A Tale of Two Cities

Since I’ve been in a competitive mood lately and slow to write about my trip to Berlin due to the spike in the number of orphans needing to be rescued from house fires, I’m going to pit two cities against each other. And since they’ve never been able to get along in the past, and I recently visited both of them, it'll be Berlin and Paris. In the attempt to disguise this as some sort of quasi-objective and fair competition, the cities will be judged on Language, Friendliness, Monuments, Food, and Wild Card, which is probably where I will just rant about thin-

What? No, Paris, please just sit do- No. There’s no need to throw things jus- Just- Ok Paris, stop swinging the fondue stick. Stop. Ok, we’ll do that if you sit do- Sit. Ok, thank you.

And since the Parisians are already whining about how this system isn’t fair to them, “Desserts” will be included as a separate category as well. You’re welcome, Paris.

LANGUAGE:

Paris – Sacre Bleu! The hype French gets as a beautiful language is grossly overrated. Have you ever heard it spoken by a pack (pod? gaggle?) of teenage boys playing soccer? Imagine the dulcet tones of walruses fighting to the death. And I know that all languages sound awful when spoken by teenagers, but French sounds particularly bad because Parisians are required to get nasal implants at birth that prohibit breathing through the nose. So now you have a brood of teenage walruses with allergies battling for their lives in futbol. And what language needs two accents, a vowel hat, and a squiggly that gets attached to the bottom of “C’s?” A pretentious language, that’s what. Good day to you, French.

Berlin – Let’s just say it: Germans are obsessed with flatulence. It seems every fourth word ends in “-fahrt,” and from what I can tell, it’s acceptable to tack on to any prefix. So maybe I was a little biased in favor of Berlin because I was giggling at the language the whole time. But German still isn’t much better than French. It’s phonetic yes, but it also looks like . And some of the “letters” were either straight up stolen from Greek or doodled by a lonely 2^nd grader while his friends played Battleship. I’m looking at you, S-set, with your Beta and your “f3” hybrid letter. Plus, words get hard to pronounce when they’re more than ten letters long. I swear, Germans must play scrabble with twice as many letters. Or a “fahrt” tile.

Point: Berlin, because I’m that juvenile.

FRIENDLINESS:

Paris – All right, let’s just get this out of the way, too. Parisians much prefer it if you speak French. It’s not that they’re hostile towards you if you can’t par-lezz voos the Francis, they just look at you with a mix of contempt and boredom. It’s similar to the way most people look at rednecks trying to do math. But if you can somehow convince them you’re not a complete moron, they can be quite friendly. It’s just that sometimes it’s easier to pluck off all of your own fingernails than convince a Frenchman that not all Americans are idiots.

Berlin – Berlin easily takes the cake on friendliness. And then returns it with a bottle of wine because they felt bad about stealing it in the first place. Everyone from people on the streets, to waiters in restaurants, to the desk clerk at the hostel was willing to attempt some English with us if they weren’t able to speak it perfectly already. One of the hostel workers acted as an amateur bartender for us, and everything was on the house. And maybe I was just in a good mood from all the “fahrt” jokes, but it seemed like everyone on the street was a bit happier as well.

Point: Berlin.

Editor’s Note: Berlin will be forfeiting its Friendliness Point. Seems someone stole my debit card information and robbed me of over a thousand dollars. Shame on you, Berlin. And Paris, you can stop your giggling because you’re not getting the Point either. I heard what you said, and I don’t find it very flattering, or friendly. Category dropped.

MONUMENTS:

Paris – Eiffel Tower. The Louvre. Versailles. Arc de Triomphe. Sacre Coeur. The Louis Vuitton Store. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of m- Paris, if you keep interrupting me, you’re going to get disqualified. Paris would like to let everyone know that they “Also have a Statue of Liberty like you fat Americans” and that they “saved the best materials for ourselves. Hon, hon, hon.” Apparently, they’re going to drop all pretenses and concede defeat on the friendliness point entirely. But they are right to be proud of all of their monuments. They’re all impressive, and the Eiffel Tower even puts on quite a show at night.

Berlin – Brandenburg Gate. The Berlin Wall. Charlottenburg Palace. Berliner Dom. The East Berlin TV Spire That I Can’t Remember The Name Of. Also a very impressive group of monuments. And Berlin can boast more museums than Paris and London combined at over 180. And Berlin’s representatives aren’t yelling at me to include more of their monuments in the list. Thank you, Berlin.

