The trip was amazing! I was in Hamburg for five days, then in Lyon for seven (plus the full days it took to fly to and from Europe, since I live in North America.)
The main places I went to in Germany were the Elbphilharmonie, the Hamburg Miniatur Wunderland, and Ahrensburg Castle
The main places I went to in France were the Notre-Dame de Fourviere, Lyon Opera House, and Place Bellecour
Along with general sightseeing/shopping, of course
Not to mention all the music I got to play! Since I was there with my local youth symphony orchestra, we played with our sister orchestras from Hamburg and Lyon, hence why we went there.
I also bought wayy too much overpriced junk, mostly stuff in the Paris airport for the Olympics. But also other junk that I knew was overpriced, but bought anyway.
I highly recommend a visit to the Notre-Dame de Fourviere, regardless of your religion. It's just such a beautiful building. Every single detail seems like it was purposefully done to make the scene more stunning. It also has a very large golden statue of the Virgin Mary
Like, I'm not Catholic, but I still thought it to be just such a wonderful, once in a lifetime experience to see it (Then I went to mass there on Sunday because my roommate was Catholic, and wanted to go there (because, ya know, why wouldn't you?) and I went along, because, well, it's not every day you get an opportunity to attend mass at a place like this (I had no idea what they said for the entire mass, because it was all in French, with the occasional Latin. I know some French, but not really even enough to have small talk, much less understand a Catholic Mass
Side tangent about that one landmark aside, I really did love my Europe trip, and I apologize for how absent I have been, but I kinda wanted to live in the moment, ya know?
Anyway, I'm tired, I'm gonna go to bed soon, even though it's only 6pm. I had to be at the airport at 4am French time this morning to catch my flight, so I elected (unwisely) to just not go to bed so that I couldn't oversleep, and I failed to sleep on the plane, so I haven't slept in ~40 hours
With jet-lag-boosted fatigue
Your local AAA battery
