>>>I found Montreal to be a beautiful and colourful place, with lots of pastel houses nestling together, and those that weren't were quirky in style, such as mock castles and stuff.:
>>>
>>>http://www.photoatlas.com/pics01/pictures_of_canada_09.html
>>>http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/5764f/dd4ad/
>>>http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977375458
>>
>>Many victorian style houses are painted like that here.
>
>Give you an idea of the colour of houses here, some American's photo diary of a visit here. Most Victorian houses are painted a shade of white or cream (although back in the day they would have been plain concrete stucco, with perhaps a peeling lick of whitewash).
>
>It's funny the diarist's remark on the telephone wires going to several houses, from a telegraph pole (like in our street) which he mistook for power cables! :-)
>
>http://www.aug.edu/~sbajmb/pictures/Best-of-Brighton-2006-Web/Brighton2006.htm

All of it - Montreal, SF (been there, saw 'em, got my own pictures), Brighton - is much better and closer to my normal than this now. Last three years even the crappy plastic stuff you meet everywhere (crates, grocery carts, sneakers) have gone from colorful (still a few orange, red and nearly-cobalt-blue carts around) to dark gray, close to 0x404040 or even darker. I should pull up a webpage with America The Grey.