I wold like to end this semester of blogs with what could only be described as a family album. Words alone cannot begin to recount the stories that I witnessed this past semester. The typical picturesque scenes captured in the majority of my images, although they serve to conjure brief snippets of life, also fail to do all my experiences abroad justice. Ultimately, it is the people in these pictures that offer the best window into what Rome truly meant to me. So as a final salute to one of the most fascinating semesters of my life, I went through the thousands of pictures I have and chose, not the most beautiful or the most staged ones, but those that tell the best stories with some of the most amazing people whom I was lucky to meet. I am proud to present the final installment of my Roma blogs, as a type of photo album, showcasing some of the best, horrible family pictures that I could find.
Team Celeste. You know you’ve made it big when you reach the semi-finals. History is made of people who only made it to the semi-finals of their lives.
Emily and I hard at work cleaning our room. This is mostly for the blog viewers who were concerned about the cleanliness of our dorm (…mom, dad).
My adorable roommate at her favorite restaurant in Rome, donning the oh-so-fashionable bib that her waiter (Paolo or Franco?) gave her the 156th time she ate there. Little known fact: the restaurant owners have planned to build a shrine to Emily, as she financially kept the restaurant running by bringing everyone and their mothers to dine at this place.
The next two photos were taken during the Assisi study trip. Sadly, I was not there, but Emily lent me these few gems. Also, it was Molly’s birthday, which is why it’s okay that her mouth is full in the second picture. Happy 21st!
Molly:)>>>>>>>>>>>
Because sometimes people take mirror selfies when they look good…
…and we look good.
While taking the metro downtown, one can find a Dario and an Angelo in their natural habitat.
What do you get when you mix two Romans and a pirate? (ask me later for a clever punchline). –JFRC Halloween Dance Party
This is the reason why you don’t ever want the top bunk. 
It should never be this difficult to make a bed. And try doing it with a sprained ankle. And have your roommate laugh at your troubles instead of helping you. Thanks, Em.
Emily being Emily. 
Me being me.
WARNING: This is what you get when you feed Molly after midnight.
Visiting the town of Orvieto was one of the most illuminating trips I went on. We were up from 4:30 am to 11 pm, and it involved quite a bit of sight-seeing, running to catch departing trains, and dealing with plans that went awry. However, even with all these mishaps, it was the first trip in which the ten of us present got to really know each other… Traveling with people, especially with such a big group, brings everyone’s true colors out into the open. You get to see sides of people you didn’t even know existed. Thankfully, the ten of us survived and thrived.
(just arrived) 
(on the way home)
^^^And they said they were going to do homework. Right…
This is Molly’s “I’m working face”. Little does she know that I took about five other pictures before she saw me.
I realized a tad too late that I never put up pictures of Frieda’s birthday. We bought her a cake made almost purely out of pistachios, a true feat of nature, which surprised, confused and ultimately contented us.
CINQUE TERRE– Aside from the amazing colors and mountainsides we got to see, it was the communal living with the five others who came with me, that I will remember the most. The picture below was taken right before we were overrun by a formidable group of middle-aged German hikers.
The picture above was a moment of complete relaxation. We had hiked down these roughly hewn steps, for what felt like hours, and reached an odd rock formation that was being continually battered by the sea. It was quite a remote area of Riomaggiore (the first of the five towns in Cinque Terre that we visited) and no one else was there except for us. We all found a spot that beckoned to us and sat staring out into the water. James (on the left) didn’t think he was in this picture, which is how he explains his slightly peeved look. (He’s actually quite an agreeable individual… but it was also early morning).
Before taking this picture I told Cody that I wanted to see his best pose.
While in a port town of Portovenere, we discovered a small church at the top of a hill, encircled by dramatic cliffs. If you so wish to clamber down the precipice, which does have a trail, you would find this rock cove on the bluest water, where Lord Byron is said to have written many a time. Dario inexplicably began to dance while wearing Amy’s hat, and I was able to surreptitiously take his picture.
Quite a few pictures that were taken during the semester happened in my dorm room because, apparently, Emily and I are gracious hosts. The other possibility is that we asked people to leave, but no one listened to us.
Roohi, Amy and Hannah basically lived in our room with us.
