Staring out through the voilage of my balcony, I count down the days until I go home. Immediately, I feel guilty. Why am I feeling this way? I’m literally in Paris, the city I’ve dreamed of since I was 13, when I first started studying French. I imagined croissants, cobblestone streets, and charming conversations in cafés. But what started as excitement to practice my French has slowly transformed into discomfort and a deep yearning to return home.
I’ve never been someone who adjusts quickly. Transitioning between three places (home, London, and now Paris) in just two weeks has been hard. I’m someone who thrives on routine, stability, and quiet spaces to reflect. Without that, I feel off-balance. And when I’m off-balance, I feel unlike myself.
““You know my vagabond and restless habits. If I should prowl about the streets a long time, don’t be uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning.””
I never expected to relate to Sydney Carton. Yet here I am, seeing myself in his quiet wandering. Sydney, drunk on sorrow and unrequited love, roams the streets of Paris retracing Lucie’s steps. He waits outside the prison where she visits Charles, silently admiring her devotion. There’s something deeply tragic in his stillness, in the way he gives everything without expecting anything in return.
Throughout the novel, Dickens paints Sydney as the man we fear becoming: unfulfilled, overlooked, aimless. But maybe that’s the point. Sydney is human. Raw. Relatable. We aspire to be Charles Darnay, noble, successful, and principled, but it’s Sydney who transforms. It’s Sydney who grows. From apathetic lawyer to hopeless romantic, to vagabond, to martyr, Sydney shows that even the most broken souls can rise again. His final act, a sacrifice, gives his life meaning. Even if that purpose is twisted by modern standards, maybe that was enough for him.
As we explored the Revolution more deeply, uncovering the true sparks behind its eruption, poverty, power, and pain, it became clear that history isn’t just facts; it’s people pushed to their limits. Centuries of inequality, layers of Enlightenment thinking, and a tax system that was rigged harder than Monopoly with my sister that triggered this revolution. Aristocrats paid nothing, the Church paid nothing, and guess who paid everything? Everyone else. And yes, they were mad.
Dickens paints the Revolution with an eerie beauty, juxtaposing celebration and destruction, joy and rage. “It was the best of times and the worst of times.” One of the most chilling moments we discussed was the Grindstone scene. You can practically hear the blood hiss from the blades. The revolutionaries aren’t fighting for a dream anymore, they’re sharpening tools for vengeance. That’s the terrifying part. Coming to Paris isn’t the problem. Coming back from Paris? Now that’s where the fear lives.
La Force: once a dreaded prison of the Revolution. Today, only a weathered stack of stones stands where thousands suffered.
Then we hit the streets, Rue Saint-Antoine, where fiction meets fact. We tracked down the Ste. Catherine Fountain, where the Marquis’ coach tramples a child, a chilling metaphor for the nobility’s indifference. And we stood near the crumbling remnants of La Force, where Darnay was imprisoned. Even more surreal? Estimating the spot where the Bastille once stood, now a bustling square. The ghosts of revolution were replaced by scooters and shopping bags.
And here's the twist I didn’t expect: Dickens wasn’t exactly breaking news with his storytelling. He borrowed heavily from Carlyle’s historical account of the French Revolution. That’s right, our beloved Dickens was basically doing 19th-century plagiarism. But that doesn’t discredit him, it just proves his role wasn’t a historian, but a storyteller. One who planted seeds early on for what would become a storm of guillotines, mobs, and martyrdom.
While walking through Le Marais, we traced the very steps where Charles Darnay was imprisoned, La Force. I thought not of him, but of his discomfort. His real, gut-wrenching fear. He wasn’t worried about routine. He wasn’t scrolling through social media or hunting for AC. He was focused on survival, on saving Gabelle, on holding onto Lucie’s hope. Lucie was focused on saving Charles. Dr. Manette on pulling political strings. Sydney on giving Lucie a life he could never be part of.
And here I am… irritated by the smell of cigarette butts in my apartment.
It put things into perspective. We’ve come so far. My complaints, about lack of WiFi, the heat, unfamiliar routines, they feel embarrassing now. If Dickens’ characters saw our lives, I think they’d be stunned: people glued to screens, navigating vast cities with a tap on a phone, riding underground trains beneath the very soil where revolutions unfolded. I’m living the life I once wished for. So why does it still feel heavy?
Maybe this is the real reason for travel: not just to explore new places, but to confront new parts of yourself. Travel has a way of unearthing all the small things you don’t realize you cling to until they’re gone. It forces you to expand your comfort zone, not by choice, but by necessity. To sit with discomfort. To be a little lost. A little unsure. A little Sydney Carton.
No, I wouldn’t want to live in the 18th century. No AI, no cybertrucks, no AC? Absolutely not. But I’m starting to see how losing your routine, your rhythm, your control, even just for a while, can give you something else: a mirror. Not always a flattering one, but a necessary one.
And maybe that’s what being a modern vagabonde is all about. Wandering, not just through cities, but through yourself, until you find something worth coming back to.
