i’ll get it out of the way. this trip was dreamy, but life since has been chaos. i haven’t done anything worth sharing, or what was share-worthy felt worth keeping private.

seoul, to sum up: much calmer than i expected. the opposite of paris in every way, and in ways i didn’t expect

organized

green

kind + friendly (sorry, parisians)

colourful, as much as i love the haussman beige

i didn’t even bring my computer. i barely thought about work for two weeks. the trip was also unexpectedly social, since my partner works in seoul often and knows people.

we stayed directly beside Mangwon Market, where I walked every morning to get iced coffees and lunch for later: kimbap rolls, fried stuffed peppers, green onion pancake.

at one point we ate that lunch on top of a mountain, bong-san, which you climb on tidy wooden trails punctuated by outdoor gyms and groups of elderly friends exercising, chatting, and picnicking. one lady stood calmly scrolling her phone as she hula-hooped indefinitely.

the city reminded me of vancouver in that way- modern buildings surrounded by green.

we also had a day out at a music festival, and a night out at a community radio show.

i spent approximately forever in Seoul Forest Park, which i haven’t captured but is full of cute, manufactured vignettes: a “relaxation forest” into which classical music and gentle aromas are piped, the “pokemon forest” tiny amusement park, “reading forest” with books and benches

other things that surprised me:

i think i could live in asia and work nights. they have the 24/7 culture to support it

it’s uplifting being in such colourful, playful spaces

south korean “beauty culture” is stereotyped and overblown. yes, you can buy wonderful beauty products, but South Koreans are normal people, not supermodels (shocker)

since the trip i’ve been kicked out of my flat, found a new flat, survived a terrifying heatwave i don’t feel ready to speak about, and visited a rural town in west wales that i don’t feel the need to share.

as they say, take me back.

i’ll next be in marseille (which i’ve shared about lots already), and corsica (can’t wait). in october i’ll be back in british columbia, for the first time since moving to europe three years ago.

i don’t have much to say this week. here’s a few film photos from my life in paris and zurich this month, so i don’t have to.

parc monceau, one of my favourite parks in paris. it’s romantic and beautiful; flowers, statues, carousel, tiny bridge over a stream. i’ve been happy and sad there.

once i waited an hour there before a frightening medical appointment and it was very cléo de 5 à 7.

we visited the succulent garden in zurich, supposedly the largest in europe (??) it was cute in a field-trip sort of way.

self-portrait with giant cactus <3

fresh and clean vibes in zurich. we took a ferry ride around the lake and i was a bit amazed by the city. it’s incredibly idyllic. i said it feels like what the american suburbs were supposed to be.

ferry vibes <3

self, back in paris. that’s it for now.

last week we surprised a dear friend of mine, who’s just turned 28, with cocktails at Kissproof, in Belleville.

my tip: always bring your disposable camera to drinks at the cute bar. 💋

it’s been a hard month, for a variety of reasons that are hard to explain and understand. i’ve been on a self-imposed cure, and spending more time with people i love is part of it.

also included: morning pages, not starving myself, iron supplements, and honestly, less time on Substack. i hate to admit that it’s worked quickly and dramatically.

i’ve done two interesting tarot readings lately. i use them as prompts for my revived journaling practice, and usually pull two cards.

both allude to connection, friendship, and security.

🔮 7 of cups, followed by the 9 of pentacles

the seven of cups is daydreaming, wishful thinking, gazing at paths that don’t yet exist. to me it felt like a card of anxiety; the fig tree.

the nine of pentacles is, essentially, someone who’s doing well. it’s a woman relaxing in a garden, surrounded by her nine coins. self-sufficiency, luxury, safety.

🔮 3 of cups, followed by the hermit reversed

the three of cups is a party; three women dancing and toasting each other in a garden (there’s a theme here). they’re carefree, celebrating, and connecting in the moment.

the hermit is a journey of soul-searching and introspection. reversed, he’s tipping too far towards isolation; it might be time to make his way back to the party.

i’ll let you draw the connections, but this feels like a time to focus on what’s here: in paris, late spring 2026.

i’m writing this from the eurostar, on my way to london for a long weekend. then, i’m off to seoul for two weeks.

the bar is decorated with real lipstick kisses, if you didn’t notice. shoutout to and , who appear in these pics.

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I took my second long trip to Paris in spring of 2023. My birthday is in early November. That year, there was a strong relationship between those two dates.

After the trip, I remember having a clear feeling that my birthday was a deadline. I needed be back in Paris, living there, by that time.

I was unhappy in Vancouver, the city I’m from, and I didn’t really realize it until I spent time somewhere else. Despite having a strong circle of friends I adored, I felt trapped and smothered. I couldn’t imagine living life on repeat for the rest of the foreseeable future.

