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Paris

While I've written that I preferred London over Paris, and have expressed that Paris tended to feel like a stage set, a backdrop for tourists to enjoy. Lovely, but a little cold, a little too polished, and a little too disengaged. Other areas I went in France were not like that - even St. Malo, which is perhaps just as tourist-oriented, felt more real.

And then....

And then I see things like this, which make me rethink (click on the "full screen" option for this one - it's in marvelously wonderful high-definition):


Bonjour Paris | A Hyper-Lapse Film - In 4K from Tyler Fairbank on Vimeo.

I don't believe that any city that is inhabited by people can ever truly divest itself of the fingerprints of those people, no matter how hard it scrubs. And I personally love that. Cities are designed, built, and inhabited by people - people who have dreams, who have loves, and who spread glory as they go, but people who walk about on feet of clay and who also leave undesirable traces of themselves as they go. This is altogether for the good. Cities need life, and life comes in many different hues and shapes and smells.

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