Jet Lag: Over

     It's been 4 days since the Mayor's return from the EU.  Finally, the sleep cycle has returned to normal: no more 4am blogging sessions.  Funny thing about jet lag, it's easier flying east to west than the reverse.  Must be some biological factor that is little understood by medical experts or else there would be a bottled cure.
      As any person with a pulse knows, the EU, among all its problems, is faced with a relatively new problem: hoards of migrants fleeing the Middle East and landing in western Europe.  They come from all the hot spots: Syria(50%), Iraq(20%), Afghanistan(15%), Iran(8%), Turkey(6%), Libya(1%), others (1).  Landing spots used to be on Italian islands near Sicily.  Smugglers felt it was easy and open.  But soon, migrants found an easier route: go to Turkey then cross 2 miles of open water to the Greek island of Lesbos.  Easy Peaszy.  Buy a rubber inner tube, a life jacket, pay for a seat on an inflatable boat and start paddlin', Bro.  Then the real journey begins: most want to go to Germany, the land of opportunity.  They don't want Italy anymore-economy is stagnant.  Not France either- slow growth, few jobs.  United Kingdom-yes, but crossing the Channel is not so easy.  Just look at Calais and its camps of truck jumpers.  Scandinavia is fine, not easy either; plus, relatively few muslims and fewer mosques.  The Balkan countries are seen as pass throughs: Hungary has closed its borders with fences and military police.  Croatia is passing migrants through now to Slovenia, which is closing its borders.  Germans are not welcoming as they did a month ago; right wing conservative groups are resisting Chancellor Merkel's call for acceptance and tolerance.  The EU is appearing to be confused because of a lack of consensus and a lack of a plan that all member states are willing to accept, a plan that to date has focused on quotas or percentages of migrants for each nation.   Most politicians know that the quotas would not prevent movement within the EU of those same migrants, especially long term.
      So, how do things look in Paris?  Lovely, autumn weather is here: cool nights, sunny days, a little light rain. (In Nice, not so light-torrential rains last week led to 12 deaths and severe flooding).  Parisians are in the parks, at the museums(w/ large Chinese tourists groups), and in all the cafes in St. Germain(rive gauche).
More later
The mayor will inspect a boat building shop today.