by Abbie Chaytor

Highlights

One of my highlights from my exchange was spending so much time around the snow, playing in it, seeing snow falling all around me, skating, tubing, skiing, and snowmobiling. It’s something we really don’t get in NZ so truly made living in Calgary a totally unique experience for me. 

Another highlight was seeing the northern lights, it took a lot of learning about the right conditions and staring up at the sky at night but I managed to see them a couple of times pretty well while I was literally on campus so that was amazing. (See the photos at the end of this post.)

A final highlight was all the travelling around Canada and the US I got to do. Although everything in Canada is kind of far away so you have to fly or drive a decently long way, it’s still way more accessible than if I was in NZ, without spending so long here it would be hard to see as much as I have! Travelling on top of the costs of exchange was expensive but so worth it. 

Challenges

My biggest challenge was probably getting homesick and missing my boyfriend. It was sad missing out on a few things that I would see my friends do or family events but I was also having an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime experience. Being friends with other exchange students was definitely a help, as we could all relate, a lot of people had partners back home and missed their friends and families. It definitely sucked but I made some awesome friends who made the whole exchange better and spending time with them would always cheer me up if I was ever sad or missing home.

Learnings & Looking Forward

I learnt a lot of interesting information in classes and my professors were awesome, though being Canadian law isn’t exactly the same as NZ so it won’t directly help my work as a lawyer. However, the biggest things I learnt were from the people around me, meeting Canadians and other exchange students from all around the world, I got to know more about their countries and culture which was super cool. One fun thing my friends did was a potluck where we all made food from our home countries, which was a cool multicultural experience. 

As of writing this, I am not back in New Zealand yet but am about to head back. I am super excited to get home and see all my friends and family. All my friends and I loved our experience and saying goodbye as everyone progressively left was very sad, but everyone was also excited to get home or do more travel too. 

Long-haul flights

Get prepared if you have a long-haul flight. Firstly, try and get a good flight time. I personally liked flights where I could try and sleep overnight, I am leaving Canada at 10 pm and will be on the plane for 14 hours, before arriving in NZ at 6 am. I’m hoping to get some sleep again on the way home, and it should help me adjust to the time zones ok hopefully. I also recommend a good pair of over-ear noise-cancelling headphones to leave on the whole way and a neck pillow to help you sleep. I flew AirNZ and it was a great experience so can of course recommend them. 

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