally got back to Barcelona at about 8:30 a.m. and went to class. I have to say, my Morocco trip was probably my favorite of all of the trips I have been on so far because of how different the cities are from other cities that I have visited. 

Amsterdam vs. Cody (1 - 0)

When I decided to study abroad, why didn't anyone tell me that we were required to actually do work like other college students? I've been doing more school work than exploring, that wasn't the deal that I signed up for...

Since the last time I've blogged...

I've been to a town called Sitges, for Carnaval (spelled correctly) (Europe's version of Mardi Gras)

...where they practice a more efficient forms of containment for children.

Carnaval was really cool and interesting. It's kind of comparable to Halloween in the states but it's for big kids like us too. But i have to say my favorite part about Sitges was the day after and just exploring the small "beachy" town. It was beyond beautiful!

How can you not love waking up to this?

We also took the day to climb Montserrat 

Went to Paris, France with my Padre

I was beyond excited to see my dad especially being away for so long, it's like bringing a piece of home to my new (temporary) home! And he got to meet my friends and Elisa and experience her amazing food, but more on that later.

Got to meet this pretty lady, Mona Lisa

And then there was Amsterdam...

I was extremely excited to visit Amsterdam for a lot of reasons but mainly because of how different it is than most other cities around the world. Our first day there we went to the Heineken factory and took a tour, so that was cool. 

We took pictures with cardboard cut-outs

Before I go on, you have to know that I love food and I love to try new foods.. Since I've been here I've tried things that you wouldn't imagine.

el pulpo: octopus

Cow's Stomach

Snails

Trying new foods is just part of traveling and experiencing a different culture so naturally, we had to try the best food Amsterdam had to offer and as much of it as we could on our first night. But what I was most excited about was visiting the Anne Frank house during our visit to Amsterdam because it is the actual house that she and her family hid in during part of the Holocaust. We planned on going to tour the house on Saturday after breakfast. But then I woke up and felt really sick but didn't want a little bug to get me down on this trip so I tried to ignore it. Then during breakfast I went back to our room and didn't leave bed for the rest of the day because of how bad I was feeling. Reminder that I had 0 alcohol in the past 24 hours besides 1 sip of the beer in my hand in the picture above. So surely if I rested all day, I would feel better by that night and then I'd be good to go the next day, right? 

I wish that would have happened. Instead, the next day I didn't even make it through breakfast before I was going back to our room. I had to change my flight to leave 12 hours earlier than I had originally planned because of how I felt and my friends convinced me that I needed to see a doctor before we left Amsterdam (I'm glad they did). The doctor said it was a form of food poisoning and gave me a shot. 

We know the shot didn't work because I ended up in a wheel chair at the airport...

When I finally got back to Barcelona, my room mates were already making plans for me to go to the doctor the next morning. I hadn't eaten or drank anything in almost 3 days so of course, Cody being Cody, didn't care what anyone had to say and wanted to lay in bed until it was all over and the pain was gone and could finally eat again. 

Well the next morning one of the directors of our study abroad program gave us the name of hospital to go to and made arrangements for them to assess me right then. I was running a fever and was dehydrated. So of course as soon as we get there, they started to run an I.V., ran a bunch of test, and told me that I had an infection in my stomach from something I had eaten. 

Looks like my adventurous taste buds finally caught up to me... 

You think you know Spanish until these nurses are asking you all of these questions and poking you with 10 different needles while you're cramping in parts of your stomach that you didn't know existed to where you can't even think straight... Just picture yourself talking to someone, not understanding a word of what they're saying just constantly thinking "stop talking please, I'm not going to understand anything you say just fix me, please." So if that was my fluency test, I failed and refuse to take it again. 

Because of this, I never thought I could miss my parents, my family, and The United States of America so much at a given point in time.

