Random thoughts

You know those days you look in the mirror and think, man, I'm pretty cute. I am having those days more and more often. I don't think its because I've become any more beautiful; I think its because I've reached a point in my life where I've stopped judging by everyone else's definition of beautiful. I never depended on other people for my definition of myself, but I think that other people still influenced my perception. I feel like I've finally thrown on that last remaining influence and am starting to see myself as I really am and accepting myself for who I really am. Sometimes I think I tried too hard to be 'not' to be someone. I didn't want to be a sheep, or a lemming, as I often called those who followed the crowd. Now I am just working on being myself, because there is a place for everyone in this world, no matter what their personality. And I may be obnoxious and annoying, but that's ok, that's who I am and people still like me.
Wow. Waxing a little philosophical there. Must be past my bedtime.

Cassis

Cassis is a little fishing village. Here we went on a boat ride to see some little coves. They were very pretty.
Here is us on the little train we had to take into the city because the bus could not get down the tiny streets and the hills.


Chateau on the cliff


Cute fishing village!


LOVE the color of that water!!


I think this is called "Eye of the needle", for obvious reasons


My house. Someday


A view of the beach

Pont du Gard

One of my favorite activities of the entire trip was our voyage to see Pont du Gard. This is an old Roman aquaduct. The really cool part about this voyage was we got to kayak down the river and underneath the Pont du Gard!! It was awesome. Really. The sad part is that I left my camera on the bus so I didn't take any pictures, but here are some of my friends pics!!

Arles

I really liked Arles. Maybe because it had so many Roman ruins. The theater was so neat! And they had the cutest stuff for your kitchen!! Several of the girls spent quite a bit here.

Museum we went to visit. Very Provençal.


Roman theater. As you might imagine, this was one of my favorite places.


Roman Ampitheater

St Paul's and Cannes

We visited several cities and went sight seeing around them. Here are a few of my favorites

This was the cutest little village called Saint Paul's de something. Most of the city was tiny little streets. It was adorable!!


This is a view of the city from a little farther away


Beautiful French countryside


This is where the film festival is held in Cannes


The beach at Cannes

Marseilles

Marseilles was the start of our southern France trip. I loved it!! It was fantastic. I fell in love with Marseilles, I so want to go back there and rent a little beach house for a week. Now I just need a boat . . .

A view from outside the train station. Terribly exciting.


Chateau d'If (for all you Count of Monte Cristo fans)


Wind was a little strong.


Look at that water!!

Geneve

That's French for Geneva. It was a pretty neat city, very quaint. Sadly, we did not visit the UN. We ran out of time. We did visit a cathedral with a really old baptismal font (I've seen several of those now).

Some old dead guy under the cathedral


Playing giant chess, in the rain


The geyser for which Geneve is famous.


By far the coolest place in Geneve (my opinion of course) was the Bodmer museum. This was a guy who collected original manuscripts. Here are a few. I also saw original Beethoven, Mozart, Charles Dickens, Molière, some really old manuscripts of the Gospels and many more. The place was just full of cool stuff!

Here is a full original manuscript of the Book of the Dead


Original publication of the Tempest, by Shakespeare