A Student Abroad

Radio Record, Volume VI, Issue 13, 7 October 1932, Page 3

A Student Abroad

A Talk broadcast from. 3YA

By DR.

D. E.

HANSEN

"To any of you who are likely to travel on the Continent in the near future, I — would like to make several suggestions. If you are young enough, leave most of the tourist routes and big hotels alone. Where you can, tramp it with your | ruck-sack-on your back, stop at the delightful little inns, where you can always . be sure of a clean bed and a decent meal, and see how the people live." This is the-advice Dr. Hansen offers to those intending to visit the Continent. It is advice he has followed himself, as shown by the following account of his wanderings through Denmark, Norway and Sweden. .

\NE of the most interesting holidays in , my student days on the Continent. was spent in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. I was fortunate in having ‘the company of an American student, who. had made similar jaunts to other parts of Europe and: knew how to meet language difficulties, and, \what was very important to both of us, to travel cheaply.. Before leaving Berlin, we made a resolve never to pay more than 1/- for a bed of for a meal, and on the whole we succeeded, but our resolution led us on several occasions into some queer hostelries. Travelling. by train from Berlin to Warnemuende, we crossed in a train ferry to’ Gjedser, in the South of Denmark, and thence by rail to Copenhagen. The train ferry was in itself a novelty, and it was interesting to see the dispatch with which ‘it berthed and loaded or unloaded its cargo, consisting usually of two or four trains. I discovered later that it was an important factor in conveying milk from

ae the farms of Southern Sweden for consumption in Berlin, a distance of several hundred miles, and I saw several milk express trains at the crossing. The train ferry is also an important part of train services in Denmark, since that country consists of a number of islands and the ferry is an indispensable part of the railway system. By the way, it may interest some of you to know that the Baltic Sea ‘is really green in colour, due partly to the tremendous amount of fresh water discharged into it by the rivers, partly to its shallowness, and also: probably to the colour of the sky reflected in it. On the Continent train travelling in different countries is most engrossing, since the buildings and the environment of the people differ so greatly from country to country. So the flying railway journey through that flat, trim country, with its many windmills and its quaint farmsteads, gave me a first imprefsion that I shall never lose. I had. heard from my own people of the democratic nature of the Danish people, but it came as a surprise to us, on arriving at the station in Copenhagen, to see the King and Queen step off the same train. as ourselves. When we saw the carpet laid on the station platform to receive them, my friend Johlin remarked to me, "Hansen, how did these people know we were coming ?" A week in Copenhagen soon passed, being spent in visiting picture galleries (not picture palaces), museums and old castles, and in walking about, mixing with the people. A most interesting place is Thorwaldsen Museum, which contains only works of moulding and sculpture by,

the great artist. His pace of working must have been tremendous, as. he died at the early age of 40 and left a great amount of work behind. him. Many of his figures and groups of figures are large. Probably his most celebrated set is the twelve Apostles, which is to be seen in one of the old city churches. Another interesting place was an old : castle with a circular carriage drive to the top of the tower. The driver would have needed to be expert. I can still feel the stones of. Copenhagen under my feet, for the streets, and footpaths, too, were cobbled, and to tramp on them all day in ordinary walking boots was wearisome. The Danes still make a great deal of use of wooden clogs, especially in the country, and it is surprising how warm and comfortable they are. Later I was able to spend a week in the country districts with some relations and to see something of farming methods. The weather to us is cold and windy, and the farmhouses are substantially built of brick, stone or concrete, and usually well whitewashed. They form one side of a hollow square, the cowbyres are on the opposite side with a paved yard between and connecting the two buildings is a third side which contains stores and also serves as a base for a large windmill, which is used to pump water, grind meal and work various farm machinery. . HE wind is a never-failing source of power in Denmark, and probably electric power will never be so much in demand there as in many other countries. I qtiite expect that windmills are as common a sight on the landscape as they were 20 years ago. _ One farm of special interest to me was owned. by a cousin of mine; he ran it as an ordinary farm in the spring, summer and autumn, and as an agricultural college for farm workers in the winter. Such institutions are part of the Danish system of raising the. standard. of education among the adult rural population, and the education given is cultural rather than agricultural. The’ effécts have been so marked that the Danish methods have attracted attention from all parts of the world. The farming is naturally intensive, as the country is small and the rural population is large. . Nothing is (Continued on page 23.))

A Student Abroad —

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wasted and no piece of land too small to be neglected. ‘There is no broken ground and the highest mountain is 200 feet high. I did see one or two railway cuttings: on the sides of the cuttings strawberries were being raised for market, In the woods every smail branch and twig is gathered, and these are tied in bundles and sold or used for firewood. Hven the prunings of the gooseberry and currant bushes are used in the same way. .Round the cowsheds eyen the washings from the floors are

