I live in a giant consumerist paradise. A traffic choked, snotty, totally corporate, hellish, anti-cultural, hungrily self imposed prison society.
Don't get me wrong. I love Paris. I've spent a lot of time doing research there and could happily live there for a while. But... I feel like what you say above just doesn't jibe.
(1) If you don't like developed areas, then stay away from major European cities. They're old and beautiful, but are and have been way more developed than anywhere in America for, oh, thousands of years. (Nature? What nature? Frontier? Huh?)
(2) I enjoy Notre Dame and the Louvre as much as the next person, but hanging out there every single weekend would be like spending all of my time at Epcot. Not to belittle the beauty, value, and history of these locations but they are tourist attractions and there are only so many busloads full of poorly-dressed gawkers I can deal with per day.
(3) Paris is quite full of chains and corporations. I actually think there might be fewer chain stores here in San Francisco than in Paris, since San Franciscans tend to be virulently anti-chain and from what I can tell Parisians certainly aren't. They aren't all chains that we have here, but they're still chains. (I [heart] my Monoprix!)
(4) Traffic choked? Snotty? Corporate? And you want to live in Paris? By the way, there were plenty (shockingly, actually) of SUVs driving around last time I was there... I have no idea where and how the drivers parked these things, much less afforded to keep them full of gas.
I also would never speak lightly of giving up my freedoms as an American. People fought and died for what we have here and people all over the world are fighting and dying for similar rights every day. I think it's a bit disrespectful to be flippant about what we have here. America has its problems but we also have something pretty special here.
America has a history that is tens of thousands of years old, by the way. Of course, a lot of it occurred "before the white man came." I don't know about you. I think that part counts.
Like I said, I love Paris. I feel at home there, and to tell you the truth it's the only place I've ever lived (save San Francisco) where the strangers I met actually thought I was from there. (Being Asian in America often means that everyone assumes you are a foreigner in your own country: "Wow, your English is so good!") It's one of my favorite cities in the world, but it's still a city after all, and has all the benefits -- and drawbacks -- of a modern Western city. It's just that the buildings are older, and the people are better dressed, and, OK, the shopping is really really awesome. Oh, and the bread. And the cheese. And I really dig some of the facial soaps and stuff that I can't get here at home. Also the best zit cream I ever found, I found in Paris.
I would choose the flat in Paris over a digital M. I might have an inner struggle if the choice were between the flat and an MP, however.