I was already self-employed, so my relationships were the only thing keeping me there. But they weren’t enough to make life fulfilling on their own. And as I found, they didn’t end when I moved; not even with my partner of 10 years from whom I separated.

I did it, as you can see if you’re reading this. I moved to paris, a few days before my 33rd birthday. Here are a bunch of pictures of celebration from around that time (and some from later, because they fit the general vibe).

here are two from my going-away party in Vancouver. we got a table at Pizza Coming Soon, an izakaya-type bar with a crazy interior. we also went to the strip club, but obviously that wasn’t documented.

we called it my divorce party, but that was mostly in jest.

here’s NYE 2023, a couple months after i arrived. i remember going to ’s house, one of my first friends in Paris, then going out dancing in a tiny little bar where a friend of a friend was DJ’ing.

everyone knew each other, and i walked home to my sublet in Belleville. cozy and cute, for a night out. i’m wearing the same top as the going-away party, but this wasn’t the same night.

below are two from more parties chez kristin, but again, different nights. i believe these may actually be two of her birthday parties, one year apart.

finally, here are two from my 34th birthday, one year after i moved to paris. i didn’t take any photos that first birthday, when i’d just arrived, but it was cute. the same Vancouver friend in the picture above, with the red ribbon, had flown in for an art fair and was staying with me, so we celebrated with some of my new Paris friends.

here’s my 34th with , another poet and writer in my circle <3 <3

we went to La Chope des Artistes, in the 10ème arrondissement. it was a really lovely and caring crew of friends, but if i’m being honest, i remember also feeling overwhelmed.

i’d started the day by crying alone in my apartment because a man i’d just stopped seeing reached out to wish me a hbd (though i’d asked him not to contact me). i remember just feeling a lot of extremes of emotion, generally, during that time.

that’s something i noticed about living in a new place; higher highs and lower lows, that gradually start to level out.

anyway, here’s my outfit from that night again, because i feel like it delivered on what i was going for; vaguely 80s businessy night-out vibes. why does no one wear fishnets lately? i love how they bring texture + geometry to outfits. they feel dated in the best way.

this ended up being more personal than i was expecting. so that’s the story of when i moved to paris, i guess.

my friend Annabelle lives in Zurich, and she is a train travel aficionado. we planned a one-day train-centric itinerary: Zurich to Mount Rigi to Lake Como back to Zurich.

we did spend most of the day inside trains, but that was the whole point.

maybe it’s because i viewed it from behind glass, but the word that comes to mind for the French-Swiss landscape is screensaver.

the hills and fields are the brightest, glowing green. you expect that Brian Eno Windows startup sound to play, it’s almost unnatural.

i’m going to break my rule here and put in some non-film photos.

as you can see, we visited a dairy farm at the top of Mount Rigi. You take a little cogwheel train up the mountain, it’s so steep that we saw baby goats climbing on rock right on the other side of our windows.

once you’re up there, the mountain is misty and chilly. we were underdressed because we also had to be Como-ready. we had hot chocolate and cheese toast at the dairy farm, made by the resident cows.

i remember those bright greens going darker as we took the train into como. the hills outside the train are covered in lush trees, with pink and orange villas peeking out. it feels very Romeo and Juliet, even though that’s obviously a different region of Italy.

this was only the second time I’d been to Italy. the first is when my breakup happened, but that’s a story for another day.

we spent maybe three hours wandering around Lake Como. some people get super dressed up as if they’re in Dubai or something which is funny. there’s a little bar, across from the cathedral pictured, where all these snacks come with your drink.

Annabelle was also casually speaking Italian after claiming she “wants to learn.'“ she speaks probably 8 languages, so euro.

Zurich itself is the freshest, cleanest, most serene city imaginable. it reminds me of Vancouver in some ways; nature, clean air, not especially lively. there’s a public bathhouse built over the lake. it’s like a giant sundeck with a cafe and bar and a ladder down into the lake. i could hang out there for hours.

i didn’t take many photos, but i enjoyed La Stanza cafe (above) and Monocle cafe.

Zurich is definitely not freelancer/nomad-accessible, but I could totally live there. it feels like the place where you’d settle down for a cozy, well-protected life. teenage girls on the street all have Louis bags, if you know what I mean.

anyway, that was last summer. we’ll see what this weekend in switzerland holds.

it might be obvious from these photos, but i found marseille’s beauty hard to capture. everything is sun-soaked, gritty, and colourful.

this alley is in Cours Julien. It’s un quartier of graffiti-covered alleys full of record shops, vintage stores where a top is 5euro, and outdoor wine bars.

at night it’s basically an outdoor nightclub and dozens of people line up at Pizza Enervée until 2am.

this is the big outdoor plaza in Cours Julien. this fountain is surrounded by gigantic, packed terrasses.

