Growing up in Korea and moving to America at 8, I’ve always been in a fast-paced environment. In preschool, we were already mastering our 12x-12 multiplication table. By 1st grade, we were comfortable with long division; at this point, we had long been walking the streets to school on our own. Coming into America, I was forced to learn English very quickly, only spending a year and a half at ESL and quickly learning with high-achieving classmates. From all this, I’ve learned to value my time– it’s one of those things you can’t buy or get back… you only have so much of it. 

Because of this, I like to walk fast. I don’t like to wait long, and I certainly don’t like it when people are consistently late. Sometimes, I like to eat quickly and knock as much as possible out of the day. Perhaps this is the American way. Perhaps this is a fault of mine. 

Walking into Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, I was utterly excited to see the place Dickens imagined Sydney as a frequent visitor. The very pub that he visits and then leaves to go sobbing back on his bed! I explored the area we dined in and then went downstairs to find even more seating. Upstairs, there’s a very special first edition copy of A Tale of Two Cities proudly hung on its wall. 

However, downstairs is where I imagine Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay to have their tense conversation– the cramped, cool space equipped with a bar, with Madame Defarge in the corner, knitting. It is also downstairs where the bathrooms are found. The very bathroom where Carton reprobates himself with pure hatred: “Why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like… You hate that fellow” (Dickens 90). In that same bathroom (albeit I was in the ladies' room), I could just picture Carton leaning over the sink and muttering these words. 

In this eccentric old pub, an original copy of A Tale of Two Cities is proudly hung on the wall and decorated with some fitting old decorations and cartoons. But once I found my way about the little treats of the pub, I found myself getting rather impatient. As mentioned before, I value my time and waiting for what felt like an absurd amount of time to be spent for lunch made me a little antsy. Mind you, as a group of 12 in a small pub, with one waiter serving all its customers, it was undoubtedly not the waiter’s fault. Eventually, the food arrived.

As the novel mentions, Carton and Darnay find themselves having a “good plain dinner and good wine” (Dickens 87). Our lunch was undoubtedly plain. Having ordered the Steak and Ale, I found the meal mildly comical. As a huge foodie, I found myself sitting with mere peas, mashed potatoes, and a cute little pie on my plate. “Vegetables” on the menu referred to a small mound of peas on the side. 

It’s funny to think that these characters were likely conversing with such kinds of foods on their plates. But what does any of that matter? Carton was undeniably more focused on his wine.