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