Point: Paris. If you match up the Eiffel Tower to the Berlin Spire, Versailles to Charlottenburg Palace, Arc de Triomphe to Brandenburg Gate, and Sacre Coeur to Berliner Dom, Paris wins every one of them. It’s about quality over quantity, Berlin. And having everything blown up 70 years ago is no excuse.

FOOD:

Paris – I’m going to say outright that Paris got a distinct advantage here. I was much less concerned about conserving funds in Paris than I was in Berlin because I recalculated my budget in between. That said, Paris did not disappoint. Many ducks were slaughtered to feed me that weekend, including the fattened young ones that produce sweet, sweet foie gras. And the fish. The ocean must be entirely devoid of tuna and salmon after all of the sushi we ate. Did I eat in excess and at the expense of many adorable creatures? Probably. Did I enjoy it anyway? Absolutely. Do I like answering my own questions like a pompous asshat? Indubitably.

Berlin – Even working with a tight budget, Berlin did not disappoint either. The food was significantly cheaper, portions were massive, and I still managed to devour an entire menagerie of cute and exotic animals. Plus, the options were definitely more novel than the fare you usually get in Belgium and the rest of Western Europe, or I at least thought that because I had no idea how to read a menu.

Point: One to each. Well done, you two.

DESSERTS:

Paris – You know we’re just giving you this to build the suspense for the final category, right? And because you’re an insufferable whiner. I just want to hate you so much. But you do have beignets… and crepes…

Berlin – Sorry Berlin, but you knew this category was rigged from the beginning. No amount of Kinder eggs is going to beat out crepes and beignets. Buck up, lil’ camper. There’s another round coming.

Point: Paris

WILD CARD:

Paris – Paris is what I imagine having a little brother is like. Annoying as hell some of the time, tolerable most of the time, and actually halfway fun after it takes a nap and washes up. And much like a little brother, when Paris decides to be difficult, it doesn’t cut corners. Let’s just take the metro lines. After failing to get on the right train to Versailles for nearly an hour, we finally found ourselves heading in the correct direction. Granted, about half of that delay was our fault for not properly researching the lines. But Paris blows its nose with forgiveness and refused to provide any sort of explanation or metro worker for the entirety of the process. Then, a return ticket from Versailles on the exact same train requires an entirely different ticket that costs twice as much. And finally, when you’ve had enough of it all and just want to escape back to good ol’ Belgium, Paris forces you to use three metro passes just to reach your train, even though you haven’t left the metro lines the entire way there. One day, before your big job interview, I’m going to slip laxatives in your escargot, Paris. It’s just the nature of our love-hate relationship.

Berlin – Berlin is like the family member you enjoy having around on special occasions, but never any time else. It’s pretty nice and usually entertaining, but sometimes it does weird things like eat the potpourri and blare techno music on Christmas morning. It certainly means well, but some times it seems like it’s trying too hard to make up for that one “incident” that happened years ago that most people in the family would prefer to forget. But at least Berlin is pretty easy to get along with, despite all of that. Maybe if I spent more time with it, I would value its company more.

Point: Paris. Even though Paris smells funny and is really whiny, I can at least understand what it’s saying most of the time. And even though sometimes I want to tell it that no one cares for it and it’s adopted, I sort of love it deep down for reasons that aren’t clear to me. But that doesn’t mean I won’t send you to the orphanage and hang out with Cousin Berlin on a moment’s notice, Paris.

Notes:

1.     Someone in Berlin actually did manage to get my debit card information and rob me of the aforementioned amount. In Chicago. A week later. Thankfully (shameless plug) Bank of America took care of it for me and will reimburse me in full. That guy had better be having a field day.

2.     Although I had been to Paris before, I somehow missed out on Versailles. While you kind of felt like King Louis XIV was a terrible ruler, he sure knew how to party it up in style.

3.     Berlin is the best place to go to eat a lot and eat cheap. I managed to get a four-course meal from a nice Thai restaurant for around 13 Euros. In Brussels, 13 Euros will get you a bottle of water and a croissant. And the water will be carbonated.

4.     Train travel is definitely my preferred method of transportation now. Cheaper than a flight (usually), smoother, safer, and no security checkpoints or luggage restrictions. There’s a train from Brussels to Atlanta right?

5.     Since my weekend in Paris was my last major trip, we’re winding down on the number of remaining posts. There’s probably one more Clash of the Continents and something sappy and heartfelt about Brussels coming before I leave.