Hello! My name is Annabelle Brown, and I am an Environmental Science major. During the spring of 2024, I studied abroad in Wellington, New Zealand. It was amazing! Known for mountains that meet the sea, New Zealand provided me with the opportunity to experience an entirely new landscape while still enjoying many of the outdoor activities I love. With Sustainability as my GLI theme, I was able to explore how human activity is impacting the country’s expansive fluvial systems. Between exploring the island and broadening my education, I experienced an incredible amount of growth during my semester in New Zealand.

Turns out that moving to another country is incredibly hard! I had never lived outside of Montana, and I finally learned what it feels like to be homesick for a place and the people it holds. After struggling through a flight around the world and plenty of visa trouble, I opened the door to my empty room. The walls were stark white, my mattress lay bare on the frame, and nothing felt familiar. Exhausted, I set down my suitcases and wondered if I had made the right choice. After a few weeks and a lot of new experiences and faces, I grew to understand that the next five months would be magic.

The time I spent both alone and building friendships shaped me into a better, more equipped human being. Nothing could have prepared me for the amount of independence I was about to gain as I navigated what felt like a whole new world! Luckily, people were going through very similar situations. My new friends and I bonded as we compared who had the biggest time difference, tried new foods, and wandered around the beautiful city of Wellington.

My favorite part of going abroad was building new relationships. My friends and I traveled throughout the North and South islands of New Zealand every chance we got before visiting Australia and Japan. It was a privilege to see how other nations go about life, and I feel extremely lucky to have found such amazing people from all over the world. As my old systems of support faded away, I learned to ask questions I had always relied on others to figure out. Public transportation, once a very confusing and scary proposition, became an ally. Most importantly, I learned to not only adapt to a new situation, but thrive!

Traveling abroad was one of the scariest things I have ever done. There were tears, many days alone, and an overwhelming amount of new information. It was also undeniably one of the best, most life-changing decisions I have ever made. My white walls were soon filled with pictures, postcards, and a whole lot of love. When I flew away from the musical, beautiful, windy city of Wellington, my heart sank the same way it did when I boarded my flight out of Missoula months prior. What an incredible way to discover that home is everywhere.