Does anyone think cities like New York, Paris and London are over-rated?
02-20-2014, 10:50 PM
Okay I admit I can't comment on New York as I've never been there, but the reason I chose those 3 cities for this post was because together they have so many tourists (probably the most visited cities in the world) and everyone raves about how 'great' they are and each of them tries to compete with the other 2 pretty much constantly for tourists and prestige.
Yes these cities do have some good things about them including some pretty interesting sites, museums, and heritage, not to mention culture. But personally I find Paris and London so over-rated.
I live in London and boy this place has far too many tourists. I don't mean any offence but when you work in the city centre and have to battle them every single day it kind of wears you down. They're everywhere, in the Tube, on the streets... There's no escape. I don't understand why so many people have to come to London when there's a whole damn country to explore. What's the appeal really?
London has one of the highest living costs in Europe. You can end up paying a lot just for some crummy sandwich from some crummy chain 'restaurant' (if you can call it that) like 'Pret-A-Manger' (a damn faux French restaurant). It hardly seems worth going out here sometimes.
The museums here are free which is great but at the same time they are so crowded you can't really do much. Again this is mainly due to the tourists. I think they should start charging entrance to the museums to limit the numbers and to raise revenue - it might actually improve things a little. So again that option is limited.
People here can be aggressive and customer service in London isn't great. I would say Paris is actually worse for customer service though (no offence to Parisians intended but the service there does have an even worse reputation than ours). In some parts of London the crime rate is really high, police officers aren't often visible outside the city centre, and you feel unsafe walking down the streets. There're some dodgy groups of people who congregate near my local Tube. I have the dubious pleasure of having to walk past them every night.
And let's not forget the pollution and congestion too.
However, whenever I meet people from abroad (and there're a lot of them here, British nationals are a minority here), everyone talks about how 'wonderful' the city is. It's like they're blind to its negatives. It kinda gets annoying - it's just seems so phony and yeah it's wonderful if you're a foreigner and you only live or visit the city centre but there's more to London than Zones 1 and 2 on the Tube. I remember when I went to The World Pride in Trafalgar Square in 2012 and ended up being hassled by this skanky woman from Essex (a region to the east of London) and some American who seemed drunk but who I suspect was completely fucking high on E because he was hyper and was just totally getting on my nerves. I had to storm off because I felt like smacking them both they were that annoying (I managed to resist the temptation though).
When I walked away I just thought 'God... how can anyone possibly put up with all this'?
Factor in the overcrowded Tube journeys, the stress, the heat in the summer, and it's one massive headache.
As for Paris... well as soon as I got off the Eurostar train at Gare du Nord I was immediately hassled by a French-Arab guy upon leaving the station who was yelling at me in French... not a great first impression of a place. Since then I had to quickly adjust to being hassled by roma gypsy beggars in Paris everywhere I go. Outside the Louvre you get these 'charity fundraisers' who are fake trying to raise money for their supposed 'cause' helping blind children. They're aggressive though and cannot be trusted. Really they're the worse sort of scumbags pretending to raise money for some desperate group of people in need and then creaming the profits....
It gets worse, there're these African 'traders' outside the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre who give you a 'friendship bracelet' and then charge you like 20 Euros for the supposed 'privilege'. I was foolish enough to fall for their scam once. Never again though! Why these people are allowed to do this and get away with it I don't know!
And when I was inside the Sacre Coeur, there was some crazy, insane priest there yelling at people barely making a noise to 'shhhh'. When I was leaving the Sacre Coeur (bloody depressing place - I'd stay away from it if I were you), some young tourist was taking pictures. The priest got pissed off and I mean PISSED. He actually barged past me practically pushing me to one side violently just so he could collar the tourist and yell 'no photo' at him. What a rude, nasty sod he was.
I already mentioned the customer service. Paris is a bit of a rip-off, though I think London is worse in this regard.
I mean Paris has its good side, like its museums, some pretty sites, its culture... but at the same time there is so much that drags the whole visiting experience down.
So anyway, what do you guys make of these cities? Has anyone here been to New York? Did you like it? Were you disappointed?
