Austria is Awesome!

Well guys, Austria was AWESOME! I really loved my visit there and don't even know where to start with my travelogue! I feel like we fit so much in to those few days! So I will let my pictures tell most of the story! 

My last two stopwaffels before departing my beloved Holland! 

After a bit of travel communication trouble, Sameer found me! We dropped my stuff off at my hostel and then walked around the city! First stop was this gorgeous church!

We stopped for dinner at an Italian place with freaky fast service (quite the adjustment from Holland!) and then afterwards we walked the streets and found this delicious desert place that was still open late at night. Apparetnly this tort thing that I'm eating is a Vienna classic

The streets downtime are all lit up for Christmas! 

Sameer and I walked awhile through the city. Finally when we decided to go home, it turns out that the metro was closed for the night! (It was like 2 in the morning). We had fun walking along the shady graffitied banks of the Danube where someone "psstd" at me from the darkness presumably trying to sell us drugs. Eventually, we just took a taxi back. I hung out in my hipster hostel for a little while which is what the picture is. Isn't this place cool? Probably the best hostel I've ever stayed at. It would have better if some drunk American girls hadn't woken me up by coming in to the dorm room in the middle of the night and turning all the lights on but, you know... nothing's perfect.

The next morning, I HIT THE TOWN!

Starting with the Naschmarkt which is an old market right outside my hostel

I got an amazing pastry which I'm told is a rural Austrian favorite with poppies on the inside.
This was not the only one I got.

Just a normal street in the area

I needed to change metro trains around here and had some time. This little ally called me and I went exploring

Pretty cool, huh?

This church was beautiful! And it was open! I got to go inside and poke around. It was practically deserted but these big guys in the lobby were putting together a very dainty christmas tree which made me happy

After that, I met up with Sameer at his work and got A TOUR OF THE UNITED NATIONS OFFICE IN VIENNA!!!

me in front of the flags!

going to the atomic energy agency thingy area inside the VERY large building

This was taken on a whim and I like it because my smile reminds me of my niece Ellie's smile

Future employee!! 

A pair of bureaucrats! 

Me looking confused at the NASA logo on the space expedition stuff.
Me: "Isn't that American?"
Sameer: "Other countries have been to space Jenny"
Guys, it was a NASA logo. NASA is American.

This is a sign for where Sameer works! 

After walking around for awhile (by the way my feet hurt SO bad) we stopped for a pizza in the UN cafeteria

On the way out we couldn't resist taking a few more pictures

Da Da Da DA!

After that Sameer took me to his office which is in a building nearby.

 Since it was still a work day, I left Sameer to finish up being an adult and I went and explored the city more. The midnight tour with Sameer the night before really helped me to know where to go. Everything was quite different in the light of the day!

I went back to Stefan's Cathedral! There were lots of people there lighting candles! I took a moment to sit down and read the first part of the nativity story which was quite peaceful

Sweet staircase inside the cathedral

Happy Birthday to the Savior! 

Outside the cathedral they have lots of horse-drawn carriages

Cute little Christmas market outside the cathedral

Same big shopping street in the day time

They had the most incredible lights up everywhere!

Check it out! These are made out of candy! This is the most famous chochoclate store in Vienna and it was very fancy on the inside too! 

Outside the old Hapsburg palace- there is a Christmas Market in front of it of course! 

Inside the courtyard of the castle 

Bubblr art outside!

I made my way to the museum quarter where, of course, there was another Christmas Market!

I really wanted to see the famous Klimt paintings and so I went to the art museum.
Turns out it was the wrong one.
But there was still some cool stuff there!

The Tower of Babel

I just thought this was a cool portrait- I want to write a novel about her!

They also had an exhibit on Joseph Cornell who was a cool artist of the last century. He didn't draw or paint or sculpt or anything- he made shadowboxes and collages. Some pretty interesting stuff, but unfortunately no photos were allowed. Look him up though!

