Originally Posted by
jerry a. laska
Where do you live that your local banks haven't used cheques since the 70's?
My guess, given the origin of that trip, is somewhere Nordic. Many European countries phased out checks/cheques a long time ago, the Nordic countries being in the vanguard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque#Western_Europe. If that's the case, then 'the 1970's' is a bit of an exaggeration, but it has been a while...