Monday 15th September

We commenced the day by visiting the bank to cash a traveller’s cheque, and then had breakfast, had Maurice’s rucksack repaired, and then obtained some accommodation from the Bureau in the town.  We were taken to the home where we were to stay – which turned out to be very good indeed.

The British are extremely unpopular – and everywhere we were asked “Are you Deutsch?” or “Are you English?” we always replied: “Svensk – Stockholm!” and then explain that our German was not good!  In every shop and restaurant we had to either order in French or German, and speak to each other in whispers!



Unfortunately our Swedish act lead us into trouble, as one Greek we met, said that he had a friend in Stockholm, and that he liked the Swedes very much.  He insisted on showing us the town, and consequently he took us to see the city walls, from which one can see a panorama of the city, the Saint Demetrius Church together with its crypt.  We nearly had forty-fits at the latter, as we spotted the car belonging to a couple of American girls we had met previously – and we were dead scared in case we met them and they gave the game away!  Consequently I insisted that I had to go to the toilet – this gave us a little breathing space.  Even so, when we went through the crypt I felt sure we would bump into them!  Fortunately we did not!  It was so extremely embarrassing when our friends asked us to teach them some Swedish!  We ended up having drinks in an out-of-town café, and exchanged addresses (ours were fiction of course) with each other.  We were with him for about 3 hours, and I think I must have aged ten years!

Church, Thessolonika