Absolutely true. The key with Parisians is to at least try to speak a little French, to not assume they all speak English. They almost always do, but they appreciate you making the effort to fit in. Londoners are just dicks.
Chattanooga's natural setting is easily the prettiest east of the Rockies. It's almost like Bavaria or the Alps.
As for diversity of cuisine, I lived in two cities in a shitty part of England (Preston and Blackpool in Lancashire) and even 25 years ago it was decent. As everyone knows there's killer Indian to be had. What surprised me was that in Blackpool of all places, our neighborhood Chinese takeaway was amazing -- to this day, some of the best Chinese I've ever had, and I've had many a meal in Houston's Chinatown. In Preston, the local kebab place (run by an emigre from Soviet Georgia) was likewise incredible -- time and time again I risked mad cow disease for that dude's beef/lamb mixed kebab.
The pizza sucked, but that's mainly because the English have shitty taste in toppings -- tuna, corn, pineapple -- than any flaws with the dough or whatever. There was decent Italian aside from those subpar pies though; Preston also had McDonald's, KFC (the first in England, as a bronze plaque attests), and an American bistro if you wanted comfort food from home, and you could go native with great fish and chips or meat pies and pasties.
All that made it stack up to a third-tier American city like Nashville, where I spent much of my childhood in the 70s and early 80s, and where there was exactly one Chinese restaurant, no Mexican food worthy of a return trip, terrible pizza (until some Arabs got to town), and one mediocre Italian place that the locals regarded as Michelin Starred greatness. That whole Nashville hot chicken deal was not yet invented, but man do Black Tennesseans like their BBQ hot -- there was this place called Mary's I discovered as an adult that never, ever closed (it was a front for the local numbers racket kingpin) and you paid dearly the next day for a 4AM chowdown on their 'cue. (It was kind of the Whataburger of Nashville because of those hours, but it was also in the 'hood, so there was more of a thrill in going. And I did know one dude, a cabbie, who got jacked there. They took his cab and his 'cue and he was more upset about the 'cue.)
But yeah, neither in England nor Nashville did you have anything close to the diversity that Houston already had by the late 70s, but that's changing. I see recent events on the world stage have apparently sent a large number of Syrians to Preston, as there are shisha lounges all over town. Nashville now has a real barrio and you can get authentic Viet food too. Houston just continues to get more diverse -- the hottest place in town is a West African-inspired joint in Montrose. I've fairly recently sample Uighur fare, the food of the Garifuna people of Central America, Nepalese, Afghan, many regional Chinese cuisines, Mexican sushi, and hey, Houston even has solid brisket these days.
If we ever arrive at true peaceful globalization it will be through food.