Berlin and Prague-- Yes...in ONE Day!!!!

We woke up early at 5am!  (Well I woke up at  1:15am because of jet lag and finally went back to sleep and then it was time to get up. Ugh!)  We left at 6am for Alexanderplatz to catch a bike tour at 7am.  (We left too early-- we didn't need that much time, but we weren't sure how long it would take to get there.)  Long story short, the bike tour fell through.  We waited until 9am hoping they'd schedule us for 9 but they couldn't.  So, we went  and got a quick breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts of all places and then caught on of those city bus tours.  we saw the Brandenburg Gate, Check Point Charlie, and the Reichstag Building (their Capitol Bldg.)  We saw sections of the Berlin wall that were still up, and stopped to look at a museum of it near Check Point Charlie.  We passed by the Holocaust Memorial, as well.  Below is what they call the "TV Tower". 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

We'd packed up the car this morning , so we left Berlin and headed for Prague via Dresden.  We hoped to see the Church of the Lady, the LDS Temple in Dresden, and the Opera House.  We couldn't find anything, because we didn't have addresses to plug into the car GPS and my google maps wasn't working.  The Church of the Lady (Franeskirche) was the church that Pres. Uchtdorf referred to in one of his talks that was completely destroyed in WW11 and how the locals pulled their resources

together and rebuilt it.  I would've really liked to have seen that church!  I think Uchtdorf is from Dresden, but I'm not sure.  We stopped at a grocery store and got meat, cheese and rolls and bottled water and grapes for lunch.  We were really hungry...it was about 4:30 by the time we ate!  I was nominated to drive to Prague-- about a 2 hour drive.  We made it  around 6:30 to Hotel Iris.  We checked into our room and then headed back out for the Prague Castle Night Tour.  We had to catch a tram and figure out which one and what stop to get off.  We figured it out and were about 5 minutes late, but we found our tour guide.  She was really nice, and spoke really good English.  She gave us a walking tour (just us 3) as we headed up to the castle and she gave all sorts of dates from 900 AD to the present.  It tool us 1 1/2 hours for the tour.  It as kind of different doing it at night!  Everything was dark and the lighting wasn't very good.  We had to be careful with all the cobblestone and uneven walkways.  The castle is now government offices and buildings.  There is always a cathedral close by, as well!  After the tour, we kind of roamed around that area and looked at all the old buildings and architecture.  We found our place to get on the tram and after asking some really nice girls (who were also sisters!) who spoke English, figured out where our stop was!  That was our day today... really missing Bill and the girls!