There and back again

What a day! After packing, I walked up the hill on campus - firstly to visit Lisa for a while, our catch up only slightly marred by my need to recover from the struggle to get up the hill. Today's pic is of Gould Hall, the main school building and was my 100th Blip back in April 2013.  Today a rather more sombre view in grismal weather and a minestrone soup of feelings. Life is very different now.

I spent the rest of the school day, walking around and briefly visiting many of my dear ex-colleagues, never staying more than 10 minutes each time as I remember what it was like to be ultra busy during my 'normal' day when unexpected visitors (usually graduates) came calling, no matter how glad I was to see them.  It was so good to see familiar faces of folk I worked with for so many years.  Enjoyable, but also, exhausting. Wearing masks is mandatory in the school building and talking for hours at that slightly raised volume was very tiring. New sympathy for my colleagues who currently have to teach like that all day, every day. 

Once the school day was over, I went to Bizim Tepe with dear friends Koray, Deniz and Mercan for conversation and vittles until it was time for Koray to drive me to Sabiha Gokcen airport to fly back to Bodrum.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Thanks to Laurie54 for hosting this week's Mono Monday, the theme is C20th inventions. A somewhat artistic interpretation of 'invention' for my blip, this building completed in 1914, was the new home of the American College for Girls, a most forward thinking house of education for girls and sister school to Robert College for boys. The two schools amalgamated in the 1970's, with the boys moving on to this campus and the old RC campus became the Bosphorus University. So innovation if not invention fits the theme today, hopefully.

Robert College is situated in a 65-acre (26 ha) wooded campus on the European side of Istanbul in the Beşiktaş district, with the historic Arnavutköy neighborhood to the east and the upscale Ulus neighborhood to the west. Founded in 1863, Robert College is the oldest continuously operating American school outside the United States. It is consistently ranked as the top private high school in Turkey. The school has a long list of notable alumni, including entrepreneurs, politicians, journalists, artists, three Turkish Prime Ministers, four Bulgarian Prime Ministers, multiple members of the Turkish cabinet, and one Nobel laureate, Orhan Pamuk. (wikipedia)