Urban Birding

Lyon, like a lot of older European cities has a lot of pavement and not a lot of wildlife outside of parks. We actually haven't seen any spiders (Monica hates spiders) or ants or a lot of the typical natural pests we got back in California. So, what kind of birding can you do in Lyon? Well, there are plenty of pigeons... But one particularly unique bird we noticed was indigenous to Lyon. This is the googly-eyed graffiti bird.

Graffiti in Europe is something we just don't get. Rather than fight the problem, Europeans in general seem to have given up. There's simply too much flat concrete around. Sometimes, the best way to fight 'em is to join them. See if you can read the word scrawled on this graffiti - and notice the fries?



Well we had noticed a particular bird painted on train electrical boxes around the Lyon area. This became the way we knew we were almost home from a long train trip. We'd see the birds long before we saw signs for Lyon.



So, rather than get annoyed at graffiti, we adopted the googly-eyed graffiti bird as our home turf symbol. We even wanted to get a good picture of one for our scrapbook, but it is hard because normally when you see one, you are zooming by on a train.





To really get some good pictures would require a day of birding - urban style. Our friend Mark was game, so he and I went out on a sunny day to see if we could capture any shots of the elusive bird. The trouble was, the best way to see the bird was from a train. Finding a place to spot the bird on foot was not so easy. We eventually found a way on to the tracks and walked along a service path. We weren't sure if this was strictly legal... but we hadn't seen any signs saying it wasn't allowed. We trudged for quite some time with no luck when suddenly we hit paydirt!



We were suddenly up close with the Googly-eyed bird! I noticed the attention to detail! The vandal had even carefully painted the lock on the box in two colors so as to preserve the look of the bird. If you zoom in you can see the lock in the center.

At this point we knew that if we found no more birds, we still could call the day a success. But, we found more! Even a brown cubist-version!





The birds range quite far from Lyon and we've even seen them on the highway heading to and from the airport (but not other highways). So we think they are there for the travelers. Strange to think how we've gotten used to them saying hello and goodbye when we travel. See you later birds! We'll miss you too.

Morocco on the cheap

With our time running out in France, we may have been a bit hasty with this idea. With cheap flights to Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey - why not book a last minute package deal? Monica went ahead and booked one online through French rail SNCF - like Yahoo travel etc. they have those ads saying "Why not pop down to Marrakesh for 8 days, 7 nights?" So we did. Soon after charging our card we got an email saying (in French) we were all set and details would follow. Gee, I hope soon - since there are only 2 days left before the flight. At this point, I, Monica had an revelation. It hadn’t occurred to me until this very moment, although it should have been obvious, that this whole tour was going to be in.....FRENCH! OMG! I don’t even know French very well! I pointed this out to Dave and he grinned. Well, it’ll be another adventure! The next couple of days, as we were going about our days, not understanding people as they spoke to us, as usual, we kept saying to each other "We are so dead!" This one was definitely going to be one of those "What the heck were Dave and Monica thinking" vactions.


The day before departure, we get an email giving the flight time. OK... Wow, we'll be arriving after midnight and we don't even know the name of the hotel or flight number! Clearly this was a moment when Monica's stress meter entered the red zone, so we set to scouring the details of the offer and email to see what we could discover. Our hotels on the trip "sea to desert loop" were 3 & 4 star, the company handling it was Marmara, and we had "pension complete." That meant we were supposed to get fed 3 times a day, although the discount French breakfast, minimum by law I suppose, can consist of toast, coffee, and a slice of cheese and ham so thin you can see through them. When you see a fancy hotel ad that boasts a "free continental breakfast" remember that technically means a breakfast with basically nothing.

So we arrived at the airport for a late night flight on an unknown plane to a third world country where hopefully we'd have a room somewhere and a way to get there. Plus it would be Sunday. A long time ago we had arrived in a small town in Italy to meet a relative on a Sunday. They couldn't make it and we found everything was closed, ATMs didn't work and so we couldn't get Lira, pay phones only took lira phonecards which we couldn't buy since it was Sunday etc. Now we could face the same thing except it would be 1:00AM and everyone speaks Arabic.



We needn't have worried as upon arrival tour agents swarmed the arriving group. After consulting a clipboard for our name we were told (in English!) to take "bus number C".

