Steven Seybold Portfolio Site

After graduating from UCLA in the spring of 2000, Aaron and I decided to blow off some steam by taking six weeks to travel Europe before looking for jobs and facing real life. Being that we were in between school-life and career-life, we had basically no money so our plan was to go about our travels as economically as possible. No hotels, only hostels. No rental cars, only a EuroPass. PB&J sandwiches (when you could even find peanut butter in Europe) instead of fancy restaurants. One thing that we certainly did not skimp on was fun and adventure, however. With 75 pound backpacks strapped to us, we spent six weeks total travelling to some of the most amazing locations either one of us had ever been.

We started our voyage in London where we spent as much time as we could before deciding that our money would go much further in any other city. We took the chunnel to Paris where we spent the better part of a week taking in the sites and staying with a dear friend Valerie who had spent a couple months with my family in Laguna Beach in the 90s. She was the best tour guide and truly fell in love with the amazing city.

After Paris, we hopped on a train for San Sebastian, Spain. As soon as we stepped out on the wonderful beach community, we knew we might have to extend our stay from just a couple days to a few more. Great food, beautiful beaches and sights, we were all rested up by the time we left for Pamplona to catch the running of the bulls. By the time we arrived, we had a small posse of travellers from all different countries with us. With all of the rooms and even lockers for bags taken up in the city (it was a complete madhouse), we all decided to camp together in a park. Well, not really a park, more of a median in the middle of the road. Like I said, it was a madhouse. In any case, it worked out great as we had a lot of time to connect with new friends. We didn’t run with the bulls due to the fact that we couldn’t store our bags and cameras anywhere.. but that was just fine. It was an awesome time during the festivities in any case.

Leaving Pamplona, we travelled to Barcelona on the east coast of Spain. After the Pamplona experience, our bodies decided to sleep the first 24 hours away. We were wiped! After a few days in Bar(th)elona, we travelled on to Nice, France on our way to Italy. Beautiful! I could definitely spend my summers there if I were loaded. From Nice, we trained on to Italy where we spent a few days in Rome, Florence, and Venice. We were even fortunate enough to hook up with my friend Kelly from UCLA who was studying abroad in Florence that summer. It truly wasn’t enough time in the country. I will see you again, Italy. You can count on it.

Next on the list of places to see was Switzerland, and we decided upon Interlaken which was known for doing all kinds of fun activities. We bungie jumped, went paragliding (Aaron) and rented scooters to zip around the alps (Steve). Very fun place and a great place to drop a ton of money if you so have the urge. Interlaken was our only stop in Switzerland, which was sad, but we were happy to be moving on to Vienna. We were both extremely happy to partake in some culture as were in the home of such greats as Beethoven and Mozart. The Opera we saw was truly inspiring. Seriously.

Knowing that we could not stay forever we we soon off to Prague. Oh Prague... how we love you so. We were only planning on staying a couple of days but soon figured out that we would have to spend as much time as possible in the friendly city. I think, in all, we stayed for just short of a week. Trust me, if you haven’t been, you should. Like, now.

After Prague, our last stop was in Frankfurt, Germany which was kinda meh. Nothing really stuck out for us besides the fact that it was raining pretty much the whole time. One note is that this is where we finally ponied up and got a real nice hotel. After being in dorm situations, parks and roadsides, it was time.

What a trip. Check out the gallery to see more of what we did. If you’re lucky, one of these days I will edit the video that was taken on the trip and you can truly see all the shenanigans that went on. Yaay travel!

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