the view from the stairs just off the plaza. this was me trying to capture golden hour/sunset and failing.

me last summer; every street and alley looks like this. the contrast of charming euro-village vibes and urban graffiti is everything to me.

the calanques, outside Marseille, are famous for a reason. they feel prehistoric. they’re mostly for hiking, but you can find small pocket-beaches to hang out on.

we heard rumours that there’s a small italian restaurant, serving only spaghetti bolognaise, which can only be reached on foot.

if you want that sandy, beach-club sort of vibe, you can do that too, it’s just a little uber ride out of the city. This is Plage du Prado; this is what my friends wanted to do when we went.

vallon d’auffe is a wind-sheltered cove with terrasses and a pizza restaurant. it’s right across from that beach club with the orange loungers that always gets posted.

there’s a giant war memorial sculpture on top of this bridge. we got 5 euro paninis and watched the sun set from there, it was just as good as paying 30 euro for a lounger.

this was a carnival, with hundreds of people dancing. the picture doesn’t capture it at all.

there was an effigy of Donald Trump, a spaceship with a photo of Macron on it, and signs about anarcho-communism.

more random architectural moments. marseille in real life is like this, except it’s not dark and blurry.

The current authoritarian takeover, you text back and forth with your friends. You’re still saying it with bitter irony, like a ridiculous overstatement, even though it isn’t anymore.

Lurid the perfect word for Bangkok. Flowers everywhere: garlands woven every morning at the market, clear plastic trash bags of roses, sweating. Orchids growing literally, impossibly, out of a telephone pole.

Every single girl with a plastic flower clipped into her hair. Sunsets neon, saturated, orange and violet and dirty magenta with smog. After dark, buildings flash and ripple with led rainbows from your 48th floor rooftop.

Thank god I came here, you keep thinking as you walk across the overpass, past a giant bunny flashing lights, a Muay Thai ring surrounded by hundreds of people, a glittering golden temple that looks like AI.

The air so hot, so humid, so polluted you can’t breathe. Looking down for rats as you navigate the sidewalk. The neon green of the flower-shaped pandan cakes the women flip out of flower-shaped pans, steaming hot.

You’ve never seen more genderfluid people in a city. Not even Berlin, where the queerness felt represented mostly by expats, by hipsters.

One night, you turn off the street with the drag bars, and see hundreds of young women seated outside. Giggling and talking and smiling and waiting. Every single one in a ruffled dress. The way, at first, you thought they were outside their high school.

We can’t publish the article, I’m so sorry, your editor says. You can tell she’s been crying. It’s about DEI. Things are just too uncertain right now.

Your English is so good, says the French man at the next table to your server, the man who’s been insulting his date all night. How did you learn English, he asks, as if English isn’t his second language too.

She speaks English here every night, you interject. Her English is much better than my French.

I’m learning French, she says, and her eyes light up. I’m studying philosophy here in Bangkok, the French philosophers. You’re so beautiful, she says to you and your friend as you leave.

The way the trip has been so up and down, but the intense moments feel like they disappear until you’re in them again.

It’s called Picasso mood, say the guys at the coffee shop. Creative and dreamy. Good for sleeping.

It sends you into a complete haze. You’re in a video game. Your heart is racing. Your friend nearly walks through a glass door in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

The next morning you vomit in a potted plant and spend all day indoors. What has become of me, you’re thinking. You spend hours searching job market, resume optimization, lip twitching symptom meaning, canadian economic forecast, optimal retirement savings, exit plan.

That’s the first time, since you’ve arrived, that you let yourself cry a little.

In Krabi there’s no way to describe the colours without cliché. Turquoise sea, cotton candy sunrise. Where you’re from, the islands have deeper tones; cobalt, forest, rust. You sit in front of the beach and take pictures, holding your pink sunglasses lens in front of your phone.

The man who stopped you as you walked down the boardwalk, said with unbreaking eye contact are you traveling with anyone, where are you staying, how old are you. The man on the app who seemed normal and suddenly said b*tch. Stop talking like a p*ssy. Be my wh*re.

The cliffs that soar up out of the turquoise sea around the beach, fish that catch the light and gleam as they cluster around the floating piers.

It’s prehistoric, Jurassic Park you say with the girls from Minneapolis on the beach you got to in the narrow boat that flipped and shook you from side to side treacherously. And yet the tourist naming makes you feel ill; James Bond Island. The beach from the Leonardo DiCaprio movie.

Let’s just not talk about it, you and the girls agree about what’s happening in their country. That dry laugh.

Thank you for visiting my hometown, thank you, say the three smiling guys and their intern as they steer you around five islands with expert dexterity. With practiced movements, they hose the sand off everyone’s feet as you re-enter the boat.

This part of the islands is like Disneyland, says the Australian couple. You should go to the island we’ve come from. It’s harder to get to.

