FUN ON TOUR

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19825, 30 December 1938, Page 12

FUN ON TOUR

FOREIGN SHOPPING HIKING- IN BAVARIA FOOD IN YOUTH HOSTELS “To have fun in a foreign country is to go shopping,” says Miss Joan Deare, in writing of a hiking holiday trip in Bavarian Germany, to her parents, Mr. and Mrs. R. J. Deare, of New Plymouth. The tour was undertaken through the medium of the National Union of Students of Germany. At Frankfurt the party met their guides, Erika and George, and had to do some shopping to complete their rucksack equipment. “Shopping was great fun,” said Miss Deare. “Poor Erika was dragged miles for our various needs, and she was for ever chasing someone who had become enthralled with the shops. Clothing and boots were very reasonable and all articles were apparently made for service. We had been very fortunate in buying 25 R.M. (Reichrnarks) for 22s 6d, whereas the usual rate of exchange is 12 R.M. for £l. Just how this was possible I’m not sure, unless it was because we were students participating in a tour arranged by German students. The tour was also paid for at the same reduction.” Became Lost In one big emporium: Miss Deare and another girl became well and truly lost and it was not until they found the offices of an AmericanHamburg shipping company that they found someone to whom they could explain their predicament and be directed hack to their hotel. Food was not exactly scarce in Germany, said Miss Deare, but the general menus at the hostels in that part of the country were of a frugal nature and she wondered how the people of the country kept so fit. She found them physically a fine race of people, full of energy, well built, and with beautiful complexions. Meals consisted of black bread rolls and coffee or chocolate for breakfast. “We always had plenty Of butter arid jam,” said Miss Deare, “but the youths eating their meals at the same hostels did not fare nearly so well . . . Lettuce was plentiful and always soaked in vinegar and oil. Once we had carrots and twice beans. Meat was very good, but it was always veal . . . Food was never stinted oh our trip arid there would be as much left after a meal as we had eaten. Sweets were never served. “The beds at the Hostels are worth describing,” says Miss Deare. “I think the frame must have been built to raise the head or upper portion of the body by several inches. In one hotel we toad- a pillow but in many of the youth hostels we just had a mattress . . . and it was sometimes hard and awkward. A blanket was encased in a bag made from sheeting and a very fat, soft and light kind of eiderdown . . . also encased in a sheeting bag . . . We made our own beds, or rather folded the blankets, and every hostel seemed to have a different method of folding them.”