Anticipation

I am extremely excited and privileged to have the opportunity to travel to Italy and Turkey this summer with the UW Honors Program.  My trip will begin when I leave for Amsterdam on June 16th and end when I arrive back in Seattle on July 21st.  


In Rome, I will be staying in an apartment with fellow students near the UW Rome Center (http://depts.washington.edu/roma/)  which is located on the Campo de'Fiori, near Piazza Navona.  Campo de'Fiori literally means "field of flowers" in Italian, so named because, during the Middle Ages, it was an empty meadow in between Pompey's Theatre and the Tiber River.


During my last week, I will travel to Istanbul--which is the fifth largest city in the world (fifth only to Shanghai, Mumbai, Karachi, and Delhi) and the only metropolis to be situated on two continents.  Recently, there have been growing tensions between the Islamic government and a group of military leaders who have been implicated in a secularist coup.  I really have no idea of what to expect in Turkey.  


I'm excited and nervous about the trip for ton of reasons (which I think is normal).  Both places are going to be great for taking pictures and I hope to share as much of my trip as possible through film (or I guess, in an unromantically modern way, SD cards and Facebook)!


In the meantime, I have to go finish the last few weeks of Spring Quarter...