Now in more words:
The GCP kids came to Hungary for their 2-week program and everyone had an incredible time. Since we had already been there for a good 2-3 weeks, we were able to show them all around and felt incredible pride for 'our' city. The only problem was that it felt like America had invaded the quiet city of Pécs. No matter where you went, we would be running into someone on the GCP program or the Simonyi program; there were 40 students total with about 8 advisors. We had an incredible opening banquet for them where a whole bunch of really amazing, famous, and powerful people were in attendance, since it was the 20th anniversary of the Pécs - OU relationship. Incredible food, drinks, and views from the mountaintop hotel. There was also a concert night where we rented out a squash club and listened to a U2 cover band that was actually quite good. We then went to the Mecsextreme Park and got to do some awesome high ropes courses and trampoline flying. We also went to Lake Orfu for the day, which was relaxing, although not so much to write about. It was funny though watching the Americans teach the Hungarians American Football. I also had Langos, a fried dough with garlic butter slathered on top with a tons of cheese and sour cream (so everything melted together and became goo). We also went to the world famous Vallany-Siklos wine region and did a wine tasting in the Polgar cellars. I had the most amazing table ever of all Hungarian students that we just had so much fun and were laughing the entire time; could've been though that the waiters would never let the glasses get half-way empty. Laura and I also went up to see the monument to Venus, sat in on a church service at the Cathedral (which had the most amazing acoustics, making the chorus sound ethereal and truly spectacular), visited the UNESCO early Christian burial chambers and Necropolis (which was so much bigger, interesting, and overall better than we thought it was going to be), and the Marzipan museum.
And, for the second time, I celebrated Fourth of July abroad and it was still the best time ever. We spent the 4th at my American teammate's grandmother's house up on top of the hill that Laura, April (the American Rotary student who became really close friends with), and I once walked up before to visit a gorgeous little church and monumental/historical crucifix. Her family made us a huge American feast and we had an incredible time. All the American students rented out the club right next to our apartments for all the American and Hungarian students to celebrate (considering it was only a Sunday night or some other off night). The next day, the Hungarian students came over to make the American students Goulash, and we had a big party at our apartments for everyone that was a lot of fun and really relaxed. 
The weekend they were leaving, Laura, Mark, Jake, and I went to Rome, Italy with 3 friends for the weekend. They say you cannot see Rome in a day, or a weekend, but I just have to say that we came close. Speed walking from one ancient site to the other, stopping for pizza, lasagna, gelato, tiramisu, wine, and all the other staples of Italian gastronomy, we literally did everything we could from 6am to 3am the next morning for the days we were there. We ran in to 3 different groups from Ohio University throughout Rome, who were all traveling after their two-week GCP programs. It is definitely a small world. We started off at the Vatican City and museums, no we did not see the pope but did get lost in the labyrinth of the museums, then saw all the sites along the river. There were a ton of stands selling all the typical tourist items, human statues (which I didn't realize you had to pay to get your picture with until the one statue was waving angrily at me), Castel St. Angelo, and all the beautiful bridges. We walk around trying to find a place for lunch, even though it was still early and nothing was open. We wander the tiny little alleyways, coming across a church/museum that we start to explore and eventually got kicked out by a little old Italian lady, and finally find a place to get some truffle pizza and lasagna, and even a serenade from a violinist (I was better). Then we get gelato and wander through Piazza Navola, the Pantheon, and Trevi Fountain. We through a few coins into the fountain and make our way down to ancient Rome (of course taking scenic detours along the way). 
Of course it is summer and half of the people in Rome at that time were American. No one can fully understand what "tourist season" is like until they have been in Rome during the summer...Americans everywhere. This is when I knew if I ever lived abroad, it would be in a small town like Pécs, where I can completely immerse myself in the culture. We travel past Vittorio, the largest marble monument in the world, with its pure white beauty against the ancient stone and bricks of the ages past and greenery of flourishing present life. We travel down to the Colosseum to find thousands of people waiting around in line, under the intensity of the sun. Oh my god it was so hot, so outrageously hot, everywhere. We see a couple tour guides waiting outside and ask them how we can get registered for a tour. They let us know that one will be leaving in ten minutes and that for $20, we would skip the line, get guided tours of the Colosseum, Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill anytime during the weekend. We would have paid $40 just to skip the line, so we happily agreed, even though we spent the next 15 minutes waiting on the surface of the sun, severely dehydrated, and in dire need of a restroom. We were just hoping that they had modernized the Colosseum and put in restrooms. We had a nice guided tour of the Colosseum and were caught in the majesty of an ancient era. It was just incredible to finally see in person things you read about in books and saw pictures of all throughout your life, never actually expecting to see. We decide to go back to our apartment about 4 blocks away to take cold showers, get a quick nap while everyone else was taking their showers, and then head out for dinner. Speaking of the apartment, when we were first trying to get into it late at night, no one could figure out the locks. We had to ask someone from the streets to help us and he got it on the very first try, making us look like idiots (again, stupid foreigners). You have to turn it like 5 times, jump up and down 3 times, turn and spit...we had pretty much forgotten just the last step. But I became the only person who could lock and unlock the doors after that. We then head back to Trevi Fountain for sunset and relax on the steps there for a few hours with a bottle of wine, get some dessert, and leave to explore Ancient Rome at night. That was definitely one of the best memories was just relaxing on the steps of the Trevi Fountain.