But after 2 nights and almost 3 fulls days in the hospital, I feel 100 times better! It's honestly all thanks to mi Modre España and my awesome friends for forcing me to shut up and go to the hospital because I know I was not a pleasure to deal with (sorry about that) during that time. You guys are awesome!

This is one of my friends, Rachel, visiting after I came back to life 

So that was my past few days/ weeks in a nut-shell and some pictures...

This weekend I'm going to Morocco, so hopefully I'll have some interesting stories to tell you from there :)

Lucky Night for Pickpocketers?

There is something about my bed that doesn't let me leave once I've gotten in it. Usually this wouldn't be a problem but on the weekends, my room mates and I always siesta (nap) after dinner before we go out. The problem is once I'm sleeping, convincing me to wake up and get ready to go is nearly impossible. Because of this, I only go out probably once a week (believe it or not). But once I am out of the house with a significant distance between my bed and myself, the struggle to get out of bed is well worth it...with the exception of last weekend.

A little background: A few weeks ago we got another room mate straight from Japan. His name is 
井上大輔, pronounced like "Diasuke" but you can call him DK. DK is 35 years old and is here for a month studying to get his PhD in linguistics. Since he is studying linguistics, he is fluent in multiple languages including english. If you ask me, DK is a pretty cool dude and fits in pretty well with the 3 of us. 

Thursday night we planned to take DK out for a night on the town but after siesta, there was no convincing me of getting out of bed. So Friday night, Bo and Brian (my room mates) didn't give me much of a choice. When we were leaving, DK walked out of his room and I was impressed to say the least because homeboy was looking fly as heck with his plaid pants, blazer and green shoes. He knew he was looking like a boss too but I don't think anyone else should try to pull that off, only DK.

We took DK to Chupitos for a few shots on fire then migrated to a different bar to meet up with some of our friends. After about an hour and a few drinks we were all having fun.

We went to a club and left after 10 minutes because it was bogus. As we were half way down the stairs of the subway I turned around and saw a guy rubbing his leg on DK's being obnoxious. None of us thought anything of it except maybe the guy was drunk so we told DK to just come on.

When we got to the subway, DK wasn't behind us anymore. We ran back up the stairs but couldn't find DK for about 5 minutes, then he comes of nowhere and tells us his "purse" was stolen by the guy we thought was obnoxious and drunk (talk about a buzz kill). Since there was nothing we could do we decided to go home. Once we got back down to the subway, two police officers approached us and told DK to go with them because they had found guys who met the description given by some random guy outside of the subway.

So the rest of us waited...and waited...and waited for at least 15 minutes for DK to come back but even after going to look for him once again, he was nowhere to be found. 

Great....we lost our room mate. All I could think about was, "damn Elisa is going to be pissed at us." And when we finally got home, got food and went to sleep.

The next morning when we woke up I prayed that DK had some how made it home because I didn't want to be there when we had to tell Elisa we lost our new room mate. I wasn't sure how she'd react and chances are I wouldn't understand what she said but either way I wouldn't want to be there..

Turns out the police took DK to the police station to identify 1 of 3 guys who had been taken in to custody. He got his purse back and took some cool pictures of the police station in the process.

While DK ended up being lucky and got his stuff back at the end of the night, some of my other friends had their iPhones and wallets stolen. 

So lesson learned people, don't ride the subway at night unless you want your stuff jacked. 

Staring Contests On The Subway

After a month of living here in Barcelona, I think I have adjusted and adapted to a lot of the Spanish culture pretty well. Awesome food for every meal, 3 hour lunches, siesta (nap) time every day, and my favorite of all, wine at any meal you please. I can't say that I've had a bad wine here so if you ever come across Catalonian wine I would highly recommend you try it at least once. One thing I can't come to understand is why these people dress like they are in an arctic blast when the its between 55 and 70 degrees outside, every day.
My first day here I wore jeans and a Northface pull-over and my house mom told me I was going to be cold? When it's 55 degrees (especially when it's 70 degrees) in Texas, the only person you will see wearing big jackets are the homeless people that you pass on the way to class because that's all they have. I'll admit when it's in the 50's and windy, it is a little cold but a sweater will do the job. So what I don't understand is why do all of the locals wear leg warmers, a hat, scarf, gloves, a sweater and a wool jacket regardless of what temperature and weather conditions are?

