Oh! The Places You'll Go!: Troy

Unfortunately. Eric was not there to greet us.....

This was one of the most mind blowing places I have ever been. I don't know if it is because we watched the film Troy on the bus ride... or the fact that I loved The Odyssey in high school, but either way I was so amazed.

It's really hard for me to describe the feelings I experienced while we walked around Troy, I would say I almost felt emotional and not really knowing why. I think it is just so amazing that something that was built so early in history can be touched and walked on is seriously just amazing.

When we walked up to the first walls of Troy the group was silent, we all walked up and touched the wall.... all I could think about was how old the wall was, how old these stones that made were, and how unbelievably lucky I was to experience this place. As we continued to walk around the ruins we had to use a lot of imagination, but looking at the view of the Dardanelles and the open farming land, I could just feel the empire coming together...

We saw the gates that allowed the Trojen horse to ender the walls, we saw where it is rumored Achillies and Hector fought their last battle, which ended in Hectors death... it was just chilling, mind blowing, amazing ... any spectacular adjective you can think of.

At the end of the tour we sat in a amphitheater where our professor read us poems of Achilles describing the battle with Hector.

When we all returned to the bus we sat in silence. Personally I couldn't believe that we had been to such an old historical site that almost everyone knows about but has never seen.

This is probably one of my most favorite experiences so far.

PS. one of our program leaders Burak Tamac is from this area where Troy is located, he is an actual Trojen... to become a Trojen you have 3 requirements, 1. you must be born in this area, 2 you have to climb a mountain that is in the area (the name escapes me now) and 3 you must swim across the Dardanelles ... which is 5 or 6 Kilometers which he finaly did last summer, and he said it took him around an hour twenty min.