Ember Travels

Good morning/good afternoon/buen dia where ever you are in the world! It is a lovely Tuesday morning in Sevilla, Spain and this marks the two month aniversary of my journey! I want to thank all of you, who I know and don`t know for your comments, messages and endless enthusasium for my travels. Your support has been amazing and it´s always nice to hear from a familiar face! A little bit about my travels...I am excited to be in a country where I  finally  speak the language! I arrived in Spain yesterday and plan to spend a few days in Sevilla, then head to Grenada where I can hopefully find a place to settle down for a month or so to practice my Spanish and meet some locals. Keep your fingers crossed, I´m not sure how the whole, "I want to rent a room for just a month" thing will go, but things always seem to work out, so I´m not too worried. A friend recently commented on my luck saying that I may actually be the center of the universe, so I´ll just bank on that :) Either way...

Coming from a country that's only a few hundred years and learning about Colorado history that only stretches back a few centuries, it's hard to imagine something eight thousand years old, or 6,000 B.C. And grasp my mind around the idea that historical figures such as the Apostle Paul used to walk the same streets. Ephesus used to be the capital of Asia back in the day. It was built and rebuilt and added on to and became one of the largest cities of it's time with a population of 200,000 before it's fall (sometime around 300 A.D.) The ruins that we visited have a main street that extends the length of the town and is just over two miles long. The city  is complete with marble roads, an underground sewage system, fountains, a library and two stadiums-one of which holds 24,000. Wow! The most shocking thing for me was seeing the architecture and layout of this ancient Roman city and comparing it to what the American Indians were building two hundred years ago. What a stark...

Traveling outside of Istanbul has shown me a completely different side of Turkey. We are staying in the small town of Selcuk which is just outside of the ancient city of Ephasus and only a few km from the coast. Here, the lifestyle is much more relaxed. There are only a few mosques and ruins mixed in with the city. The Turks spend afternoons sitting in cafes playing games, smoking and sipping on Turkish tea. Many of the eateries here have a name something like "(enter Turkish name) Restaurant and Cafe." I spent several days thinking how redundant and funny it sounded to say, "restaurant cafe." Clearly, there was no one fluent enough in English to inform these people that the second label was not necessary. Finally, after noticing certain "cafe only" places I learned the secret. The place where the Turks spend their afternoons drinking tea and playing cards are cafes...or drinks only! And restaurants serve food. I found this really interesting and such a pr...

If you ever visit Istanbul, you will notice that the skyline is scattered with unusual dome shaped structures with spires extending from each side. This typical mosque outline resembles a spaceship sandwiched between two rockets ready for blastoff...something surely from a sci-fi movie. With a population of four million and 99% Muslim, there are mosques nearly everywhere you look. Mom and I counted ten from just standing in one spot! Along with the mosques comes the five-time daily call to prayer, announced through the loud speaker attached to the spires on each mosque and many many women clad in burkas and head scarves (not sure of the official term for this). Mom and I have become really skilled in singing the call to prayer. It goes something like this, "uhhh-ahhhh-ahhhhh-uh-ohh-ayyyy" and so on. This doesn't nearly do it justice, so ask for a personal demonstration next time you see one of us! Our four days in Istanbul have been jam packed! We explored much of the cit...

Little did I know that I was about to spend nine transatlantic hours sitting in front of the single three angriest German citizens on the planet. Mom and I sat at gate B41 playing "German or American" just to pass the time until the flight. We saw the plane approaching in the distance. I was in awe. It was the most gorgeous piece of shiny white double decker ginormous airplane I had ever seen. The gray and gold letters spelling "Lufthansa" glittered in the sunlight. The excitement to fly on this colossal double decker beast known as Germany's (and possibly the worlds finest) airline was overwhelming. I spent the first hour of the flight watching a movie trying to pass the time until dinner was served. I finally just dozed off and reclined my seat. Suddenly, my chair rocketed forward and I was jolted awake. Strange. I engaged the armrest button and slowly leaned back. Again, my seat was abruptly jammed into the upright position. I turned around and was promptly s...

I haven't been on top of the time situation, so I hope you're not disappointed by my lack of countdown.  I will be boarding the plane for Istanbul in a few short hours, and I am lucky enough to have my mom joining me on my journey for the first two weeks!  The past month has been full of browsing online travel forums (Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum has saved my life many times), getting travel vaccines, memorizing airport codes and vigorously studying world geography.  The last one wasn’t so hard since my shower curtain is a map of the world.  Needless to say my obsession with maps paired with said shower curtain was probably not conducive to saving water.  Now, I have everything necessary to live stuffed into my little backpack and I am ready to embark on my new career as a nomad. When I tell people that I'm traveling the world, I get one of two responses. 1: wow, that's awesome, I've always wanted to do that, I'm jealous! Or (the critical) 2: Is that saf...