Residential and Care Centre Humanities, a Dutch nursing home, has established a programme providing free rent to university students in exchange for 30 hours a month of their time with their aged residents. The programme has meant students in their early twenties sharing lives with residents in their eighties and nineties. As part of their volunteer agreement, the students also spend time teaching residents new skills ? like how to email and use social media.
Enoteca Maria Restaurant at Staten Island New York offers a different international grannie (or nonna in Italian) chef each day they are open. They now also offer free classes run by their grannies to show how they make their signature dishes. www.enotecamaria.com
The Guggenheim Museum in New York has replaced one of its standard porcelain unisex toilets with an upscale equivalent of an 18-carat, solid gold, toilet that's fully functional. It's an artwork by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, titled America. Allow some extra time at the Museum if you want to use it as there are queues to see it.