Thus began our own unique "mini adventure." The tour was like a 70's style all-inclusive tour; surrounded in a tour cocoon where every move is dictated by a guide. We're told when and where to eat, where to drop off and pick up luggage, and we never see an admission ticket as our group descends en masse at each attraction. For us the adventure would be that everything would be in French. Indeed, several times people thought some mistake had been made - how did two Americans end up in a French group? In fact, Americans were very rare in southern Morocco, I guess they prefer Casablanca to Marrakesh.




As members of a French tour group, we would receive French treatment. So, every room came with a bidet of course and that rotten bolster pillow (but we found real pillows in the closet), and all meals had dessert - French, not Moroccan. We had to sneak away to taste the local specialties. The French don't like spicy food, the Moroccans do - so the intersection of their cuisine was... Couscous. We had couscous every day! Even the other tourists were starting to grumble after 5 or 6 restaurants in a row had decided the perfect meal for us was couscous... yet again! What other "frenchified" Morocco awaited us? Coffee? Well only if you didn't want the mint tea. Croissants? Yes, with every breakfast. What about... wine? Well, as Morocco is 99.8% muslim you would think it would be scarce, but apparently haram status doesn't mean they don't happily vint their own and serve it to us infidels.



What else would be French? Perhaps our first hotel would serve as an example. We arrived exhausted at 1:30am and are told to be packed and on the bus at 6:30am - then the hotel disco kept the whole place thumping until 5:00am. This is a vacation?? The hotel looks incredible - like the 5 star Mexican resorts. Fabulous luxury with the scent of poverty just beyond the manicured lawns and groomed beach. Agadir, our starting city, is dedicated to tourism with fishing a distant second industry. It was totally destroyed in an earthquake and rebuilt with all modern buildings and thus was "no place to see any cultural heritage." But, on the contrary, these buildings all snuck Moorish arches or crenellations into their design. They were all still apartment buildings, glossy hotels, mini-malls, etc. but they DID show their cultural heritage.

I won't go into everything we saw and did during the trip except to say that the schedule was packed and the 6:30am bus was typical since we also covered a lot of miles. The rest of the group took us under their wing assuming we must feel lost and confused. Actually with our large group it was impossible to get lost. We just flowed along talking to the others and copying whatever the group did.



Sometimes that wasn't the best idea - like one time a bunch of the group bought dates from a street vendor and handed them around. We popped some into our mouths without thinking - whoops! Fortunately we stopped there, but some others got sick that night. OK, I will mention that the Essaouira "flying goats" don't actually fly. But they have learned how to climb trees!



We did meet plenty of French folks on the trip who invited us to visit or swap houses in the future. We had the same experience when we joined a Spanish group touring Egypt. Maybe we should do this more often and we could build a worldwide network! Then in our old age we can wear out our welcome around the world! I can hear them already:
"Psst! Honey? Who are these people?"
"We met them on a trip back in 2008. Remember? You invited them to visit."
"Yeah, well I never thought they'd take us up on it!"

Achmed

Okay, I know I shouldn't post this because it so unPC, but I can't resist. This is so funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go

And some dreams come to an end too....

Well, the end is near. We have tickets to fly home to California on March 31st, and no return tickets to Lyon booked this time. It's been difficult for me to come to terms with the fact that this dream is coming to an end. My emotions over the last couple months have run from up to down, happy to sad, excited to stressed, very depressed to hopeful. You name it, I've been there!!! :) But I must say, it is really good that now there are plenty of happy good feelings mixed in with the sad ones.

When I first heard from Dave that we were not going to be able to stay longer, I have to admit I cried for 2 days straight. I'm so glad Dave was traveling and wasn't here to witness that breakdown. He'd have felt so bad. But we knew this was temporary and that it had to come to an end. And so, we've spent the last couple of months really enjoying our time in France. We've gone to all our favorite restaurants, spent lots of time with friends, and taken some fabulous trips. We spent Valentine's day in Geneva (that's the 3rd V-day in a row in Europe...sounds like a tradition doesn't it?). Then last week we booked a last minute 7-day trip to Morocco. I'm planning another trip to Paris, and we might even go to Corsica if we can fit it in. So, it's not over til it's over for us. And we don't plan on leaving Lyon without shaking the last drop of wine out of the bottle ;)