Running from Nuns

Because she is elderly, Sister Mary Joan Baldino writes me emails in ALL CAPS. The last email was a request for the email address of my editor at the New York Times Magazine. Sister Mary Joan has a story idea which she thinks is perfect for the Style section. Sr. Mary Joan is an ambitious woman.

Back to Amsterdam: Sister Mary Joan and I enjoyed a long dinner at the Crowne Plaza near Schiphol Airport. I'm not going to disclose the juiciest tidbits of the conversation because I'm willing to bet that her superiors in the New York Diocese google their more controversial nuns all the time. I will say this though: society's collective suspicions about the state of the Catholic Church - the corrupt patrimony, the thievery, the self-aggrandizement and high Machiavellian treachery - are all pretty much true and then some.

After dinner, Sr. MJ blessed me ("God bless you!" she exclaimed, with authority), and I took the train into the city center to walk among the bland filth and witness the commodified bad behavior that is Amsterdam. I've always hated this city, even before I had been blessed by a nun - and when I would have smoked the hash. I wish I had seen it before it became crowded with ugly drunken Brits and knife-wielding Arab teenagers.

The Hero had a coffee and a slice of pie along a canal, and it was a let down after that fine Roman espresso.