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!