History

01 Feb 1928

Alfred Westholm, Swedish Archeologist who led the expedition in Cyprus, in a letter to his mother

Alfred Westholm, Swedish Archeologist who led the expedition in Cyprus, in a letter to his mother: 

1) Music in Nicosia is an entirely unknown notion. A brass orchestra in which my epistate Lazaros is a member of some importance, is said to exist here. For the rest I am thrown upon my own resources, the voices in my own heart and my singing and whistling. There is a gramophone at Gjerstad’s hotel.

3) We keep house in our home and museum, eat at home with Madame Rosa as our house matron. We have help in the kitchen from a housemaid called Maria. The Gjerstads live at the Hotel George here nearby where they occupy an entire separate annex with their children and governess.

4) The governess Gudrun or Ulla as she is usually called, is a particularly fine and pleasant girl, who minds the children every day in the hotel courtyard. She has very pale hair and dances wonderfully.

5) Cyprus has now had, according to reliable sources, enough rain and we are now right in the middle of the rainy season. This means that the sun is shining from a cloudless sky, emanating a most pleasant warmth. Night brings terrible cold and the mercury sinks all the way down to +15° or +10°. About once a week the sun is darkened for around an hour, when the clouds fall down onto the earth in the form of large quantities of water. When this has taken place, the sun shines again and the colours of the landscape are then more beautiful than ever.