Time with Friends, Budapest, and the first day in Athens

This has been a crazy week! We saw many friends from home, moved out of our apartment in Prague, and discovered the breath-taking city of Budapest! There is just so much to say about it! First, I'll start with our time in Prague with friends. Last Saturday our friends Terry, Tommy, and Cindy arrived in Prague. We were so excited that they flew over 4,000 miles to see us and we had an incredible time. Many ridiculous and funny things happened starting with us picking them up from the airport. It all started when Josh asked me to check their arrival time. I checked the forwarded email of their flight tickets and saw they were landing at 3:55 and decided that we should get to the airport at 3:30 just to be safe. This plan would've worked out beautifully....too bad I checked their arrival time back to the U.S.! So at 11am we were saying goodbye to a friend and we received a text asking where we were in the airport. We immediately freaked out and scrambled to get to the airport. When we finally saw them coming towards us down a long corridor we ran to each other very dramatically.....it was awesome! After that minor mishap things went very smoothly in Prague. It was wonderful to see the beautiful sights one last time and to see them through new eyes again. It was definitely stressful though because in the midst of playing "tour guide" we also had to do many things to wrap up our lives in Prague. However, with the help of some wonderful friends we made there, we were able to accomplish that. On our final night in our lovely city we had a fabulous dinner with even more great friends from home. It wrapped up our time in the Czech Republic perfectly! Wednesday morning we boarded a Student Agency bus at 7am (way too early!) and made the 7 hour trek to Budapest. Right off the bat we were in love with the city. Everything was perfect. That is, except for our hostel. It truly SUCKED. We found it on Expedia and I guess from now on I won't be trusting that website. This hostel was advertising itself as a hotel and the pictures were beautiful! The reviews were all wonderful and the location can't be topped. We walked out our front door and had a perfect view of St. Stephen's Basilica! Imagine our surprise when we arrived and saw a dirty, nasty, cobweb-ridden hostel! But the fun didn't end there! The worst part was when the manager informed us that the hostel was connected to a night club and it might be a bit loud. On Thursday the club didn't open, but Friday it was open till 5am and the music was so loud that our beds vibrated! But no worries, the manager gave us all wrist bands so that we could get in for free (and they never got used). This place was so bad that we decided not to stay for our final night and instead went to the Budapest airport hotel and enjoyed our one night stay! It was inexpensive, close to the airport with a free shuttle service, and best of all there as NO NIGHT CLUB. Aside from that little detail, everything was perfect. Tommy and Cindy are both Hungarian, so they enjoyed their time in the fatherland very much. I loved seeing the last name "Nagy" everywhere!!! We took an excellent free walking tour, saw all of the major churches and sights, had amazing food, and ate lunch in the Central Market Hall where there was live Gypsy Virtuoso Music being performed. It was fabulous! Many cities have a list of worthwhile sights, but not enough to fill up a four day trip. Budapest was the opposite. We would've liked to have had another day or two! This morning we all headed to the Budapest airport and went our separate ways. It was so sad to see our awesome friends go! It was truly the experience of a lifetime together. Now, Josh and I are in Athens, Greece and loving it! It's a strange city because it's dirty, loud, and smelly, yet amazing beyond words at the same time. You can't help but feel this deep connection that is within all of us because of its influence on our lives. It has been very overwhelming navigating and getting to our hostel from the airport because everything is in Greek. Somehow we have managed it, though! For our first evening we wandered the streets for a very long time and ate tzatziki, pork gyros, baklava, and drank Greek wine. So far we are thrilled with Athens! We have many beautiful pictures from both Budapest and Athens, but the wifi in our hostel is pretty weak. Check back soon for an updated post complete with pictures! :)