Look at this picture. Isn't it a pretty day, today?

Everyone in the picture and everyone you pass will be dressed as if it's freezing outside but no, it's 70 degrees. 

To blend in as much as possible I usually wear a sweater or a coat when it's actually kind of cold outside. 

So why am I ranting? 

This morning I had a work out at 9, so like most people I wore sweat pants and a zip-up jacket to the gym. When I got on the subway you would have thought I was wearing a Santa Clause suit because people were staring at me as if the guy singing for tips didn't exist. In the US it is common courtsey not to stare at people, apparently that's not a rule here in Barcelona because almost every person around had their eyes glued on me until we'd make eye contact. That lasted for about 15 minutes until I had to get on a different train where there was this older couple sitting across from me. Just like before, this couple was staring and talking about me and even when I made it blatantly obvious that I knew they were whispering about me, they wouldn't stop!

Being the morning person I'm not at 8:30 in the morning got a little irritated and began to stare back. And they just kept on staring. Naturally, my thought process is, "hey Cody, you should give them a reason to stare at you." So I started grunting and making noises then began laughing at myself so I turned music on, danced in my seat, loudly hummed to the music, and did a little head-banging until we arrived at my stop. On my way out I waved at the couple and said, "have a great day, friends!" and winked. 

I hope I run in to my new friends, again! We had a good time this morning but I'm still going to wear sweats. 

Don't buy beer from the Pakis

I was told by a few different people that my last blog was a little A.D.D. and all over the place. Let me introduce myself, Hi my name is Cody Bradford and I am the poster child for Attention Deficit Disorder. But i'll try to keep this one on track, no promises.

As you might imagine, there are a lot of differences between the European culture and the culture in the United States. Of course the food is different, the different language is a given, but something you might not realize is the difference in night life. It's safe to say they definitely know how to party here in Barcelona and everywhere else I've been in Europe.


So picture this...
A typical night in the U.S. would look something like this:

• 9 - 10 pm: get ready 
• 10 - 11pm: pre-game (and wait for the last person in your group to finish getting ready)
• 11pm - 12am: leave or arrive to your destination (s)
• 12am - 2am: drink drink drink
• 2am - 3am: rally the troops and head home or to get drunk food (Kerby Lane, Whataburger, etc.)
• 4am: passed out

Here in Barcelona a typical night looks like this:

• 9 - 10pm: eat dinner/ finish eating dinner
• 10 - 11:30pm: siesta (nap)
• 11:30 - 12pm: wake up and get ready 
• 12 - 1am: pre-game and make plans for the night
• 1 - 2am: arrive at our destination
• 2 - 3am: drink drink drink
• 3 - 4am: drink party drink
• 5 - 6am: party drink think about leaving
• 7am: take the metro back to your house because it opened at 6am

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I do that regularly but I've had my fair share of extensive recovery periods.
Since Barcelona's number one industry is tourism, you bet they have some awesome places that you probably wouldn't come across in the US (not even on good ole 6th street). Picture a menu with only shots. But not only a few shots, hundreds of shots. Not just different kinds of alcohol shots, shots that are on fire, or have marshmellows, oranges, spicy shots, mouth stinging shots, sour shots, you name it and Chupito's has it all for either 2 or 3 euros each.

I had one particular shot that they lit on fire and I roasted a marshmellow then ate it with the shot. It's definitely a cool place to go.

Personally, I've never been to Wall Street and I don't know the first thing about the stock market. But Dow Jones is another cool bar here that has prices of drinks displayed as stocks. It works like supply and demand, the more drinks that people buy, the more the price goes up on the screens (in the "stock market"). After enough drinks are bought, the stock market crashes and thats when the drinks are the cheapest so you buy as much as you can!

