Our last weekend in Istanbul we were graced with the arrival of Louis Fishman, a former Carleton professor of Middle Eastern History. He also spent several years in Turkey doing research for his PhD and has many friends and colleagues in Turkey. He gave a four day seminar entitled the "Beneath the Surface: the Other Istanbul." Many thanks to my mom and Jenny Morse's mom, Cynthia, for getting on my case to publish this to the blog. This article was also published in last week's Carletonian.

Ellie expounds on our trips to two important sites, both of which are signifigant building blocks of great societies, one ancient and one brand new.

So, here we are on the internet in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina! This modern building stands near the site of what was once the foremost libraries in the world. Although its…