Legal alcohol bars at prom and marijuana coffee shops seem so far fetched and unreal in our little bubble of Saratoga. Teenagers in other parts of the world, however, experience such phenomena in everyday life.

Senior Alex Holz discovered just that when he moved from Superior, Colo., to Wassenaar, Netherlands, in the middle of his freshman year because of his dad’s job. The move gave him a serious case of culture shock.  

Until recently,the Netherlands had a drinking age of 16. (In January it was changed to 18.) According to Holz, drinking was so prevalent that his school had an open bar during prom.

“Each student was given two drinking cards, of which they could use at the open bar,” Holz said. “After those drink cards were used, you could buy as many as you wanted.”

But drinking was not a one-time prom fling. It was part of everyday life and culture.

“So many kids partied pretty much every weekend. Sometimes it could be quite a mess because even some eighth graders would party because of the lack of enforcement of the law and the prevalence of fake IDs,” Holz said.

The use of marijuana was also commonplace.

Holz said that many drugs were also easily accessible. For example, coffee shops in the Netherlands were pretty much marijuana havens.

An interesting cultural difference, according to Holz, was that “the Dutch were open to talking about anything and voicing their displeasure with you.”

Holz describes the Dutch as being brutally honest. It came to the point where he realized they had no  filter on what they were saying.

“Every Dutch person you talk to as an expat [a person who lives outside their native country] will ask you how good your Dutch is and expect you to know the language even though it is spoken by only a few nations,” Holz said.

One of the highlights of the country was its widespread bikepaths and top-notch public transportation that included buses, canals and trains.

Holz enjoyed the culture at his school in the Netherlands, the American School of Hague. The school was academically challenging and provided him a great place to grow and learn.

“Many students took a program called the IB (International Baccalaureate), which is much like the European AP,” Holz said. “My [former] school was one of the first schools that incorporated the program and this past year had the second highest scores worldwide.”

The school was also characterized by its technological advancements in student homework and learning. Unlike Saratoga High, the American School of Hague gives students laptops and has most of its curriculum and homework online.

Holz’s learning was not limited simply to the classroom; it extended to the people he interacted with in his school.

Since the American School of Hague had a vast diversity of 60 nations, Holz said he was able to see different cultural perspectives on life and political issues.

“I learned that nearly all kids worldwide have similar social activities and that people really aren't that different from one another based on their outlooks on life,” Holz said.

Holz’s favorite memory from his life in the Netherlands was the sports teams at his school. He played both varsity volleyball and baseball.

Holz plans to play for Saratoga, although he is still undecided whether to play baseball or volleyball, since both sports are played in the spring.

Unlike Saratoga’s school teams, which travel to play local rivals, Holz and his teammates had to travel across Europe to compete. The team sometimes left at 8 in the morning on Friday to travel on a bus for eight hours to Paris to play their games.

“Since we played sports at other schools across Europe, school was tough to make up,” Holz said. “Also, during the [end-of-season] ISST (International School Sports Tournament) tournament, a team could potentially miss up to three days of school, which as a junior, was difficult to catch up with.”

In the end, his year in the Netherlands made Holz a better person.  

“This experience has also granted me the opportunity of being exposed to many different cultures, allowing me to be able to work with and converse with many people regardless of their background,” Holz said.