WIDE TRAVEL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 117, 18 April 1939, Page 2

WIDE TRAVEL.

EXPERIENCES OF NEW ZEALAND WOMAN.

Almost every country' in Europe seems to have been risked by Miss A. M. Erenstrum, of Wellington, daughter of Air and Airs C. J. Erenstrom, of Rualiiiie Street, Palmerston North, who has just returned from a year’s wanderings. One of the most romantic places she visited was the Shetland Isles, where she spent part of the summer and the Christmas holiday, and where she stayed with former Wellington residents.

On her summer visit it was daylight all the time, as the islands are far north, and during December it was barely light for only four hours-of the day. The islands arc very barren and the people scratch a meagre living from the soil, said Aliss Erenstrom. The men spend their time fishing, but upon the women fall the heavy tasks of farming and housekeeping. It is their work to shear the sheep whose wool they use for the famous garments they knit; to grow what foodstuffs the soil will yield ; and to dig and carry t-lie peat for firing. It is a common sight to see women bent finder heavy loads. Word soon went about the hamlet Aliss Erenstrom was visiting, that a stranger was in their midst, and she was showered with hospitality. The majority of the islanders harl never heard of New Zealand. “Can they knit in your country:” they asked, so Aliss Erenstrom produced her needles to prove it. They took her “guising” on Christ--mas Eve—-all dressed up according to tradition, in masks and other disguise. It was.not only the Shetland Islanders who did not know of New Zealand’s existence. Many Scottish people believed it was a town in Australia, and could not be persuaded otherwise. The English people had better knowledge, however, and in England Miss Erenstrom. felt perfectly at home. America was similarly hospitable ; she was overwhelmed with kindness for the month she spent in the United States, and in Canada, on her way home. Tn Sweden Aliss Erenstrom stayed with her father’s relatives, and everywhere she went she seems to have found friends to extend her hospitality. Holland in “heather-time” is almost as lovely as the Scottish hills in the same season, except that the Dutch heather is of a lovely white variety, not the Scottish purple, she said. In the Swiss Alps the traveller experienced the days of summer heat, while the nights were very cold. France, Italy, Norway and Denmark were visited, and Aliss Erenstrom had intended to make a long visit to Germany. However, she arrived three weeks before the September crisis, and the atmosphere became so strained she decided to hurry on to Holland. At Hamburg, particularly, she found herself regard with suspicion, especially in the shops, and the language barrier did not help matters. The people looked strained, tense, and even frightened, and she was glad when she had crossed the frontier. In Sweden before she left for Germany, she was warned: “You will be quite safe if you say nothing about Hitler. Do not discuss politics.” London and Liverpool were pleasant experiences, and then came the crossing to America in the Queen Alary. Even good sailors quailed before the storm which Aliss Erenstrom encountered in the Atlantic. So high were the waves that tarpaulins had to he tied over the dummy funnels to stop water pouring down them, and tarpaulins were also put over the windows to lessen the fears of passengers.

Aliss Erenstrom prefers London to rsew York. London, she said, is loss noisy. In New York she found the subways were not discreetly hidden, in the manner of London’s undergrounds, but were ugly, unfinished, and • with all the appearance of just having “iron girders to hold the footpaths up.”. T.lie continual roar due to their proximity to the street was most depressing. The flat Canadi an wheat lands about Calgary were also most depressing, hut to compensate for this, Miss Erenstrom crossed tho Great Divide and saw the glory of the Rockies in midwinter.

Miss Erenstrom laughs at talk of money difficulties in foreign countries; she had none, and once her money was changed into that of the country she was in, it was a very easy matter to understand its value. The only place "'here she encountered trouble was Fiji, on her return home, where “nobody would look at” her New Zealand money.