New Zealand Study Abroad Blog

When I first decided to study abroad I figured I would struggle with adjusting to a new school, making friends, or even being homesick.  While all of these were factors in my transition to the University of Auckland, I never would have guessed my biggest concern abroad would be a global pandemic taking the world by storm.   Finally realizing our study abroad experience was coming to an end, the next part of this crazy and unpredictable span of time was traveling home.  Unfortunately, with flights being cancelled left and right, our travel agent getting laid off, and the limited time frame we had to get home, our options for routes back were changing daily.  I went from flying home Sunday, to flying home Saturday, to finding out Thursday morning we were flying home Friday.  With these Friday plans finalized, a group of us were flying from Auckland to Houston and then separating for our respective flights home. As you can see we w...

So I’ve been home for about a week now. It hasn’t been easy, but it hasn’t been easy for anyone lately. Unfortunately, the decision making process involved in coming home was long and trying, hence my significant break from blogging.  If I can, I prefer to avoid talking about it, because if I don’t talk about it then I don’t think about it and if I don’t think about it then I don’t have to be sad about it.  But I’ve stalled long enough... About three weeks back we received our first email, the generic one. First email from Loyola The email continues on, but I’m sure you get the gist of it—they wanted us home.  All things considered, the time this email was sent out, New Zealand was the safest place for us to be.  Between discussions with my parents, the other Loyola students, and our study abroad advisors, we came to conclusion, it was in our best interest to stay. Honestly, as serious as things were and as fast as they...

I have a habit of staining things. For whatever reason, I am just really good at it. Sometimes we attribute this to my dad because he stains everything just like I do.  But regardless, all the stains over the years have definitely made my mom an expert at getting them out. However, now that I’m abroad, I no longer live with an expert stain-remover nor do I have the proper supplies to tackle a stain on my own.  At the same time, I figured if the problem arose I’d figure it out one way or another. Then this happened: The stain I think it’s safe to say this the worst stain I’ve ever had to clean out.  Funny thing is, this was not my own doing for once.   Earlier this week, the study abroad group from Loyola got together for dinner with our advisor here amidst all the chaos.  It was a Middle Eastern restaurant called Ima and the group dinner featured a variety of different plates, one being a chicken curry dish....

“All tutorials are on Short Street, even further down the hill, so get out your trainers and set your Fitbits (a big bonus for your step count coming back up the steps from Law School).” This is an email I received from one of my professors just days before classes started.  While I was aware the University of Auckland’s campus was significantly larger than what I’m used to at Loyola, I was not certainly not prepared for what my schedule had in store for me. Here’s my schedule: My Schedule Not too bad at first glance. However, at Loyola, classes are scheduled with a 10 minute break in between each one and here...they are not.  We were told not to worry about scheduling classes back to back despite this since apparently professors here are expected to let students out 10 minutes before the hour or start 5 minutes late and end 5 minutes before the hour.  Either way, there is supposed to be some time in between, not necessarily enough, b...

School has officially begun! In a hectic week of lectures, tutorials, and homework, a few of us decided to try and incorporate a little fun into our days. To do so, we chose to take a spin class, something I have always wanted to try, but never have. One of the first few days on campus, we went to check out the gym.  We learned they offered free classes in yoga, spin, bar, and more throughout the week.  Always wanting to give spin a chance, four of us got together after our first day of classes and made our way to the gym.  And since it was the first week back to school, it was packed.  We luckily arrived early with plenty of bikes open, but it was all on a first come first serve basis, so it filled up quick.   Full Class Having never taken a spin class before, I looked like a deer in headlights when I first walked in.  I had no clue how to properly set up my bike and typical me was too shy to ask for help.  De...

In one night, I went from Te Wao Nui to Africa to Sri Lanka to Australia to South America and back again. How you may ask? Well, recently I had the opportunity to visit the one and only Auckland Zoo! Our map! The Auckland Zoo is divided into the sections based on the countries the animals originate from.  While at the zoo, people can travel from country to country and encounter the wildlife of each region.   As a quick tip before we get to talking about all the different habitats featured, we ventured to the zoo on a Friday night.  Right now the zoo is offering a deal from 4-8pm on Fridays for visitors to enter at a reduced fee of 15NZD.  I definitely recommend taking advantage of this since the temperatures were much cooler and much more bearably by 4pm and there is still plenty of action from the animals; it was without a doubt worth the deal! Keeping in mind we were entering the zoo on the later side, we were advis...