The new digital M8 or this for Christmas ...

Paris, London, Rome and Dublin are overpriced and you would be a fool to invest in real estate there now.
 
Too bad about Lisabon cause I would love to have a place there, even though I prefer the countryside.
 
Kevin said:
Paris, London, Rome and Dublin are overpriced and you would be a fool to invest in real estate there now.
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Actually if you read the article, the 17th sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Maybe some short-term risk, but long term? I like it.
 
I can't think of anywhere in Europe that I don't like and consider supremely photogenic, though if factoring food into the equation I'll give the edge to Italy :D

I've always wanted to take 6 months and tour the continent in a restored VW microbus-camper (well, to be honest, when the idea first hit me I could've still bought a new one).
 
Ben Z said:
I can't think of anywhere in Europe that I don't like and consider supremely photogenic, though if factoring food into the equation I'll give the edge to Italy :D

I've always wanted to take 6 months and tour the continent in a restored VW microbus-camper (well, to be honest, when the idea first hit me I could've still bought a new one).
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Any reason why we can't commission a RFF European Tour Bus :p

Prague is another city I would love to photograph. Let's include Florence and Venice too. You're right Ben, the list is endless :)
 
I've never been to Europe, but from what I gather, it's full of places of photogenic quality - and so far no one has mentioned Budapest, which has a high recommendation, too.

As for Americans migrating to Paris, maybe if enough do so, it will dilute the old saw that "the Frenchmen are a funny race". But given Americans' aversion to learning languages, it may take a while.
 
Flyfisher Tom said:
Any reason why we can't commission a RFF European Tour Bus :p
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That would cut into everyone's gear acquisition budget . Couldn't we just hotwire one? :D

Prague is another city I would love to photograph.
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Have a look at some of this guy's work. When I met him on the street in Prague some years ago he was shooting with Leica M, I don't know if he still is or not.

dll927 said:
so far no one has mentioned Budapest
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Budapest as of several years ago was just beginning to develop a tourism infrastructure. I found it refreshing not to see any McDonalds :D

But given Americans' aversion to learning languages
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In many countries in Europe I've run across many people who speak only the national language. In the US the only people I'm familiar with that have a true aversion to learning a second language are the ones who speak only Spanish :D
 
"Budapest as of several years ago was just beginning to develop a tourism infrastructure. I found it refreshing not to see any McDonalds"

I was there last summer, and it's got the infrastructure and the McDonalds now, and Burger King, too, and they're bigger than any we've got in the Twin Cities (but they don't have any McDonald's Play Lands yet; in McDonalds Play Lands, and automotive cup holders, American know-how leads the world... :p

I get the feeling that big European cities feel like they haven't arrived until they have a McDonalds to despise...A few months ago I stayed at a hotel near the Gare du Nord in Paris, and in the early morning, you couldn't get into the McDonalds across the street, because of the crowds jamming it. Not Americans, either, but Parisians. The reason? Lots of calories for the money and cheap coffee. Paris is an unbelievably expensive place to eat in restaurants, but McDonalds is still MCDonalds.

JC
 
That's one thing which was refreshing about Cuba when I visited, an almost total absence of American "culture" and in spite of what the propaganda machine might have you believe, the people there seemed happy, healthy and more contented with their lot than many a community here in Europe and, dare I say it, the US as well.

If you're comparing Paris as a place to eat with the US, you need to compare like with like. San Francisco and NYC are hardly inexpensive places and the relentess tipping culture in NYC - hands out all the time - really gets to me. In Paris, service is included.

Certainly in France, there's concern that the young especially are deserting the traditional cafe society and eating on the hoof at places like McDonalds. Same in Italy.
 
majority of the people in the Eastern Block (eastern and central europe) feel they are closer to the west if they eat at McDonalds, Burger King, and buy stuff in large shopping malls. Funny, but the things at the shopping malls are actually more expensive than at small shops, probably, this is also what misleads large masses.
You can see it in Budapest, but it's even more so in large cities in Romania, e.g., Bucuresti, Temeswar. People drive for an hour just to go have a dinner at the burger king within the shopping mall, and they are proud of it, while in the close neighborhood there are plenty of good places to have a dinner...
But things are changing, more rapidly than on the true West, there's a group already realizing the fakeness of an economy (and society) built on shopping centers. Fast it came, fast it will go, i guess.
 