The next day we explore Palatine Hill and Circus Maximus. Even though we had to check out of our apartment and had to carry our 40lb bags in the 125 degree heat, it was a much more relaxing tour of ancient ruins and gardens with a tour guide from Canada who was great. We then catch the train to the airport which we though was going to be our last moments, considering it had to be well over 150 degrees on the train.
We arrive back to our apartments at nearly the exact same time as everyone else on our program getting back from their weekend in Croatia. Over the next week, we continue working on our projects, getting assigned new ones for the University's MBA program and more client meetings. Spending most of our nights at Cool Tour Cafe and days going on jogs and adventures up the surrounding mountains to see the views. 
Again, I don't know what our curse was, but the train's air conditioning had to be broken in our car, sending the already 112-degree temperature outside up over 150. It was to the point where as soon as we walked into the car, sweat would pool on our arms and would start flooding down our faces. People were fighting over standing by the windows it was just so outrageous. Too bad for the strudels we got Viki's family for letting us stay with them; they were melting into a giant blob of butter and pastry.
After three hours, we get to BalatonMariaFurdo, meeting Viki as we hop off the train. We head across the tracks to the beach and go swimming for an hour or two before her parents came to pick us up. For my family, they will understand when I say that this place reminded me EXACTLY of Geneva on the Lake, with the cottages, restaurants, mini beaches, and families. It was truly one of the creepiest deja-vus ever. Viki's family was absolutely amazing. I lived with a host family when I was in Japan, and that was by far the most rewarding experience of traveling abroad. The family-type connection was the one thing I felt was missing from this adventure and Viki's family definitely helped fill that void and make that trip the best ending to another amazing adventure abroad. They were so hospitable and were just...precious, always laughing and wanting to talk about everything with us. Even though they did not speak any English, Viki served as our interpreter. Watching how she was the medium between two cultures, helping establish communication and understanding with such eloquence, was truly inspiring and helped reaffirm my dreams of multilingualism. We just spent the night telling stories, laughing, and relaxing. We also had the most incredible wine ever, that I will never forget; too bad it was grown/made by their next-door neighbor. We woke up the next morning to a fresh breakfast of meats, peppers, tomatoes, juice, etc. and headed back to the beach. The lake was absolutely gorgeous with shallow waters out for a mile, the mountains off in the distance, and swans floating around. We spent the entire day out in the water, burning to an absolute crisp. Of course we couldn't feel it when we were out there, but I definitely did when I got back to Viki's house for a late lunch/early dinner. Viki's family made us traditional goulash over a stone fire in the back, pretty much all day. Hungarian goulash is our equivalent of a Thanksgiving meal...it is their cultural dish that defines 'family'. It was so absolutely amazing and again, will never be able to be recreated. We then play a couple matches of this bowling game where the ball is attached to a string and pole like tetherball.
Luca, Laura, and I decide to run to the train station to catch our train back to Pécs. Of course the train was leaving in like 3 minutes and there was still along line at the ticket counter, so we book it. Apparently I got the ticket for the train leaving right then, but Laura got the ticket for the train leaving 2 hours later accidentally. We decide to risk getting kicked off and run to our train. We were looking for Luca, but she was nowhere to be found, so we figured she ran off to catch the train, which was at the absolute last platform on the huge Budapest train station. We are running, hoping our train is where it usually is. I'm yelling at the people working there asking if that specific train was going to Pécs, they are yelling "Yes Yes!" and we are trying to open the door to the train when it starts moving. I finally wretch it open, Laura is trying to get on when I just pretty much throw her on, throw my bag on, and as everyone is yelling at us from the platform to get on, I'm running next to the train, and finally hop on like it was one of those movies. Everyone on the platform starts clapping for us as we ride off into the dusk and we are just sitting inside the doorway between the two carts catching our breath, when we get a call from Luca asking where the train was...she wasn't on it...we left her there. We felt absolutely horrible, but it wasn't like we were able to do anything about it, so we go find our seats and relax.
