New Zealand Study Abroad Blog

As a small island country off the coast of Australia, New Zealand hosts some of nature’s finest creations.  New Zealand is mainly separated into two land masses—the North Island and the South Island.  Generally, everyone’s first thought is to jump straight into the South Island and submerse themselves in an island with natural beauty at every corner.  However, the best way to take on New Zealand is to start at the North Island, which is home to many of its own pockets of beauty.  And with this, there is no place better to start than the Far North  itself.  Above Auckland, the upper sliver of the North Island has so much to offer.  What you will find is beyond beautiful, it’s nearly indescribable.  The best way to truly take in everything the Far North has to offer is by rental car.  Rental car places flood the city of Auckland and with a quick booking, you can head off on your very own adventure.  ...

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...