On the road again...

ON the road again but this time the bike path.  I have pulled out my newish bike and I have been trying to get my stamina back from a year of idleness.   I am surprised at how long it is taking me to recuperate between rides.   I am up to my fifth or so ride this month but some of those were several days apart.  I need to do a 45 minute ride which challenges me  ( high gears on the Promenade ) at least 3x a week.     Last FRiday, though exhilarating,  the ride almost killed me as it was 45 minutes up hill in the lowest of my 10 gears.  And the ride past the port yesterday wasn't much easier as the wind was against me all the way home from Coco beach.   I will keep at it.

Lots of stuff is going right past me in the political and social arenas of Nice.   I am blithely ignoring all of the excitement and eagerly reading the blogs of my friends who are covering it so beautifully.  http://www.bestofniceblog.com/  and http://www.frenchrivieratraveller.com/.

  For example , the FRench just had a preliminary election and it was the first time that a modern FRench president did not win the first round.  It will be a hard battle between conservative Nicolas Sarkosy who got 25 % of the preliminary vote and Francois Hollande the leftist candidate who won 27%.   And the anti-immigrant , anti- islamic France candidate Marine Le Pen came out with a surprising 17 %.   But perhaps not so surprising because the first vote is traditionally a thump to the head of the current president and a protest vote.

Sarkosy who has Jewish, Hungarian, Greek and French parentage is somehow already not FRench enough for some voters.    Hollande, on the other hand has an unfortunate name for a French president!!!

Hollande is regarded by many as an affable moderate whose quiet - some might say dull  ( his nickname is Flamby)  ways contrast sharply with the intensity and glamour of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.   But will Hollande, who has never held a national government office be able to steer a way through the European gloom?

With the economic woes, it seems that most people worldwide now just want ANYONE other than the incumbent.  It's so simple to blame a current leader when things fall apart.    Here and in America there is an overwhelming feeling of putting off the pain of our monumental economic problems.... for what I call "magical thinking".

 We live in exciting times, no doubt.    We will soon know the outcome of the French national election on May 6 or 7.   In the meantime....  

   I recommend that we temper our political and fiscal nightmares with a little bike ride.   It will clear the brain....especially if the sea beckons like a sirens call as it does just now.