Another successful PhD defense!

The weekend after my most recent Berlin trip was marked by the upcoming doctoral examination (colloquially known as the PhD defense) of my college friend Heinrich (english "Henry"). Heinrich was the last of my friends at my college, TU Kaiserslautern, to finish his PhD there. While originally being a student of a combined chemistry/business program, he later decided to fully immerse himself in scientific research, and obtain the degree of Dr. rer. nat. (english "doctor in natural sciences"), which I am holding myself. He was working in the same group where I pursued my Diplomarbeit (roughly equivalent to the thesis work of a Master's degree in the U.S.) to become a Diplomchemiker (abbrev. Dipl.-Chem., the only pre-doctoral degree conferred upon completion of a chemistry curriculum, until the advent of the tripartite Anglosaxon Bachelor's / Master's / Doctor's degree system in the European Union. In that respect, returning to Kaiserslautern was like yet another "blast from the past", considering I was in Berlin just one week earlier ...
I seized the day to take a few pictures: (a) the building of the Department of Electrical Engineering, where I was enrolled in 1997-1998 before switching to Chemistry, (b) a few old friends in the auditorium of Heinrich's presentation, (c) the main entrance to the Department of Chemistry, (d) Heinrich being "hatted" by his labmates
The tradition of "cap and gown", as conferred in an Academic Commencement ceremony in the United States, has been abandonned in Germany's public universities in the aftermath of the 1968 student rebellion, and thus in the science departments the labmates craft a hat for the graduate-to-be, decorated with items and pictures alluding to the candidate's personality, and to anecdotes associated with him. In Heinrich's case, at the core of his research was the design of a cooling device for a measurement apparatus, which he nicknamed "Tweety" due to the sound it produces - hence the Tweety insigniae all over his hat!
The absence of an official graduation day leads to the somewhat undue situation that the certificate that legally enables the graduate to hold his or her newly obtained degree will be sent by mail, or at best be handed over by a representative of the university's administration. Also, for this to happen it is required that the candidate "publishes" the thesis with one year's time; i.e., makes it available to the university library after all editing has been finalized. (In the case of my own doctorate I at least got congratulated by a quite friendly lady who was in charge of all PhD affairs of the university.) In other words, after a (presumably) successful defense there are still some formalities standing between the candidate and his becoming a graduate, which may take up to one month!
Nevertheless, friends and family are allowed to praise the performance at the defense, and offer congratulations, and even call the candidate a doctor without legal implications. It is also customary to celebrate the success on the day of the defense, usually paid for by the candidate (or someone close). We did honor that tradition and celebrated Heinrich until nightfall and beyond, but I had to leave to catch a train back home at 10 pm. Still, it was great to meet with some old friends again, some of whom I hadn't seen in almost a decade ... making me aware of the fact that my departure from Kaiserslautern is now longer ago than the duration of the time I spent there. And with the graduation of Heinrich I feel I have no immediate reason left to visit this school, other than pure sentimentality.
Thus, all that's left for me to say here is: Congratulations Dr. Heinrich! Well done!