led into a deep reservoir and these are pumped out and sprayed on the fields. Much of the land was originally poor and sandy, but it was improved by mixing in swamp soil and by working in suitable crops grown as green manuré. Denmark is a country where they live frugally and yet in comfort. As compared with them we New Zealanders are extravagant and careless. I had the pleasure of a visit to one of the largest farms in Denmark. It was a property of about one thousand acres, and was owned by a Count, to which I was conducted by a cousin of mine, We met the Count walking in the woods near the castle, and after exchanging a few remarks, he invited us to look over the property. When we left him my cousin remarked: "He can’t be in a yery good mood, or he would have asked us in to afternoon tea, It's a pity, as he has some fine pictures in the castle." I was sorry, too, for the medieval castle intrigued me, Water was still flowing round in the moat and ducks were swimming on it and trout darting round-in it. However, the farm was interesting, Under one roof were 800 milking cows, which are stabled day and night for 9 months of the year, and are outdoors in the paddocks only in the daytime for

the three warmest months. There are almost no fences in Denmark; they would serve very little purpose :and they take up useful room. When the cows are outdoors they are tied to pegs. and moved several times a day, whilst water is carired to them, The labour involved is tremendous, and the cow-. shed workers were mainly Polish girls, who received about £10 per annum and lived in a kind of compound under the supervision of a matron. We saw 4 squad of them out in the fields levelling molehills with their feet. Before leaving the farm we visited the Count’s private butter and cheese factory and bought some cheese there, . I need hardly say that the reputation of Danish butter is quite in keeping with its quality; its flavour, colour, and texture are .- pene eee eee te ee eee eee

5, . wo C) (Oem bad all first class, and it deserves its high place in the world’s markets. A very interesting day was spent in an excursion to Odense, on the island of Funen, It is a small town in which is the old home of Hans Christian Andersen, thé world-famous writer of fairy stories. It also has the church of Canute, a king well known to us Britishers. He built the church when he embraced Christianity, and though the church has been ‘largely rebuilt, it still is constructed in part of the original bricks, which are readily discernible, The bones of Canute are on view in the erypt, and the skull shows the marks of the wounds by which he was killed. But I must hurry on to Scandinavia. The trip from Copenhagen to Malmo, in the south of Sweden, is about as formidable as that from Lyttelton to Diamond Harbour, We did not find language difficulties very serious, as we have a phrase book to help us in asking for necessities, and out knowledge of English, French, aid German came in useful on different occasions. Norway, Sweden, and Denmark as you probably know, use similar coinage, and the languages are very much alike, though they differ considerably in pronunciation and intonation. Language difficulties can at times, howéver, be amusing or embarrassing, sometimes both, and at times attempts at translation have curious results. I shall always remember, for example, an inn at Heidelberg, in South Germany, in which, beside the bell push in each bedroom, was a printed notice in Wnglish which read thus:

"iting once for the chambermaid and twice for the boot." Whilst. endeavouring to make our way ont of Gottenberg to follow the main road northwards, not always an easy matter in a largé town, especially in a foreign country, Wwe hoped to get some indication from a large notice board near a Street corner bearing the words "Til Salu" (T-i-] S-a-l-u). We thought it nojnted in the

direction of some town called Salu, but could find no stich name on the map. It was some days later that we realised that the words meant: "For sale," and that the notice board was on a vacant section of land. te Not farm from Malmo, where we first set foot in Sweden, is the old university town of Lund. It is a small-town with small stone houses and shops, cobbled streets, many of which are hardly wider than our Chancery Lane, and the whole is dominated by the old but extensive University, in which is established one of the oldest medical faculties in the world. : From Malmo and Lund we made our way on foot and by train through South Sweden to Gottenburg. The country through which we passed was very flat and well cultivated, though I had the preconceived notion that I would find it hilly and wooded. Gottenburg was of special interest through having given its name to a licensing system governing the sale of intéxicating liquors. What struck us was the large number of places in which liquor was‘on sale, especially spirits. In Denmark thére- were many cafes and restaurants like those in Germany where beet was sold, but in Sweden spirits were evidently consuined in considerable quantities. As we proceeded north we passed at times through pine forests where late snow still lay in many places, and in Christiania (now called Oslo) we found that many of the people who followed up snow sport had that yel-lowish-brownh tan colour that eomes from constant exposure to the sun refleeted from the snow. Life in a elimate as strenuous as that of Norway must make a hardy people, and they certainly gave us that impression. There were marked differences between the Swedes and the Norwegians, the former being more prosperous than, and not nearly so sociable as, thé latter. The Norwegians struck us as having many characteristics in common with our own people. Our few days in Oslo were most interesting, and were occupied in visits to the university, the museums, and picture galleries and other places of interest, and in mixing as far as we could with the people in eating houses, in shops, and other places. We saw in the museums a number of Viking ships, which are so small that only a hardy mariner would have dared to go marauding in them. We also gathered that these hardy Vikings were not tall men, for a number of their beds in museums were so short that the men who used them could not have been what we in New Zealand regard as of normal height. In the Folks Museum is a replica of one of the early Christian churches of Norway. It is built of pine logs piléd one on another, but of quite ornate architéctural design. The lighting was a special feature; it comprised apparently only one window, so set that the light from it illuminatéd only the altar, and we had to grope our way round the church in semi-darkness.

i. nee Shortwave Programme HKA on 49 will broadcast a programme specially dedicated to the Antipodes on Sunday, October 9, between 7 and $9 pm. New Zealand Summer Time. The call is "La Voz de Columbia," which will follow each. announcement, and may be used instead of 3 HKA.