The highlights of this week are the visit to the Kekulé exhibit at Deutsches Museum Bonn and the beginning of the Karneval celebration on Thursday. August Kekulé was a famous German chemist who lived during the late 19th century. He worked on theories of chemical structure and discovered the ability of carbon atoms to link to each other. Perhaps one of his most iconic discoveries was the chemical structure of Benzene, which is a prominent theme of the exhibit. Interestingly, Archibald Couper, a Scotsman, discovered that carbon atoms can link with each other at around the same time as Kekulé. However, because Couper’s paper was published a month later than Kekulé’s, Kekulé is generally the only one credited with this idea. Couper would give up the study of science and supposedly died in an insane asylum.
During Karneval, which is only celebrated in the Rheinland and goes from Thursday through the following Monday, people of all ages will dress up in various costumes or wardrobes. Thursday is considered “women’s day”, and on this day, women will carry around scissors and cut off the ties being worn by men. This has lead to people keeping old and possibly ugly ties to wear on this day. On Thursday morning, everyone from the program, who were mostly in costumes, went to see a Karneval parade. The parade featured everything one would normally expect, such as floats and marching bands. However, as is tradition, the marchers also threw candy of all kinds to the people on the sides. In addition, some people were throwing balls, plastic “piggy” banks shaped like cars, stuffed animals, and other such novelties. Karneval is known for music and drinking as well; the drinking I did not partake in.
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