I continued to walk along outside- this is some important building

And then I made it to
THE CHRISTMAS MARKET TO END ALL CHRISTMAS MARKETS
It was incredible! And the building in the background is the Vienna Town Hall.
Who has a town hall that cool?
VIENNA. That's who

I was so happy to be there that I asked strangers to take pictures of me since I was by myself

AHH! 

I just couldn't stop with the pictures!

It was SO beautiful.
I got a hotdog and a gingerbread heart

On the way to meet Sameer I saw this poster which tickled me cause it's like- especially in Vienna would cellos be sexy

Finally I met up with Sameer and we caught a train!
It took us two hours but we got to...SALZBURG!

But that's a story for another day :)

Otherwise Nothing Would Ever Get Started!

Well guys, it's come to an end! The internship at OPCW is over!

Honestly, it was a pretty unconventional move for me to just postpone school and move to Holland for a semester but I'm so glad that I did. I've learned so much. I mean,
1.) I lived by myself for the first time ever. Like, no roommates or anything.
2.) This is the longest I've ever been out of the country.
3.) I learned what its like inside an international organisation.
4.) I made friends with people who are very different from me.
5.) I lived the gospel even though there was no one around to watch me.
6.) I discovered my own talents in the work place
7.) I grew to love cycling as a means of transportation!
8.) I traveled on my own all over Northern Europe!
9.) I...watched a LOT of netflix ;)

It's been a wonderful few months and I was sad to leave (I'm currently writing this at the airport in Vienna). I used to have a really hard time with change when I was a kid. I was constantly the one in my family clinging on to nostalgia. When my siblings left home for college it was a big deal. I was constantly in a state of not being able to believe how grown up we all were. I was a scrupulous guardian of tradition and routine. Melodramatic as it sounds, when I finished high school I felt like a part of me was dying as I moved on with the rest of my life. It wasn't even that I loved high school so much because I was so pretty and popular or something. It's just that I knew that things would never be the same. I knew that I would never be the same.

Which brings me to perhaps my favourite Dr. Who quote of all time. As the 11th Doctor regenerates (sorry not sorry for all the nerd references, guys) he takes off his bow tie and says: "We all change. When you think about it, we're all different people all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good, you've got to keep moving. As long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me."

That's how I feel. Even though I keep growing and changing I still believe that all the other versions of me are inside myself somewhere. I've often thought that a good way to measure my life would be to imagine if I could appear to the the child version of myself. Would she be happy with who I am and what I've done? As long as I can say 'yes' I feel that I'm leading a meaningful life.

And for me, I can say; yes, absolutely. While I have a lot of dreams yet to be filled, I can honestly say that my life is more amazing and wonderful than I expected it to be. God has blessed me with incredible opportunities and enough talent to hold on for dear life.

So, I know that even as I leave something which has been so good, I am moving forward into other (even if as yet unknown) adventures. The title of this post also comes from the poignant and odd Doctor: "Everything's got to end sometime-Otherwise nothing would ever get started." In the eternal sense I don't believe that good things ever truly end. But here on earth things are finite. And we are meant to grow and develop. That's the beauty of it! I don't know who I will be the next time I read this post. But I hope I will always remember when 'Jenny' was me.

Here are some momentos of my last day at work and my last evening in The Hague:

Farewell lunch with some of the interns. 

My colleagues in recruitment gave me some cute goodbye gifts

Katerina was her usual silly self

And we were all in the holiday spirit

Wesam and Wardah

Here's my goodbye picture outside OPCW with all the sign in all the languages

After work we cycled through the city.
It was my last night in the Hague and the Parliament was all lit up to commemorate

Me, Wardah, Ponypa, Rosanna
(U.S., U.S./Pakistan, Laos, Italy)

Yo WhassupWessam?

The crew

And the evening ended with a girls night at Rosanna's house with these lovely ladies. 

I guess the only thing to say is: Thank you Holland for treating me so well!

I've had a grand old time being me here.