A lot of bars have their own signature special or deal. If you gather enough of your friends to go to Pippermint, you can buy a huge fish bowl of sangria to share.

But I wouldn't suggest trying to finish one on your own though.. that's not the safest idea. 

Though I enjoy going out with my friends, one of the main reasons I enjoy going out is because I get to meet people. And if you know me you know that I like to make friends with everybody that I meet. When I was in Berlin I somehow started talking to these two guys who were visiting from London. I introduced myself and of course they asked where I was from and I responded, "I'm from Texas, I go to UT!" And then I got a response that I would have never would have expected to hear, on the other side of the world...
My new British friend immediately threw up the hook'em sign and said "HOOK'EM HORNS!" and proceded to talk to me about how much he loves Texas football and how Mack Brown did his time but needed to go. Until this day I still can't belive I met someone on the other side of the world, from a completely different continent, who knew and admired so much about UT football.

(Just making sure everyone else was hookin'em too..)

Did I mention the clubs here? 

There are numerous clubs that you should go to if you come to Barcelona. They are all remotely similar with 10-15 euro (over-priced) drinks, tons of people, creepy old guys, bitchy bartenders, and club mix music. Oh not to mention promoters who blow up your Facebook timeline making sure you know exactly what is going on, every single night of the week. And no matter what method of transportation you take to get to the clubs you will encounter at least 1 Pakistanian man trying to sell you beer. Do. Not. Buy. It. i reapeat... DON'T BUY THE BEER FROM THE PAKIS! More than likely it's been stored in the gutter and rats and gross stuff has been crawling all over the cans. That might be a rumor, I don't know, just don't do it. 

Also, happy late birthday to my friend, Saleh, who just turned 21 last week! Safe to say that his birthday celebrations were epic. 

I'm going to try to listen to my Oceanography professor now. He has a spanish accent so when he says "beach" it comes out like "bitch." 

Hasta luego!

Cody

you don't have to read this

Who blogs these days? 

You really don't have to read this, i'd actually advise you not to because 1. I'm not good at writing and 2. because my life really isn't interesting enough to read about. But I am blogging because I know as soon as I return to the states everyone will want stories about what happened and if you know me you know that I forget things (everything) so I don't want to leave anything out.  

So here it is...

I've been in Barcelona for almost a month and so far it has been an experience that is indescribable to say the least. I've been asked why I decided to study abroad and my honest answer is because I was bored. So why not move to a different country for a few months and learn a new language while i'm at it?!

Yeah I know I can learn spanish in school but not really... See my high school spanish teacher, Mr. Hall, told me on the last day of class, "Cody I will pass you on one condition, you never take spanish another day in your life." So here I am a Junior in college and I have to take 4 semesters of spanish to graduate. Poor planning on my part but what's new?

I am living in a homestay with 2 other American students and a house mom who is a saint, in my eyes but more to come on Elisa later on. 

So far I have been to a FCB game (Football Club Barcelona)

and even though it was pouring rain, it was pretty fun.

Also, traveling Europe is something you'd be stupid not to do while you're here...

So a few weeks ago I went to Berlin and experienced snow and 7 degree weather which isn't as bad as you'd think.

(my room mates and I infront of a cool German goverment building)

While visiting Berlin, I learned a lot about their history and realized that most of the significant things that have happened to German are a result of them pissing other countries off. Like the Berlin wall and communism, the Holocaust, bombings from WWII... But I did get to see the Mercedes Benz headquarters so that was cool. 

I've done a lot of other cool stuff but I can't think of it right now and I have a presentation due in 30 minutes so i'm going to start that now. Did I mention it's supposed to be in spanish? This will be interesting.

(Hopefully i'll have cool artsy pictures up soon)

Hasta Luego!