Dream Deferred No More

"When I was ten years old, my father handed me an illustrated encyclopedia of Greek and Roman gods." This is the beginning of the explanation I give to my students whenever they ask me the inevitable question, "How do you know so much about this mythology stuff?" My story finally has the ending it's been missing for the last twenty two years: I have now been to Troy. My parents came to Turkey for my spring break in April, and together we visited Gallipoli, Troy, Assos, Ephesus, and Pergamon. We began by trekking around the Gallipoli peninsula, following less-than-helpful signs until we finally found Anzac Cove to see for ourselves the narrow strip of land where the allied forces had made their failed attempt to take the strategically crucial Strait of Dardanelles. The view there was breathtaking, but it was easy to see why it was an offensive move that was doomed from the start. We took the trans-continental ferry to Canakkale, a beautiful seaside city that lies at the entrance to the Dardanelles and sees more ships pass by it in a year than most people will see in their entire lives, and made our way to our hotel with the help of directions from a local cab driver.

The next day was the one I had been looking forward to all these years: the day I would finally visit Troy. It was something my father and I have fantasized about most of our lives, and it did not disappoint. As Mom tried to avoid the bees and identify wildflowers, Dad and I stood back and soaked up the view of a lifetime: the plains below Priam's city where the Trojan War took place. We imagined Achilles dragging Hector's body behind his chariot, where the Greeks had build their defensive barricades, and how far the now-distant sea had been at the time. We looked at the many layers of cities that had occupied that place, each carefully marked and catalogued by the archaeologists who continue the job of excavating and restoring the pieces of those cities, and hurried past the giant beehive that has taken over one of the largest of those pieces lest my mother end up needing to use the epi-pen she carries with her everywhere she goes. But mostly we just used our imaginations to try and see what the city once har been: a majestic hilltop fortress that was home to many heroes, one overindulged prince, and the captive whose face had launched the thousand ships of Greece.