Also, I went to Paris in 2011 and there was nothing telling me that I was in France besides the Eiffel Tower. Everyone spoke English, the food was the same, the tv stations were in English, everyone dressed the same, etc.
All of these points are quite clearly rubbish - the former is only the case in the tourist bits and its especially silly to say this about France of any country, French cuisine has had a strong impact on general Western cuisine (plus there quite clearly is a difference, even between Belgium and France); hotels will naturally offer English language television more than additional French language stuff, especially if its a tourist focused hotel - its not like your average French person is watching the BBC World Channels at all regularly - and what on earth are French people supposed to wear? Its a bit like going to Scotland and complaining that you see no one wearing a kilt...
Besides, generally big cities are... different from the country that they are a part of. London is very different from the rest of England; Berlin from the rest of Germany - hell, even Glasgow from the rest of Scotland. To use an experience in one city and applying it to an entire continent is incredibly stupid - its a bit like using a week in Toronto to talk about all of North America.
It says a lot about our big cities though that when the Americans come here it reminds some of them of home...
