I am writing these lines in Vienna at one of the city’s best restaurants. It is called Zum weissen Rauchfangkehrer – The White Chimney Sweep. A couple of weeks ago, it had...
Strange as it may sound, fall is perhaps my favorite season. It is a melancholy time of the year and I guess I have become a kind of a romantic guy. I love watching the leaves...
A couple of weeks ago I visited my coiffeuse (female barber) and, after she had attempted to tame the hair on my head and face, I looked out the window and saw brilliant sunshine...
After the Communists expelled my family from Hungary in 1949 we became Stateless Aliens and nobody wanted us. My Parents settled in Paris temporarily so they were issued French...
On my way to Vienna one fine day in 1956 I decided to pop in to see my sister who was living in Paris at the time. She liked the idea. We had not seen each-other for quite a...
The Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Francis Joseph I, was obliged by his coronation oath, taken in 1867, to spend regular periods of time in Hungary. To this end, the Hungarian...
I have always wanted to visit the place where my parents had spent their honeymoon: Capri. I never got there before now. So I took a deep breath while visiting Budapest and...
Allow me to entertain you with a true story that you will find hard to believe. The lady who came into our nursery on a rainy autumn afternoon in 1941 was dressed in gray and her...
In the embrace of what I call the feverish agony of my bout with this twenty-first century plague I marveled about how an eighteenth century English poet could foresee and reflect...
Spying is about secrets and secrets are power … power over your fellow man. You can make him do just about anything – right or wrong, good or bad – when you know...
