While On The Road To Paris

While on the road to Paris, we counted our blessings that the Peugeot we had reserved to drive to Clem & Jason’s wedding in the countryside of France had miraculously been upgraded to an Audi convertible! Our Audi is the reason today’s post is full of photos of Charles (and our friend who will maintain her anonymity) with only one photo of me. We drove with the top down the entire time (Charles refused to put it up). As a result, my hair was a wind blown, hot mess during our mini-roadtrip. Pretty sure you don’t want to see what that looked like. :)

While on the road to Paris, we decided to make a quick stop at Orleans to see the Joan of Arc statue. In case you’re wondering why we stopped: In 1492, Joan of Arc led the French Army to victory over the British at Orleans during the 100 Years War… At the age of 18. Talk about girl power! When I learned that her statue was located on the way back to Paris, I knew we had to make a stop and pay homage to her legacy.

As we drove through the downtown area of Orleans in search of Joan, we were blown away by the grandiose architecture! Everywhere we looked, the buildings were immaculate in design.

The Joan of Arc statue is not directly accessible by car so we parked the Audi and walked to the courtyard where she’s located. Almost as if the overcast skies knew we had arrived, the clouds parted and blessed us with a some sunshine. The moment was just perfect and as for Joan? Oh you know, she was doing what she does, chillin on a horse prepared to go into battle in the name of France.

While on the road to Paris, we decided to make one more stop along the way at Versailles to see the it’s royal chateau since I had heard it was a beauty to behold. The journey from Orleans to Versailles was a scenic one with electronic windmills accompanying us along the way.

While on the road to Paris, we said “au revoir” to Versailles and made a promise to explore King Louis’s palace more thoroughly the next time we were ever in France. We then finished the last leg of our trip and dropped our friend off at her hotel when we made it to Pareee!Afterwards we went in search of a gas station to fill Miss Audi’s tank (that’s what Charles was calling her) before we dropped her back off at the airport. This was by far one of the most interesting experiences ever – the act of doing something so simple as pumping gas in a different country. We weren’t quite sure how everything worked when we pulled up since the directions were in French. Did we pay first inside the station’s store? What type of gas did the Audi take? How does the pump handle work? We figured it out eventually… Charles may have spilled some gas on him in the process tho.

^^ These are just a few of the many photos Charles asked me to take of him with our Audi before we dropped it off at the airport (it’s always rare when he actually asks me to take his photos haha). He still has the photos saved on his phone and looks at them every now and again to reminisce on the “good times”. I swear, the man looooves his cars.After dropping the Audi off at the airport, Jason to pick us up and we headed to Clem’s parents house where we stayed for the remainder of our time in Paris… Which is where today’s post comes to an end.

Despite the fact that I’ve never owned a car and have always used public transportation because I’ve only lived in urban areas (don’t worry, I do have a license and can drive if need be), I must admit that having a car made it sooo much easier to get around and see more of France within the limited time we had to explore. It’s also super convenient that the French drive on the same side of the road as we do in America = score!

Today’s post completes the France leg of my recap of our euro-trip (well kind of, I have one post that I’m waiting to share with you later this summer). Outside of that, I’ve got 3 more posts to go before I’m finally done recapping our trip! Woot woot! It only took me a year (shakes my head in dismay). Those posts will be coming your way next week!P.S. (Real Time Update) I’ve got a 5 page paper due tomorrow for one of my classes and then spring semester of grad school will offically be ovaaaaa! These past 3 weeks have been crazy busy with working on my final project for finance and reading books and writing papers for my arts & society class on top of working 9-5. Can’t wait for things to slow down a bit so I can get back to blogging more consistently. I’ve seriously missed this space.Also, Charles and I are heading out of town for our 1st trip of the year this Friday! I can’t say much about where we are going because it’s kind of a secret at the moment but make sure to follow along on Instagram and Snapchat to get the inside scoop! You can find me on both handles @setarrra.Wishing you a happy hump day!!! :)