Laura did not have a ticket for that train, and we were afraid that either she was going to be fined like $200 or be kicked off, so we tried to develop a plan to hide her tickets under mine and act like stupid foreigners. Well, the hiding id not work out well and the ticket guy caught it and started speaking to us in Hungarian. We did, however, pull off the dumb foreigner pretty well and we think he pretty much just gave up on us. Especially since it is not like we had missed a train before and were trying to get on a later one, and that when you look at the time the tickets were purchased, they should've been for the earlier train, and that My ticket was actually for this train, so everything seemed to be reasonable. Yet, it was still kind of nerve-wracking...We get off the train and back to our apartments to laughter and looks of horror at our burnt faces.
We had a closing banquet that final night, with many tears from everyone. I went out with Daria and talked to her for a while and that was when everything really started to sink in for me about how much I really didn't want to leave. Unfortunately, the time came to say goodbye and I walked back to my apartment to pack. Some of my closest Hungarian friends were hanging out in my room as I was packing and we had a wonderful last night sharing stories. Of course that is when I started to get the most sad, but felt comfortable that I would see these people again. I get all packed up and prepare for the flight home in the morning.
We wake up early to catch the flight back with everything working out all right. Just before leaving, I go put a lock on the gates of Pécs for my love of the city and bury the key under a tree in the Cathedral park. I then run back, load up the van, then head off on the flight back home. Of course we get to JFK and it is an ABSOLUTE nightmare. Apparently, as we got in, so did about 4 other international flights, so when we were making our way down the elevator to customs, there were so many people crammed in the room that there was nowhere to go once you got off the escalator, that people just kept piling up on one another. The workers had to yell through the phones and up to the people at the top to stop the escalator, because people were bound to start getting hurt. We wait for like 2 hours just to get through the first part, then go to receive our bags when none of the signs have our flight anywhere on them. We finally find out where our bags are supposed to be coming, get all of our bags, and proceed to wait in more lines to drop off our bags for domestic flights...oh wait, the baggage machine is broken. The workers at JFK start yelling at us to follow them through all the back rooms marked 'Airport Personnel ONLY' and just pretty much send us out into the main lobby to fend for ourselves. We have no idea where to go, so we just go through security to get it out of the way, where everyone was pushy and yelling at everyone as usual. Then, we finally make our way to the domestic flights and our gate back to Columbus. We have about an hour till boarding, so all is fine. We get to the waiting area and you must have thought 10 flights were late because of the amount of people waiting in front of the gate. They start calling our boarding information and we get up to wait behind people we thought were in line. They aren't moving and before we realize it, the boarding people are saying, "Final boarding call, everyone should be on the flight" and we immediately through a panic. Most of our group is still on the ground because the line was so long; everyone was just still waiting to even get up. I run up to the front yelling at people (which I really should have not done, but I had completely lost it by this point) that they shouldn't be crowding the gate when they are not even supposed to be boarding and that this was the most inefficiently run place I have ever been in my life...oh I was soooooooooooooooooo beyond angry at that point it was ridiculous. Fortunately, everyone makes it onto the plane (which just like our plane out to JFK was a tiny little toy thing held together by duct-tape). We finally take off and fly along this huge, absolutely amazing weather front where the lightning show was fantastic. We were flying parallel to it, so I wasn't worried, and will never forget that incredible lightning spectacle. Because we were flying at cloud level, we could see all the lightning (which was constant) flying throughout the clouds and the brightest colors since it was right at sunset.
We get back to Columbus where Aaron and Lisa are waiting for us in baggage claim. We are the only people in the airport, so it was kind of spooky, but after waiting an hour for my bags, I realize they lost my bags and become grateful that there isn't any kind of crowd around that I would have to deal with. I am told that our flight was over the weight limit and JFK had to take off some of the bags...great...Well, at least they are shipping it all the way down to Athens for me. I just had no clothes back at my apartment and was wondering how I was going to deal with the first week of summer classes that started two days later. Oh well...my bag finally got to me and everything was fine. It felt weird to be back, but then again, it was as if I had never left. I got back to my new apartment, fell right asleep, and started to look forward to the next adventure: summer classes.
With me believing everything always evens out, the whole ending to the trip was pretty much expected, but still did not even come close to hampering the summer's adventure. The experience was the most incredible ever and I grew so much professionally and personally from it, that I hope to participate again the summer after I graduate. I cannot even begin to express how much I learned in those 6 weeks and how much I grew from it, but hopefully you'll be able to see it. Thanks for reading all this nonsense, and sorry for getting so behind on everything.
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