Console newbie---Please help!!

Hi,
i am new to this console thing (the last and only one i owned was a Sega Mega Drive) and i want some help with some stuff.
I understand that there are two versions of Playstation 2 present. A PAL one that is supposed to be used only in Asia, Europe and the  NTSC one that is for US/Canada.Now can i buy a NTSC one and make it playable on a PAL tv? Are there any disadvantage like screen size or graphics when this is done...?
About the games can i buy a ******* and play PAL games on a ntsc machine?
I ask this because i am in Europe where there is the PAL format and i am buying the PS2 from USA.
Anyone that has any FAQ\'s or links that go into this with detail please post them up.
Thank you in advance

well there are a couple of people that post here that do the exact same thing you are talking about.

Ethan Hunt is one of them. he can help you with power adapters, and video adapeters and such.

PM him. he will probably help you. if you dont know how to pm, ask, but its not hard.

The best page (shop) for those questions is http://www.gamefreax.de ! They have an english page too...

Thanks guys, appreciate the help

Let me advice you: Buy a console of your country... nothing more.