When Paris lost its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Summer Games, the French were quite shocked and none too happy to find that the honor went instead to London and their eternal British rivals.
To the French, the choice had been obvious - who could deny the splendor and charm of a city like Paris, especially in the face of lackluster competition like Moscow, Madrid and dreary old London?
In hindsight, however, their confidence seemed a bit strange for a country which doesn't exactly have a reputation for winning.
Perhaps French President Jacques Chirac shouldn't have publicly made fun of British food a day before the vote, and perhaps Paris should have tried a little harder to prevent a massive transport strike on the day the Olympic officials were visiting the city.
The aesthetic beauty of Paris is hard to deny, but any supermodel knows she can only rely on her looks for so long.
Last weekend I visited the victor in the Olympic battle to see exactly what the competition was offering. A Frenchman I had spoken with who had just returned from several years working in London called it more "dynamic" than Paris and the "most exciting capital in Europe right now."
An impressive endorsement, especially coming from a native Parisian.
Arriving in less than three hours by the Eurostar Chunnel train, I marveled at how quickly I could leave the struggle of the French language behind and walk into the open arms of the English-speaking world.
The next morning dawned overcast and wet, London living up its own dreary stereotype. The sky overhead was completely monotone and opaque; one could not discern any individual clouds, just an interminable vault of dull gray which let down a not-entirely-unflattering, diffuse light over the city. Cloudy days make for the best photography, after all.
Walking along the River Thames through the city however, I couldn't quite decide whether I thought London was attractive. As in Paris, the river serves as a dramatic focal point, offering panoramic vistas in any direction.
But unlike the mostly tidy magnificence of Paris with its wedding-cake facades and terrestrial sense of history, London was a strange m?©lange of old and new, pretty and ugly. The classical white dome and columns of the massive St. Paul's Cathedral are nestled between modern glass and brick buildings, and rusty iron bridges contrast the sleek, jagged lines of the gleaming Millennium Footbridge.
In the distance, glass skyscrapers in odd shapes rise like giants out of the fog, battling for space with the dozens of cranes which signal construction sites all over the city. The overall impression was not the staid elegance of Paris; it was wild industrial chic.
This is a city in flux - in the throes of urban renewal, gentrification, and all those catchwords you hear about developing cities in the United States. And in a certain way, it almost felt like being in America.
It wasn't just the fact that English is the spoken language; there is a tangible sense of newness and progress in the city that reminds me even of my hometown of Denver, which in the span of twenty years has shed its reputation as a cow town and become one of the most thriving cities in the country.
The forthcoming Olympics are just one manifestation of this sense of movement; it's also evident culturally. The British music scene is one of the only to consistently penetrate and influence the American market, instead of the other way around.
Fashion, for so long dominated by Parisian couturiers, has found a new influential center in the young British designers who have made London Fashion Week competitive with that of Paris.
Likewise, 20 years ago, British food had the worst reputation in the world, even among the English themselves. The best chefs in England were said to have all come from France. Today, the most talked about restaurants worldwide are in London, and thousands of foodies pour in just to dine at the eating palaces of celebrity chefs born and raised there.
Similarly, the British art scene has exploded in recent years with the catalyst of the reopening of the Tate Modern Art Museum in a huge former power station beside the Thames, a clever example of preserving the old while making something wholly new.
The most popular current temporary installation is composed of huge, twisty metal slides which descend from the soaring atrium and which visitors can ride for free. In fact, entry to all the major museums in London is free of charge, allowing thousands of plebeians who might otherwise be repelled by the snooty art world to partake in some cultural exchange.
To be sure, it's not as if Paris is some stagnating Rome reveling in its former glory. Paris can also be "dynamic" - it's gentrifying, diversifying and modernizing at its own pace, too.
But from national elections to historical preservation, the French are fond of maintaining the status quo, probably because, for all its quirks, the French system and way of life work pretty well.
Nevertheless, if there's any hint as to why Paris lost its 2012 Olympics bid, one might find it in the exquisiteness of the city itself. Paris is more visually beautiful than London, certainly, but behind that starched and ironed brilliance lays a fear of getting a little dirty, of bringing in the new and changing the old, and of going forward instead of running in place.
And as Paris found out in 2005, looking pretty is hardly ever enough.
Adam Winograd is a junior majoring in international relations. He can be reached at adam.winograd@tufts.edu.
