Gotta say, I wasn't initially thunderstruck by Paris. Some cities, albeit world cities, can have that underwhelming first impression — Le Paris didn't have the gritty edge of Cairo, the multiculturalism of New York, or the West meets the Middle East blend of Istanbul.

I tend to look at urban landscapes through a camera lens, and while the River Seine flowed through it, it seemed too picture perfect for me. Everything in its place, no rough edges. Quaint without being quixotic. The cultural chit-chat, cappuccinos in cafes, French impressionist cinema: it had all that. It had all that François Truffaut showed in his movies, that Albert Camus wrote about, and Henri Cartier-Bresson shot. Even the Eiffel Tower, as I'd imagined it, was a delicately crafted tower, but not much else.