Read Part 2 of the interview here. Follow Roop and her adventures at www.roopgill.com.

Getting to Know Me

Name: Roop Gill
Current City: London,UK
Age: 23
Personal Travel Quote: “The best is yet to come.”
Cities you have lived: Addis Ababa, Toronto, Sydney, Singapore, and Aarhus (Denmark).

Can you tell us what motivated you to live abroad?
When I was growing up, my parents moved around a couple of times. The most drastic and adventurous of those was when my Dad got a job in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and we made our way to Africa. While my Dad was working for the private sector, most of his friends were government diplomats who had been country-hopping for years. Their kids (a.k.a. my friends) had collectibles and toys from South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Europe. I was envious. I wanted their life.

So, at the tender age of 8 I decided that I was going to chase after my wanderlust and make that my lifestyle.

When you told your family and friends you were moving, what was their initial reaction?
I started saving up my minimum-wage salary in my late-teens and as soon as I turned 18, I went on my first solo, parent-less adventure to volunteer in Guatemala. Since then, every year I have tried to go on at least two trips abroad. However, instead of cooling down my travel bug, it just aggravated it. After finishing my undergrad and working for a year, the next natural step felt like moving abroad to gain some international experience. So, when I found a post-graduate program in Europe, applied, got in and decided to move, I feel like no one was surprised.

What were your first thoughts/emotions when you landed abroad for the first time?
I had travelled heaps before I started university in Aarhus, Denmark, so I thought I was prepared for what was to come. For the most part, I was doing ok: I discovered (the lack of) my culinary skills, I became a pro at grocery shopping in Danish stores, my mathematical skills were improving with all the time-difference calculations I had to do on a daily basis. It was all going great until I had a bad day. That’s when I realized the main difference between travelling and living abroad is that you aren’t going back next week or even next month. You’re stuck there and you have to focus on the positives to make it work.

Was it easy to find housing in the various cities you have lived and what is the average cost of rentals in each of those cities?
I am not entirely sure how this happened, but I have managed to live in some of the most expensive cities/countries in the world: Sydney, Singapore and London. Housing is not cheap or abundant in these places. I lucked out in Sydney because a good friend of mine living there had a spare room in his apartment. I spent hours trolling through room rental websites on the Internet to find something for Singapore and London. The added challenge is that you don’t feel comfortable signing a contract without having seen the place. There have been hits and misses but the best way find accommodation is this self-devised formula:

– Find out which part of the city you want to live in (consider proximity to work/school)
– Decide if you want to live by yourself or with flatmates
– Sign up on room-sharing websites and put effort into sprucing up your profile
– Send as many requests as you can because the response rate isn’t very high
– From the responses that you do get, pick and choose which two or three you are most interested in. Talk to owners/landlords/flatmates to decide what is the best fit for you.

Average cost of rentals in Sydney and Singapore is $1,000/month, and in London it is $1,000-$1,500/month depending on the location.

Of all of the places you have lived (apart from Toronto), which one is the most special for you and why?
I absolutely love Sydney! I can see myself living there for good…but then I remember how far it is from rest of the world.

From the moment I landed, I felt at home in Sydney. It’s like Toronto, but bigger and with gorgeous beaches. It’s a multicultural big city with a thriving arts and culture scene. The transit isn’t the best but it’s not as bad as the TTC. The café culture is vibrant, a big consideration for a caffeine addict like myself. And then there is the Opera House!

I woke up happy and went to bed content in Sydney. If you are having an odd bad day, just get out of bed and look at the natural beauty of Sydney beaches and you’ll be in a better mood.

Was there a place that was your least favorite, most disappointing or most challenging to either live or visit?
I want to preface this by saying that every city has a unique character that some people will love and others will hate. I always try to appreciate a new city and discover the best qualities it has to offer (for me!)

Singapore is a vibrant, busy and charming city-state, but I felt that I didn’t fit in with its go-getter lifestyle. Singaporeans are extremely hard-working people, but coming from a North American culture that puts a lot of emphasis on work-life balance, I couldn’t embrace their way of living.

What are some of the positives and negatives of living abroad? Was it easy to make friends?
I am an extremely out-going person and like to believe that it’s easy for me to make friends. I’ve always managed to find a solid group of people to talk politics with or go bar hopping. However, after about a year of living abroad, I felt like I was becoming a little tired of making small talk. I really wanted to be around my childhood friends who knew me as more than just ‘the Canadian girl doing her masters abroad’. Lucky for me, those friends are only a Skype call away!

Read more about Roop in Part 2 of her interview!

*Photo Credit – Roop Gill.