Evening star., 1937-12-05
!oung Residents of Capital Varied Pursuits and Hobbies
Capital Girl
At Royal
Castle

T1Te Escape mas
Interesting
Basket.
WHAT a thrill for an American girl
to visit an old European castle
and sleep in room with a real secret
doorway!
This unusual experience came to
Esther Hansen of 205 Rock Creek
Church road last summer when she
visited her grandmother in Denmark.
Esther has been to Denmark four
times, but she remembers most about
this last trip, since she is now -
years old
In 1s4s Frederick VII came to the
throne of Denmark. He loved q
duchess. made her his queen and gave
her a castle near Copenhagen. When
she died her will stated that her castle
was to be used as an orphans home.
Today it is model orphanage.
The children are divided into small
groups, living in separate cottages,
but they use the castle as q school,
and the teachers live there. Esther's
cousin is one of the teachers, and
| here Esther visited her.
The funniest thing about the castle
to Esther was the fire escape. In each
| teachers room there Is basket tied
to rope and pulley. When the fire
gong sounds the teachers climb into
their baskets and let themselves down
to the ground by means of the rope and
pulley.
Esther says that she didn't get to
ride down in a basket. There was no
fire drill while she was there. and the
rules are very strict. Riding in a
basket just for fun would not be toll
Grated
The most interesting thing about
my cousins room. where slept" Es-
ther continued, was the secret door,
way On the back wall Of the closet
was a large ring. When the ring was
turned the right way doorway opened
and you could step down into the next
room"
In the castle is winding stairway
carved from the trunk of single tree.
Some of the rooms are preserved just
as they were in Frederick's day, and
there are orchards and farmlands sur
rounding all of the buildings. Each
orphan, it seems, must have. in addi-
ton to his regular food, an apple.
quart of milk and two carrots every
day. They believe in healthy orphans
in Denmark.
Visiting in the castle was not the
only interesting experience Esther
had. She attended Danish Girl
Scout camp at MolS, peninsula in
the Cattegat. This is body OF water
between Denmark and Sweden, and
connecting the North Sea and the
Baltic Sea.
Girl Scouts are very much the same
the world over, but they have different
names. In Denmark they are called
s-,ejder. The Spejder camp occupied
one large building on the seashore.
On one side the girls slept in three
story hunks, and on the other they ate
at three long tables. At Z o'clock the
rising bell rang BY 7:30 the girls were
dressed for flag raising and after that
came breakfast. The first thing
served was oatmeal. Here the climate
is so cool and bracing that every one
eats two or three helpings.i After that
came weak tea and klodser.
"Klodser," Esther explained, lis big
squares of rye bread. But that isn't
its real name. The word klodser really
means square blocks of hard wood, but
since We had that bread every day for
every meal, the girls nicknamed it
that"
After breakfast came Bible study and
swimming and games until lunch time
Luncheon was followed by rest Pc
riod, and then came tea. At tea the
girls were served with cold cocoa and
klodser. After tea came more SWIM
ming and games until dinner.
Dinner was very much like such a
meal in America, except for dessert.
Sometimes there was tykmaelk, which
is thick sour milk covered with grated
dark bread and brown sugar; or kaer-
nemaelk suppe, which is thickened
buttermilk with butter and sugar and
raisins in 1t; or sweet soup, which is
thickened fruit juice eaten with hard,
dry toast. In the evening the girls
walked and played games until time to
sing around the camp fire.
Esther spent much of her summer
visiting her grandmother in a town
in Jutland. This town is called
Harup. and it is so tiny that 1t has
only one street, lined with red, and
yellow. and white brick houses, each
with a red-tiled roof.
Before returning to the United
States, Esther went to Copenhagen.
Perhaps the most interesting thing
in Copenhagen" she said, lis the
Kings palace. It is built of gray stone,
and, like all kings palaces, is much
larger than the White House. It is
known as such a beautiful building
that people come from all over the
world to see it,"
There are many shops in Copen-
hagen and many streets crowded with
trafac and people on bicycles and peo-
pie on foot.
Esther, who is a. student at Mac
farland Junior High School, speaks
Danish as well as she does English,
and she hopes to return many more
times to visit the land OF her grand
parents.