After you get off the boat, you cry on the beach, hiding under your Indiana Jones hat, writing long notes in your phone. You went here to do something nice for yourself, and still it’s with you. It’s a journey, you tell yourself. It’s a journey I’m committed to.

On the last day you arrive at the circle of mats on the sand, buy one of the fresh coconuts heavy with juice. You can’t stop smiling, I’m doing it, you think. As the sky shifts down again into those impossible pastels you practice asanas and balances with the impossibly strong and flexible lady who teaches the classes on the beach. She keeps singling you out, seeing that you’re not there yet but you have potential. Another handstand! I’ll hold you! She yells over the crashing waves. You shake and fall and laugh, your arms sore the next day.

You keep thinking about Wernher von Braun. A rocket scientist; reportedly a ladies man. Certainly, a tech bro.

His exact words: “I fared relatively rather well under totalitarianism.”

as you finished eating dinner at the formica table, you noticed vivid pink light on the buildings outside. you shifted the window open and leaned out over the terracotta roof, listening to the wind, le mistral, toss the lemon trees and wind chimes in the distance.

closer to nature, you kept thinking, even as that’s such an embarrassing thought in a way. you wanted to be near the sea. it matches the quiet place you’ve been in lately, words like intangible and mysterious surfacing over and over.

it’s hard to place, your partner had said of Marseille when you visited last summer. another friend, who’d grown up in Abu Dhabi, said the marina with its mirrored canopy reminded her of Dubai.

it’s chaotic, definitely. it feels ancient. palimpsest is the word that keeps coming to mind. layers of history, superimposed; a Roman market, Berlin after hours, Moroccan souk, rundown houses in the Italian countryside, flashes of French Riviera glamour.

but you find it hard to get overstimulated here. all you do is sit in the sun and walk in the wind, read and write alone.

today you walked on the marina under the reflective canopy, through a market of flowers. creamy roses with petals tinged deep pink. you kept walking, feeling lucky that the wind had died down, past the crowded city beach with the sandwich stands, to the little sheltered cove with boats and terrasses behind the tall arching bridge like an aqueduct.

you kept walking, around the water and up rickety stairs and onto the rocks that surrounded the natural swimming pool, low and freezing now. you climbed up and down the khaki-coloured clay-toned rocks the waves crashed against, over and over, the water a patchwork of turquoise and deep marine blue.

eventually you climbed past layers of blue and pink graffiti, and walked back to where you started. you bought a sandwich and read for two hours, sitting on your leather jacket on the hot sand.

the next day you hid inside and wrote, even though it was daytime and the sun was bright, because you could hear the wind roaring and shaking the trees outside.

when it was calm and hot, you left. outside, people wearing glittery wigs and fairy wings and homemade animal masks were all walking the same direction.

there were hundreds of people in place jean-jaures. they carried an effigy of donald trump, a papier-mâché space-ship with Macron’s face on it, a massive donkey that might be a Trojan horse.

people were dancing to DJs and drum circles and a brass band was playing New Order. a girl danced in a jacket that said mort au cochons. someone was selling vodka shots and calling them molotovs. a group of friends was dressed as lit matches, another as bulbs of garlic.

what is this? you asked someone. they shrugged: c’est carnaval.

the final morning you get up when it’s still dark, and don’t even have coffee before you catch the train.

slowly Marseille reveals itself as you slide out of it; gridded tracks and wires and graffiti settling into hills and cliffs and little towns with terracotta roofs. the real world; ocean and misty fields and rocky, sunburned hills outside the window.

but there was another world, too. the shadow world that only existed in screens, where nothing was human and people talked in strange, clipped directives about things that didn’t exist.

it felt strange to you that you couldn’t be here without it, that the shadow world carried you through the real one. money was what connected the two worlds. money was why the real world needed the shadow one.

all i’d ever wanted, really, was simple: write, travel, be around art. i’d done two: studied creative writing + art history at university, then started working in galleries.

when i started freelancing, it meant i could do the third thing. i started going on trips and in retrospect it was only a matter of time before i wasn’t in vancouver anymore.

i’ve been based in paris, france, off and on for three years now. i can write about how i ended up here, if you like.

i struggle with writing creatively, because the writing i do for work is so technically challenging. sometimes constraints are helpful, so here i’ll write about just one thing: places i’ve been.

i got inspired to do this by my huge, forgotten trove of disposable camera pics. a few are here in this message, and i’ll include them whenever i can.

i’ll also share:

• vibe-y travelogues of how i felt in a place

• more typical guide-type pieces

• memories of trips from ages ago, with old photos

• random phone photos when it makes sense

• other peoples’ travels, maybe (is that you?)

thanks for being here, and see you soon.if there’s anything you’d like me to write about, just let me know.

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