Dillingham Syndrome

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote briefly about our super-fun sailing class on a 40-foot boat in the Ijsselmeer, but I'm not sure I really did justice to the finer points of the experience.

This being the Netherlands, there was a good chance that we were going to experience driving rain, sleet or other forms of meteorological armageddon while out on the water, so we followed the sailing school's instructions and brought a giant duffel bag full of fleece clothes, long underwear, and waterproof everything.

I have to say: there's nothing quite as Dutch feeling as riding one's bicycle to the train station while carrying a backpack loaded down with multiple pairs of knee-high rubber boots.

Other than getting drenched in the process, I suppose.

Much to our surprise and delight, we had gorgeous weather for the entire weekend, so our treasure trove of cold-weather gear stayed neatly packed and stowed.

As I mentioned, the Ijsselmeer is a large freshwater lake created through some tricky Dutch engineering early last century.

It has the same feel as the Great Lakes in the U.S., in the sense that it has waves and wind and its own weather systems.

Its shore is dotted with tiny towns, all of which have marinas for the considerable number of Dutch people who own sailboats or motorboats and spend their weekends out on the water.

As our sailing instructor pointed out, most of the old cities and towns in Holland were built when boats were the primary form of transportation.

As a result, approaching them from the water is a much different experience than driving through suburbs and outskirts and then finally reaching the old city center.

You can also tell how each town's church tower was (and still is) important for navigation, and it was particularly thrilling to hear church bells pealing out across the water

On Friday night, we docked around 10 p.m. in Muiden, a town that boasts 6,700 people, one castle and one bar.

Maybe it goes without saying that John and I haven't spent a lot of time in bars in the Netherlands, and certainly not after 11 p.m.

At the urging of our 25-year-old Irish classmate, we found ourselves drinking more Dutch beer than is advisable for anyone spending the next 48 hours on a boat.

As the evening wore on, we observed with interest that most of Muiden's 6,700 residents were also at this bar.

And through some act of demographic freakery, they were either men over the age of 50, or they were teenagers.

By teenagers, I mean people who look like they're 12, but are drinking beer legally and singing lustily to the Dutch pop songs blaring on the radio.

I find that Europeans are uniformly horrified to learn that Americans can learn to drive when they're 15, but can't drink legally until they're 21.

I see their point, but I find it equally disconcerting to belly up to the bar next to anyone who hasn't hit puberty yet.

The evening had lots of highlights: the unapologetically hideous music was one of them, and the tray of unidentifiable fried things that we inhaled in place of dinner was another.

For me, however, what made all of the watery pilsner worthwhile was learning that certain snarky people describe milk as "Dutch wine".

It's hard to convey properly, but one of the most alarming things about the Netherlands is that Dutch adults are big milk drinkers.

Really big milk drinkers.

It's hard, as a non-Dutch person, to keep my gaping mouth closed when I see a group of banking executives, primarily men over the age of 50, sitting around a boardroom and drinking milk.

Because nothing says business lunch like a big, frosty glass of milk!

In the end, we survived our latest night on the town in recent memory. We even survived our low-level hangovers and managed not to test the limits of the boat's finicky marine toilets.

On Saturday night, we stopped in an even smaller harbor town called Marken, which is famous for its wooden houses and canals in place of streets.

Marken is a good example of what I call Dillingham Syndrome:

If you visit a place that's bizarre to begin with (e.g. Alaska), and then travel to a small town reachable primarily by plane or boat (e.g. Dillingham), you need to be prepared for some really weird shit.

Much to our chagrin, Marken was hosting an event involving loud music and a tent.

For a more peaceful night's sleep, we zipped across the way to Monnickendam, which, at almost 10,000 people, is a thriving metropolis by Dutch standards.

We berthed for the night in a huge marina that gave me an unexpected jolt of nostalgia: it had the joyously familiar feeling of American campgrounds where my grandparents liked to stay, with full hook-ups, coin-op showers, and the same chatty neighbors who come back year after year.