You know those things you fall in love it and at some point you love them so much that your afraid of getting disappointed?! This is me and the travelling mania I am slowly developing.
Last week I visited, on fast forward, two of Europe's greatest historical capitals, London and Paris. Maybe the quickness of the visit made the experience "dirty". Of all my travelling I found both as the darkest, dirtiest cities I have ever been in, Bucharest included.
London, I arrived around 6 (UK time) at Heathrow, and the second I looked out the plane's window, I remembered the beautiful Nordic sunset from Denmark. The darkness was similarly warm. I felt familiar, maybe because everything was in English :P. I went around the city only a bit (Buckingham, The Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abby, The Eye). I would have liked to see more, but it was cold and the poor illuminated streets made things look darker and colder, and I constantly had the feeling that I have to go to bed. The chaotic direction of cars was confusing and dazzling...though I wasn't scared, I felt like getting out of the streets as soon as possible. The feeling was tripled by the sight of homeless every here and there. When I got home I realized that I forgot about London's bridge, so I'll just have another reason to go there, this time by day...in a warmer season.
Paris was even quicker. I didn't even realize when the train we were on crossed the channel and got us in the suburbs of Paris. The sight wasn't so great. I've seen these gipsy built suburbs for a million times on TV, but never got goose bumps. You cannot imagine the dirt and poverty standing to be noticed next to a city of luxury and history. Once we got in the city, I had the feeling of familiarity again. The language is a complete puzzle to me, but the faces, clothing and architecture made me feel like home. The stint of the underground in Paris, could not be neutral to me. They urgently need to drop one of those famous perfume bottles in the underground. I didn't see much...but in April I'll go back and investigate :)
On top of it all, these cities are so expensive...and in my opinion....without reason. My no. 1 is still San Francisco...and my no. 1 1/2 is Madrid.