In Amsterdam, I Had a Nun For Dinner...

My flight out of Rome was two hours late departing. Fog in Amsterdam, they told me. If you hurry, they said, you might just make your connection to Newark. So when we landed at Schiphol Airport, I ran its full breadth, from Terminal A to Terminal G, sprinting like a certain well-known running back through dazed Red Light refugees, through bickering, hungover conventioneers, through harried families, backpackers, flight crews, bums, skalawags & Frenchmen - and arrived at my gate one minute after Continental Airlines closed the door. I walked angrily to the window and looked into the cockpit of the aircraft, and I swear the co-pilot flipped me the bird and winked.

When I turned to face my impending night in the airport I found the terminal was empty, except for me - your sweating, newly-infuriated Hero - and a nun.

A nun! Sister Mary Joan of the Staten Island branch (or whatever they're called) of the Order of St. Paul Convent. That's the Paulines for short. Sister Mary Joan is 76 years old, born in Sardinia, resident of New York City for 53 years. A real spitfire, the Sister is, but it turns out she has bad ankles. Beigna gentleman, Hero grabs her bags, and together we re-traverse the full breadth of Schiphol Airport.

Here is a tidy piece of fortune: I get stranded for a night in perhaps the most morally unambiguous city in the world, and the Good Lord gives me a nun to keep me on the straight and narrow. Or does she?

Next episode: My Dinner With Sister Mary Joan

I can fit Rome on my fingernail

It poured all day today, and water ran across the cobbles. Hero is in a funk, his bold and noted hair flat on his head. In the afternoon, Hero and his lovely hostess, Milena, ran through the slick drizzle to a market and found a tomato expert rumored to be a member of the banned Red Brigade. As we talked, he cut me and Milena pieces of tart cherries and fat rich Brandywine. The tomatoes are magic. They taste like none found in the US, where Americans believe south New Jersey's ripest. late-August beefsteaks are Great Produce. In fact, they are not. But it's no one's fault. The Romans have enchanted soil.

In response to the Slovenian poet, JW School of Hits, Hero has this to say: The Polarity Solo ran out of money. Gaps in required technology (such as the Inmarsat C) hung like a fog over our daily routine. But the problems went deeper than just money. Hero encountered more tragi-comical issues with each passing hour, including the inoperable liferaft strapped to the transom, the hand-sewn Frankenstein of a Solent, and the shredded genoa bunched in a molding pile in the sail locker. On the second day aboard, Hero initiated a debate with his reluctant skipper over the realities of PS's finances, especially in view of daunting equipment list. It wasn't long before Hero - who is a Hero because he is patient and generally good-willed - ran out of patience and good will.





to be continued...