By: Samuel Daley

As a History major studying in England, I found my exchange to Lancaster University incredibly fascinating. Just walking around the streets and seeing the cobblestones that several million people had walked before me was astounding. The castles and churches dotted all over, from the infamous locations like Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, to the less famous buildings in small towns like Calne and Lancaster, caught my attention. These places that have stood for hundreds, if not thousands of years are everything I imagined them to be, dusty and somewhat unimpressive to look at. But it isn’t what the buildings look like that’s important, it’s the significance, the culture, the lives and souls that had been within the walls before. I might not necessarily have time to study the thousands of names on the graves, or the brain capacity to remember the significance of them, but I’m glad to be here.

It’s not all history trips and dusty buildings though. Life on the other side of the world is massively different, to nobody’s surprise, but I believe I adjusted well. Mentally adjusting the prices of food and bought goods from Great British Pounds to New Zealand Dollars is exhausting, but I got the hang of it eventually. I can now safely say that the prices aren’t different, and in fact may be worse over here. With over 10 times NZ’s population on what can only be at most double the landmass, I’m not surprised. Student life is about the same too; students go out to drink at every chance they get, and we buy takeaways almost every other night because who wants to use the perfectly good food in the fridge to eat when Sultans of Lancaster is right there? Yes, shoutout to by far the greatest place to eat on campus, I wish they’d make an establishment here in New Zealand.

The food in England was honestly as terrible as the jokes suggest, unless you know where to look. The foreign cuisine all across England was always spectacular, and the chain takeaways like Burger King or KFC tended to rank as our least favourite. If you think Maccas in NZ is bad, wait until you try the English version. Traditional English food was available, and if you knew where to look, you’ll find it’s pretty good; fish and chips at the local Chipee was often a good feed, and pub grub was something that I wished I was rich enough to partake in.

While going on exchange was potentially one of the coolest things I’ve ever done, it certainly had its catches. For a start, you forget you’re studying. Classes still happen (even if they’re after the sun has set at 3PM, yes, that feels as unnatural as it sounds) and you can’t just run away to London during the week the classes are explaining what to do for your essays, like I did. Your student fees rack up after a while; I often caught myself saying to the other students living with me “Man, I think I should’ve saved this money for a holiday.”

Looking back on it now though, I can safely assure everybody that it’s definitely worth the experience. While I had to come home for personal reasons and fumble around to get my exams changed to essays, I will always advise anybody who asks to go on exchange. I met some amazing people who I would totally go and visit (once my bank account recovers). I saw some amazing things and had terrific experiences that will stick with me. Something about going on exchange proved to me that I am capable of more than I ever believed. I can save an obscene amount of money in ten months, I can feed two people on a budget of $100 per week, I can survive only calling my mother for two hours once a week, I can do it, and that was potentially the greatest lesson I learned.