Netherlands

Amsterdam as Minors: The Kindness That Saves Our Trip

I leave Brussels with Aiden and we take the train straight into Amsterdam. I feel the excitement rising as the landscape changes, because this is Europe and we are really doing it. Then reality hits. We cannot find anywhere to stay as minors. Some hostels allow it, but most of Amsterdam will not.

So we contact Aiden’s mom. She is already ahead of us. She posts on a CISV Netherlands Facebook page asking if anyone can host two teenage boys who are traveling through the country. Almost immediately the post fills with love. Parents respond saying yes, of course, they can stay here. We would love to host them. It feels surreal that strangers are willing to open their homes to us.

That is how we meet the Prost family. We text back and forth and learn that their daughter Frauke is meeting us at Schiphol Airport. When we arrive, we are scanning the crowd with no clue what she looks like. Then I spot a tall teenage girl about our age looking around like she is searching too. I walk up and say her name, Frauke. She says, Aiden, Sebastian, and I swear the whole airport feels like it hears it. We found our person.

In Hoofddorp, outside Amsterdam, we meet her parents and siblings. They take us for a walk around the neighborhood, show us the local schools, and even walk us out toward an airfield. Her dad works with reviewing photographs, and we talk about his job and an exhibit in Amsterdam. What I love most is how open and calm they are. How honest and welcoming. They feel like the kind of family that raises a CISV kid for a reason.

The next morning we take the train into Amsterdam early. We walk out of the giant station with pillars and spires, and immediately the canals appear like the city is built on water and confidence. The buildings are thin and packed together, each with personality, colors, shapes, and little details that make them feel alive. The water is still in the morning. The tourists are not fully awake yet. It feels like we arrive before the city is turned on.

We get lost the way teenage boys do. We wander into the Red Light District and spend way too long walking around, shocked by how openly everything exists. It feels like a movie. It feels like we are not supposed to be there and also like the city does not care at all.

Then the trip gets even more local. We spend two nights with another family on the canals. I remember the son’s name sounding like Zaire, and his family welcomes us like it is normal. They cook us a home meal of kebab in pita bread, my first time trying it, and I cannot believe something that good exists. He takes us out biking through Amsterdam and suddenly we are moving like locals. Bikes become freedom. We ride all over the city, and he even shows us his high school, which feels like stepping into a life that is not ours but somehow still familiar.

Then we go to the Olympic Stadium because I run track and I am obsessed with anything Olympics. The stadium is closed, which is not enough to stop us. We climb the entry gate to get close to the Olympic rings, snap the photo, and climb back down like we are invincible.

And then I do the most teenage thing imaginable. I want to backflip into the canal. I ask if it is legal. People basically say go for it. So with Frauke and friends watching, I rip my pants off, jump, and throw a backflip straight into the canal. It is one of my best memories of the entire trip. It is stupid and perfect and exactly who I am at that age.

When it is time to leave, we have our first real transportation panic. Our Flixbus to Luxembourg leaves from the area near the Johan Cruyff Arena and we cannot find it. We freak out because we already paid and we are young and we do not know what we are doing. Then we realize we have been standing in the right spot the whole time. The bus is just only there for a minute. Travel teaches lessons fast.

Amsterdam gives me more than canals. It gives me proof that people are good. It gives me families who show up for strangers. It gives me a city that feels like it is built on water and boldness. And it gives me the feeling that this whole trip is going to keep getting crazier.