GREECE– The Greece study trip was an amazing experience of artistic and cultural enrichment… From Angelo’s vlogs to his sketches, I did my best to emulate his artistry. In fact, the second picture stemmed from the idea that Angelo constantly looks like he’s modelling for an outdoorsy and hip magazine, so Luis and I gave it a shot. He definitely outshines us, as he sits in the background of the second photo, probably writing a haiku. But seriously, the Greece trip was absolutely fascinating.
A number of us had that surreal, ah-ha! moment seeing the kritios and kouros statues, and remembering their names two years after learning about them in Freshman Honors. (I’m going to be brutally honest: I do not remember how to make them plural. Probably an extra “i” somewhere?).
Frieda: the intrepid explorer takes Delphi.
That moment when you realize your glasses are so dirty you can’t see anything. No? No one?
Molly casually posing in front of an ancient stadium.
In Mycenae (near Corinth). Ready to see some ruins. And not walk on them. In fact we were all on policing duty, yelling at tourists who thought they should be allowed to stand on ancient walls. Respect, people. Not a thing of the past. Also, everyone’s most beautiful, tired faces are showing.
Quite a bit of the Greece trip happens in a bus, so one gets to see bus buddies for prolonged periods of time. Thankfully, Luis and everyone else around me were quite entertaining.
This is my bus buddy Nick on the island of Delos. The entire island is an archaeological site. If Nick and I were spies, and I’m not saying we are, then we would look like this. But we’re not spies…
This is Angelo sleeping on the ferry back to mainland Greece from Mykonos. As soon as I left to go walk around, a group of Greek women surrounded him, woke him up, and started feeding him. It’s definitely one of his favorite stories. (It is actually one of my favorite stories. I don’t know if it is one of his favorites. Please fact check with Angelo.)
VAL D’AOSTA– There was a lot of food involved even though it is not depicted in these two pictures. Every morning Matt and I drank coffee (top picture) while looking out at the mountains. Matt, his cousin Jackie, and I also attempted to scale a mountain (bottom picture). We had no gear such as hiking boots or even jackets, or even hats, and the locals kept telling us it was too dangerous because of the ice. In fact, every step we took was treacherously slippery. At a certain point I wrapped my scarf around my hands to keep them from becoming too numb and was trying to climb up on all-fours. We proceeded upwards until we reached an icy ridge and decided we had tried our luck enough for that day. I was wearing a pair of gym shoes that created no traction on ice, so to get down the mountain I sat down on my shoes and slid down, using my hands to keep me from going over the side. This was definitely one of the best weekends of my entire study abroad experience.
Jackie and I, making the ascent
AMSTERDAM– Roohi and I had just landed (top picture). These are our we-just-got-off-a-plane-so-we’re-tired-but-excited-to-be-traveling faces. Does that render the idea?
A bunch of our friends joined us in Amsterdam the next day. Roohi got mad at me for trying to take a close-up of her so she covered her face.
During Thanksgiving break Emily and I spent most of our days in a study room working on our Ricci projects. Let’s just say we started going a little insane. This is Emily being Chewbacca. I do not think she has actually seen Star Wars.
Matt and I were convinced we were pointing at a visible picture on the laptop screen. Little did we know that the screen looked blank in all pictures (after we took around 15 photos). Of course Emily didn’t tell us because she thought it was funny.
On the second to last morning in Rome, Emily and I made Roohi run downstairs to take a picture of us. Just about once a week (maybe I’m exaggerating a little. It was more on a biweekly basis) Emily and I would drink mensa yogurts (cafeteria yogurts) while looking out our dorm window. Of course we didn’t take any spoons so we had to literally drink the yogurts, unless our fridge acted up again and turned everything, from our apples to the one cabbage head (Emily may or may not have bought it thinking it was a head of lettuce) to our yogurts, into frozen solid formations that were nigh on impossible to thaw.
With Emily’s favorite waiter (Carlo or Giulio?), at her favorite restaurant, of course. It was a Thursday night dinner before a weekend where we were all traveling, a number of us going our separate ways, so it is quite fitting that this is the last picture of the album.
This album has given me the possibility to capture the ephemeral moments I shared with all these people and make them last a lifetime. If I have one tidbit of knowledge to give after this whole semester, it is to refrain the smaller, everyday anecdotes from getting lost in the grandeur of travel.
See you next semester in Beijing.
Signing off (briefly),
Annik