Germany and the Czech Republic

I am presently in the city of Prague, the Czech capital. I spent Easter morning in Cologne, where I attended mass at the cathedral. There were so many people that even though I was ten minutes early, I should have come much earlier in order to find a seat, so I had to stand along with many others. I have never seen (and smelt) so much incense at a mass! In the afternoon I took the train to Munster, a small city to the northeast of Cologne. I stayed there until Tuesday. I relaxed Sunday night, and Monday I rented a bicycle for only 7.50 euros and took a tour of the city on wheels. I enjoyed it. Many people bike there, and their are bike paths all over. I rode for about four hours in the afternoon, returned to my hostel for supper, and rode for another 2 hours in the evening before returning the bike. On Tuesday I traveled to Berlin by train. I stayed in a hostel within walking distance of the city center. That night I met up with a young lady who had came to my school for an exchange in grade eleven. Barbara is her name. It was fun to see each other again. We went out for some beer, and then she showed me some sites: Alexanderplatz, part of the Berlin Wall, the Jewish monument, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, and the Prime Minister's office building. The next day, I rode the S-bahn (suburb train) to Potsdam, a small city just outside Berlin. There I visited the chateau where the Allied conference of 1945 took place, as well as the palace of "Sans soucies", like a miniture Versailles. Then I returned to Berlin, made supper, and then visited another section of the Berlin Wall called the East Side Gallery. Most of the wall has been taken down, of course, but some sections remain as historical monuments. The ESG is quite impressive. It's a strip of wall about 500 meters long, and all along are murals painted just last year. The murals are very good, and treat the themes of communism, liberation, freedom, etc. On Thursday, my last full day in Berlin, I visited first the Schloss (palace) Charlottenburg, which has some very pretty gardens. Then I returned to the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, and Jewish monument. From the gate, I walked down the famous street "Unter den Linden." I visited the Kennedy Museum, Checkpoint Charlie (which required a detour of 10 blocks south), the Berliner Dom (a church), and ended up at Alexanderplatz, from whence I walked home. On Friday I took the train here. The first night I walked about the old city, finding the main square and climbing the tower of the old town hall, on the side of which is an astrological clock. Yesterday I started out late, but managed to see (but not enter) the National museum, two old towers, the opera house, the symphony theatre, and I went to the Museum of Communism, which was good. I learnt about the misery the Czech people went through during the years of communism, especially the years from the 1968 to 1989, an era of neo-Stalinism, when all opposition to the regime was brutally repressed. Today I went to the Prague Castle, the largest castle in the world according the Guinness. Later I visited the museum of the poet Kafka, I went to mass at 5 pm. I went wanted to go to mass at the cathedral within the castle, but I got there too late. So went to this other church, and it was a mass in French actually. After that I phoned home, saw the John Lennon wall, walked over the Charles bridge, and returned to the hostel. Here I am. I will go the Bratislava, the Slovak capital, on Tuesday.