I lived in Aotearoa (New Zealand), “Land of the Long White Cloud" with my family for three months (February, March, April) of 2026. There is no simple way to summarize my experience—it was emotionally intense, visually stunning, intellectually stimulating, and physically challenging. In looking back through my dream journal from that time a couple major themes jumped out—the second being travel, transition, and navigating the spaces between.

I lived in Aotearoa (New Zealand), “Land of the Long White Cloud" with my family for three months (February, March, April) of 2026. There is no simple way to summarize my experience—it was emotionally intense, visually stunning, intellectually stimulating, and physically challenging. In looking back through my dream journal from that time a couple major themes jumped out—the first being cross-culture interaction and working through my feelings of being a White person of privilege in a country with a complicated history of British colonization beginning in the 18th century. The Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of Aotearoa who arrived in the 13th century.