Anyone else here think Paris is overrated?

BIGBULL29

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While we all have different tastes and expectations, Paris is still a city that bedazzles many (not always sure why, but...).

In my experience, it is a damn hard place to live unless you're loaded with dough -- and so inconvenient it is! Parisians can be so gloomy at times, which bothers me more than their brusqueness.

Although my life has been devoted to the French language, there is an abundance of places to speak it elsewhere (rest of France, Belgium, Québec, etc.). So language aside, a few good desserts and pretty buildings won't bring me back. If one thing could, though, it would be the allure of watching people speak a sophisticated language with hardcore arrogance (only in Paris...or perhaps Lyon, too? lol).

Paris has lost a lot of its bohemian feel that it once had years and years ago (philosophers analyzing and writing about life at the corner café). Sadly, the city has succumbed to contemporary globalization and is experienced as any other major city around the world (still has some unique characteristics, nonetheless).

I would argue that Berlin is Europe's most bohemian city, if there is such a place in today's world in light of global modernization and materialism.
 

rbkwp

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Well, i do remember Paris having an overabundance of dog shit on the streets though...


Yes, same here, now you mention it....
and i recall seeing in Paris, Butchers were cutting up a whole beast on the sidewalk ...... hygiene?
China i can understand, 80s, the truck arrived with a load of Pigs on the back, they threw the animals off, if lucky some landed on the carts placed there, if unlucky, they landed onto the pavement, where the night cart, had been 1/2 an hour previously, dragged away dripping, by the lady whose job it was.....
ahhh but everyones still alive thru it all aye ha
 

vince

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I dunno. I think how one experiences any place comes down to what's going on in their head more than what the city, town or country is on about. In other words, the place lives up to your expectations and no more. At least that's how it works for me and it what I've observed with my traveling companions. There are pleasant surprises of course. For me, Beijing was the exception... I thought it would be awful and it blew me away.

I love Paris and the good times I've had over the years and I hardly know any French. But then, I think Everglades City FL is a fabulous place too.
 

rbkwp

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Yep
will also admit to the travellers financial circumstances, which areas he/she frequents, and what they wish to relate, or not
So true.
I chose always to seek out the 'poorer parts of the city's' was just something i wanted to do, and the people i wanted to be amongst.
fr inst .. i preferred Glasgow Slums,( and people) to Edinburgh's beauty
 

BIGBULL29

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A rude awakening of real life in Paris was when I went to visit an African immigrant at his apartment in one of the suburbs. Never have I been in such a foul-smelling apartment building in my life (smells of dirty feet, vomit, etc). It was something one would experience in a third world country. So bad it was that I had to limit my breaths in order to control the gag reflex (couldn't hold my nose or I'd offend!). And I felt quite sorry for this poor medical student, with hopes that he would get out of these poor-living conditions someday.

In hindsight, my apartment building in the 15e arrondissement didn't have the best of smells, either, and I was paying a pretty penny! The French just aren't too fond on hygiene!

As we say in French, folks: "Les Français sont si fâchés avec la propreté":biggrin1: