Paris vs. New York, Part 1

I CONSTANTLY compare Paris to New York. The metro/subway, the food, the people, the aura, everything. Here is a brief introduction, with more to come, I'm sure (not a day goes by without a new comparison)

Paris wins:

• pretty-ness (New York has a beauty in the gritty-ness, I think, but it's not "pretty" the way Paris is)
• every kind of bread besides bagels
• proximity to other cool places (except Long Island...hi, family!). London (quick train ride/nap) especially. 
• Europe wins (I think most people reading this know my general attitude towards my home country...hi, CIA!)
• style (New York is fashionable, sure, but I can get away with looking like a much bigger slob in New York than in Paris)
• sandwiches (again, exception for bagels)
• view on my morning commute (crossing the Seine, looking at the Eiffel Tower, and if it's a clear day I can see all the way to Sacre Coeur...vs either an underground tunnel or Queens, with about a 30 second view of the Skyline, which though it brightened my mornings, was very brief)
• Most food - hot chocolate, pastries, bread, etc

New York wins:

• efficiency (in EVERY way)
• Pedestrian traffic flow (see above)
• BAGELS
• speed (see #1)
• portable coffee/food (see #1)
• ease of everyday chores (I am not going to blame Paris's problems with this on the language barrier...it's just a problem) (see #1)
• Woody Allen (asterisk for Midnight in Paris)
• Diversity (I don't just mean of people...there is just everything in New York)
• Rudeness. Explanation: in New York, if people just can't be bothered to make room for you, for example, when everyone is trying to get on a subway car, someone, and that someone can be you, will yell and people will move, and it's just accepted. Again, see #1.
• Parks. (asterisk: I have not really experienced spring or summer in Paris yet, but my previews of parks have not made them seem like the oases of New York, where even the smallest park will always have a nice bench or patch of grass in the shade in which to sit and read for a while)
• Things that are open late or all night/morning/day
• ease of information (just for example, finding a website that has the hours/location of any given business)
• Loyalty. I think a New Yorker will always be a New Yorker, and to some extent that is true of Parisians (as far as I know), but New York seems like its own country, and no matter what, New York is a New Yorker's hometown. 
• Library system (along with every other system, see #1)

Ties:

• Expats (they both are pretty cool havens for those types)
• myth (there is definitely a romance about a young girl from a small town moving to New York OR Paris...or both)
• activities....I don't think I could ever (justifiably) be bored in either city

Also, this blog is really great for these types of things. Silly, maybe, but there is definitely some truth. 

http://parisvsnyc.blogspot.fr/