Paris expensive?

I was in fact surprised at how cheap one can have a great meal and drinks at a 'bistro' in Paris downtown. OK, i don't mean the chiquest restaurant and the most sought after wine, i just mean a reasonable place with good food and great drinks. And the service is excellent, people are funny and friendly even if they don't talk english to you.
Compared to some cities in the Netherlands, Paris is cheap going-out-wise.
 
If I could make any city my home, I'd choose Paris. I've been to a great many cities, and it is just perfect. It has its rough edges - for sure - but I don't care. The USA has its benefits as well - but those benefits are mostly devoured by developers at this point. The whole frontier/American pastoral thing is gone. Back to the old country I will go.

My company has locations in Paris, Munich, Tokyo, Sydney, Madrid, London, and a bunch of others. My goal is to position myself for any position at all that will get me over to France. Even if only for a couple years. Even with the trouble of paperwork and the pressures of being a non-French person AND young in Paris. . . I'd give a great deal of my freedoms for a chance to have mass at Notre Dame, walk around the Lourvre every weekend, buy cheese from people who make it, sit in private parks (carefully and quietly), and just BE somewhere that has so much history in its bones. Live in a city where businesses are not so often chains and corporations.

My building was built this year. My soon to be apartment is being built right now. Everyone in my neighborhood owns an SUV, many have hummers and Escalades and are busy pimping their rides right now as gas prices reach for $4

I live in a giant consumerist paradise. A traffic choked, snotty, totally corporate, hellish, anti-cultural, hungrily self imposed prison society.

There was a commercial for the Hummer last night. The man was buying tofu. He noticed the REAL man behind him buying a huge rack of ribs and some steaks. So, feeling less than manly, he went out and bought himself a MAN'S vehicle of destruction : the Hummer. As the commercial says. . . "Hummer : Restore your manhood."

PUKE. And I work in advertising. . . .
 
I live in a giant consumerist paradise. A traffic choked, snotty, totally corporate, hellish, anti-cultural, hungrily self imposed prison society.

Don't get me wrong. I love Paris. I've spent a lot of time doing research there and could happily live there for a while. But... I feel like what you say above just doesn't jibe.

(1) If you don't like developed areas, then stay away from major European cities. They're old and beautiful, but are and have been way more developed than anywhere in America for, oh, thousands of years. (Nature? What nature? Frontier? Huh?)

(2) I enjoy Notre Dame and the Louvre as much as the next person, but hanging out there every single weekend would be like spending all of my time at Epcot. Not to belittle the beauty, value, and history of these locations but they are tourist attractions and there are only so many busloads full of poorly-dressed gawkers I can deal with per day.

(3) Paris is quite full of chains and corporations. I actually think there might be fewer chain stores here in San Francisco than in Paris, since San Franciscans tend to be virulently anti-chain and from what I can tell Parisians certainly aren't. They aren't all chains that we have here, but they're still chains. (I [heart] my Monoprix!)

(4) Traffic choked? Snotty? Corporate? And you want to live in Paris? By the way, there were plenty (shockingly, actually) of SUVs driving around last time I was there... I have no idea where and how the drivers parked these things, much less afforded to keep them full of gas.

I also would never speak lightly of giving up my freedoms as an American. People fought and died for what we have here and people all over the world are fighting and dying for similar rights every day. I think it's a bit disrespectful to be flippant about what we have here. America has its problems but we also have something pretty special here.

America has a history that is tens of thousands of years old, by the way. Of course, a lot of it occurred "before the white man came." I don't know about you. I think that part counts.

Like I said, I love Paris. I feel at home there, and to tell you the truth it's the only place I've ever lived (save San Francisco) where the strangers I met actually thought I was from there. (Being Asian in America often means that everyone assumes you are a foreigner in your own country: "Wow, your English is so good!") It's one of my favorite cities in the world, but it's still a city after all, and has all the benefits -- and drawbacks -- of a modern Western city. It's just that the buildings are older, and the people are better dressed, and, OK, the shopping is really really awesome. Oh, and the bread. And the cheese. And I really dig some of the facial soaps and stuff that I can't get here at home. Also the best zit cream I ever found, I found in Paris.

I would choose the flat in Paris over a digital M. I might have an inner struggle if the choice were between the flat and an MP, however.
 
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