Day #13: Leaving Berlin

Today I leave Berlin, so first item of business is to find a place to drop off my backpack. I figure the best place is the main train station. I guess because the Berlin train station is so big and important, they don't have luggage lockers. Instead, they have a bag check where your luggage first has to go through an x-ray machine. Pretty high tech.

The reason I had to check my bag was my first stop of the morning was the Reichstag, and they don't allow large pieces of luggage. The Rechistag was built in the late 19th century and was rebuilt after World War II. The Rechistag building does have one modern addtion: a glass dome on top over the plenary session of the Bundestag (Germany's version of the House of Represenatives). The neat thing is that you can take an elevator up to the glass dome and walk up in, giving you great views of the city. UInsurprisingly, this is a popular attraction so I had to get their early before the crods arrived. I got there around 9am, but still had to wait about 30 minutes to get through security and up into the dome. The view was well worth it. Here's the dome:

From there, it was on to Gemäldegalerie, Berlin's museum for 14th-18th century art. The heart of the collection is 16 paintings by Rembrandt. Here's a self-portrait he did of himself as a young man.

From there, it was back to the train station to collect my bag and hope a train to Köln (or Cologne). The train ride was uneventful, but made more interesting by a young German soil scientist who sat across from me. She was on her way to a soil science convention in Bonn and was kind enough to point out interesting sights out the window.

When I got to Cologne, I checked into the hostel. After check-in, I heard someone say, "I like your shirt!" (I was wearing a long sleeved Carolina shirt). Turns out, there was another UNC grad at the hostel! Ellen graduated last December and was on her way to an orientation for the Fulbright Scholars. Small world!