PS: I admit I am a bit intolerant, I won't pretend I am not. I used to be much more tolerant but after years of total dickheads giving me shit day in and day out my tolerance has been tested.
Yes these cities do have some good things about them including some pretty interesting sites, museums, and heritage, not to mention culture. But personally I find Paris and London so over-rated.
I live in London and boy this place has far too many tourists. I don't mean any offence but when you work in the city centre and have to battle them every single day it kind of wears you down. They're everywhere, in the Tube, on the streets... There's no escape. I don't understand why so many people have to come to London when there's a whole damn country to explore. What's the appeal really?
London has one of the highest living costs in Europe. You can end up paying a lot just for some crummy sandwich from some crummy chain 'restaurant' (if you can call it that) like 'Pret-A-Manger' (a damn faux French restaurant). It hardly seems worth going out here sometimes.
The museums here are free which is great but at the same time they are so crowded you can't really do much. Again this is mainly due to the tourists. I think they should start charging entrance to the museums to limit the numbers and to raise revenue - it might actually improve things a little. So again that option is limited.
People here can be aggressive and customer service in London isn't great. I would say Paris is actually worse for customer service though (no offence to Parisians intended but the service there does have an even worse reputation than ours). In some parts of London the crime rate is really high, police officers aren't often visible outside the city centre, and you feel unsafe walking down the streets. There're some dodgy groups of people who congregate near my local Tube. I have the dubious pleasure of having to walk past them every night.
And let's not forget the pollution and congestion too.
However, whenever I meet people from abroad (and there're a lot of them here, British nationals are a minority here), everyone talks about how 'wonderful' the city is. It's like they're blind to its negatives. It kinda gets annoying - it's just seems so phony and yeah it's wonderful if you're a foreigner and you only live or visit the city centre but there's more to London than Zones 1 and 2 on the Tube. I remember when I went to The World Pride in Trafalgar Square in 2012 and ended up being hassled by this skanky woman from Essex (a region to the east of London) and some American who seemed drunk but who I suspect was completely fucking high on E because he was hyper and was just totally getting on my nerves. I had to storm off because I felt like smacking them both they were that annoying (I managed to resist the temptation though).
When I walked away I just thought 'God... how can anyone possibly put up with all this'?
Factor in the overcrowded Tube journeys, the stress, the heat in the summer, and it's one massive headache.
As for Paris... well as soon as I got off the Eurostar train at Gare du Nord I was immediately hassled by a French-Arab guy upon leaving the station who was yelling at me in French... not a great first impression of a place. Since then I had to quickly adjust to being hassled by roma gypsy beggars in Paris everywhere I go. Outside the Louvre you get these 'charity fundraisers' who are fake trying to raise money for their supposed 'cause' helping blind children. They're aggressive though and cannot be trusted. Really they're the worse sort of scumbags pretending to raise money for some desperate group of people in need and then creaming the profits....
It gets worse, there're these African 'traders' outside the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre who give you a 'friendship bracelet' and then charge you like 20 Euros for the supposed 'privilege'. I was foolish enough to fall for their scam once. Never again though! Why these people are allowed to do this and get away with it I don't know!
And when I was inside the Sacre Coeur, there was some crazy, insane priest there yelling at people barely making a noise to 'shhhh'. When I was leaving the Sacre Coeur (bloody depressing place - I'd stay away from it if I were you), some young tourist was taking pictures. The priest got pissed off and I mean PISSED. He actually barged past me practically pushing me to one side violently just so he could collar the tourist and yell 'no photo' at him. What a rude, nasty sod he was.
I already mentioned the customer service. Paris is a bit of a rip-off, though I think London is worse in this regard.
I mean Paris has its good side, like its museums, some pretty sites, its culture... but at the same time there is so much that drags the whole visiting experience down.
So anyway, what do you guys make of these cities? Has anyone here been to New York? Did you like it? Were you disappointed?
PS: I admit I am a bit intolerant, I won't pretend I am not. I used to be much more tolerant but after years of total dickheads giving me shit day in and day out my tolerance has been tested.
![[-]](https://gayspeak.com/images/duende_v3_local/collapse.png)
Just somewhere away from all the congestion, pollution and crime.
