in pursuit of an uncurated life

romanticizing the most romantic city on earth

european breakfast

i’m in paris this month in what i call my “eat pray love” sabbatical — except i’m working east coast hours, cooking simple meals in my sublet, and rather light on the love and prayer side too.

i haven’t broadly announced my movements, but when it does come up in conversation I usually get asked if it’s my first time in paris. I’ve been to paris a handful of times before. My recent trips consist mostly of traipsing around, vintage shopping in the marais, drinking espressos, and lingering at a brasserie.

the first time i visited paris i was fascinated with paris syndrome, a phenomenon especially prolific amongst japanese travelers. from what i’ve read, parisian culture, artifacts, and landmarks are somewhat idealised and ingrained into japenese culture — epitomized by chanel, the eiffel tower and sidewalk cafes.

paris, as you know, is somewhat those things, but also a litany of other not so nice things. my favorite new genre of tiktok are montages of trash floating down the seine or heavily congested train stations set to the paris mayor declaring that paris is “fuuuully prepared to host the world at the olympics”. all this to say, the reality of traveling to paris and not having it live up to expectations is so disorienting that it can manifest into hallucinations and delusion.

while i’ve never experienced “paris syndrome” per se, i have, throughout my travels, experienced various iterations of delusion and disillusionment. I distinctly remember the first time i went to barcelona while studying abroad, climbing the stairs up to park guelle and being shocked that in real life the park wasn’t filled with heavily saturated, brightly covered stones.

forgive me this was 2015

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every year when the weather starts to get warm, i start seeing a certain genre of video come across my fyp. they’re 10-15 exquisitely curated clips that seem to just encapsulate the essence of whatever city is currently trending.

@marilynd__living in Berlin feels like > #berlin #berlinlife #foryou #berlinlebt #vibes #kreuzberg

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i’ve realized that a lot of my recent travels are somewhat coloured by these aspirational montages — i want to be in berlin dancing in foggy bars to a DJ set and walking around minimalist but architecturally significant art galleries. or experience summer in copenhagen eating in sundrenched bakeries and drinking natural wine on tekla towels beside the harbour.

and it is a little disorienting when i inevitably land in these cities and i find that it’s too cold in copenhagen for a swim in early june or that the photobooth in paris has a 30 minute line. what’s interesting to me is that these videos aren’t just stringing together aesthetics but curating a FEELING of something or someone i want to be.

when i was in mexico city last month, i made an effort to experience what i called an “uncurated” life: eat local cuisine without pulling out google maps, go to museums that aren’t the frida kahlo exhibit, generally rely less on reviews and more on happenstance.

i walked around outside my hotel the first day trying to find a place to walk into that was acceptable to dine solo but i was certain wouldn’t get me sick. after 90 minutes of aimless wandering, i was hungry and exasperated. i ended up opening up google maps and trying to find the closest recommendation i had saved down and ate a delicious but disheartening meal.

the experience made me question why i needed to go to highly rated places when i’m traveling and why striving for an uncurated life was so hard.

said mexico city vibe

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i think part of wanting to experience a curated city is scarcity — this idea that if you’re only in mexico city once you want it to count. and if you only have 48 hours you want to see the version of mexico city in your head and on your tiktok feeds.

i came across kyle chayka’s work recently on this topic. he noticed that no matter where he traveled to, all the coffee shops looked the same. in the way that they all had this specific minimalist, plant-filled aesthetic no matter if he was in rejkavik or tokyo or beijing (the 2024 version of it is architectural design books and post-modern chrome furniture).

one thing i’ve noticed is that no matter what city i’m in that the playlist sounds eerily similar to my spotify indie mixes — i.e. blood orange, orion sun, clairo, men i trust. i mentioned this to lindsay recently, who exclaimed to me that having traveled to dozens of cities this year, every single hotel lobby and coffee shop plays our favorite artist: khruangbin.

i don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong or even bad about wanting to have certain experiences in a city you’re visiting but i also think that we should be careful when we come to a city to not be trying to chase “an aesthetic vibe” — my fear is falling into the trap of the chronically online version of boomer “resort” travel. rather than never leaving your five star resort in each city you visit, you’re instead just living in the west village edit of whatever foreign city you’re traveling to. nothing is ever truly authentic or challenging, but instead a surface-level experience in pursuit of a specific unrealistic feeling.

the trips I remember the most and think upon most fondly on are the ones where I’m confronted by something I don’t expect nor necessarily want: that creepy exhibit at the pompidou 2 year ago or that time lindsay and i decided to walk back from the mykonos bar to our airbnb and i realized we didn’t have our key. the adventure is in the unexpected, the weird, and the inscrutable.

as i’m writing this, i’m listening to a man rush a waiter to a check, saying he only has 24 hours in paris ! fortunately, i have a full month in this beautiful city — and i want to act like it.

dream life