In the 1920s when the economy was sizzling and rich people could afford to splurge on small cottages by the sea, and a Rembrandt or two, A Spanish baron started buying some paintings. His son inherited them and then bought even more paintings. And then in the 1980s the son married a former Miss Spain [...]

With visions of meeting lovely strangers in the subway dancing in my head, I endured one of the more jam-packed metro rides of my life. It was the sort of occasion when you are not sure whose body parts are touching you, and so you try your hardest to assume that everyone around you has [...]

Apparently in France Halloween has been canceled. A principal at a grade school in Provence was put off by the concept of children sporting “fancy dress in the classroom,” especially “when inspired by some ridiculous foreign novelty.”
Luckily for me I spent Halloween at a soirée in Normandy in a picturesque town famous for its namesake [...]