Top Five Things I’ll Miss About Sydney

June 17, 2013 By roopgill in Australia, Days of my Life, Personal, Travel Tags: Australia, beach, coogee, farewell, goodbye, journalism, journalist, reflection, student, student life, study abroad, sydney, travel Leave a comment

Yesterday, I bid adieu to Sydney, hopped on a plane and scooted over to Singapore. I was struggling to finish all my uni assignments until the last minute (that’s something I won’t miss), so unsurprisingly I didn’t get a chance to fully reflect upon my amazing Aussie experience until now.

I was so busy over the last four months exploring the East Coast, meeting the most amazing people, sun bathing, kangaroo-spotting (but in vain) and attempting to become a better journalist, that I may have skipped on actively counting my blessings, so here we go: the Top Five Things I’ll Miss About Sydney list (in no particular order).

Access to the beach

Not that I strongly believe in the Zodiac, but being a water sign must explain my affinity for wanting to wade in open waters despite being an average (read: comical) swimmer. [PS: Remember this?] While Canadian lakes will always be my first love, it was joyous having the beach at your doorstep. I lived at Coogee Beach, which in my very biased opinion is the best beach among the Eastern suburbs, but IF one ever gets bored of Coogee, then there are so many other beaches and bays to bathe in. Read about my favourite ones here. Continue reading →

Exploring Coogee Beach

March 11, 2013 By roopgill in Australia, Days of my Life, Travel Tags: Australia, beach, bondi, coogee, coogee bondi walk, student, sunshine, sydney, travel Leave a comment

“Home” has become a very arbitrary concept for me. Last month my home was in Aarhus, now it’s in Sydney, and very soon I’ll be going home to India. Meanwhile, a case can be made that my real home is in Toronto. Exploring this dilemma is just a little bit less interesting than exploring my new neighbourhood of Coogee Beach a.k.a. my current home.

My friends (and now flatmates) scored us this awesome top-floor apartment overlooking the Coogee Beach and walking distance from the aforementioned beach, several trendy cafes and restaurants, cool bars and entertainment venues. Naturally, a cityscape explorer like myself was thrilled to have so many exciting options at my doorstep.

Over the last week, I have split my time between attending classes in the middle of the city, and enjoying the laid back lifestyle of the beach suburbs. Check out some photos of this cool blue, trendy neighbourhood that I am so happy to call my home.

: The Frenchie and I have migrated from cold Aarhus to sunny Sydney, but we have maintained our tradition of trying out cool-looking restos.

: On the walk from our home to the beach, is this red-brick church that highlights the Coogee skyline

: That’s me! Just posing next to some cool art on top of the Coogee Cliffs

: A tourist explores the beautiful Coogee seaside

: I embarked on a 5 km walk from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach and was in awe of all the picture-perfect scenery

: Boats on the walk from Coogee to Bondi Beach

: More boats on the walk from Coogee to Bondi Beach

: The walk from Coogee to Bondi can be a bit of a challenge, so staying hydrated is important. *sip sip*

: Rashida, my tour-guide for the Coogee-Bondi walk, takes a break at one of her favourite spots on this path.

Settling down in Sydney

March 6, 2013 By roopgill in Australia, Days of my Life, Travel Tags: Aussie, Australia, beach, coogee, journalism, nomad, slang, student, student life, sydney, travel, UTS 3 Comments

I have become a true nomad. After I arrived in Sydney last Thursday, it took me less than 24 hours to get a phone plan, understand public transit, attend a lecture at my university, and also manage to check out the Sydney Opera House. Sleeping for most part of my 22-hour journey helped me adapt to the new timezone, so when I got to Australia I was already in full “time-to-re-settle” mode. My new roommates seem to have just given up hope that jet lag will eventually take me down and I’ll stop being a whirlwind of an explorer, but I don’t think it’s me; it’s Sydney! This city has so much life, energy and enthusiasm that an extrovert like me can’t help but feed off it.

I have been here for a week and I must admit, I feel quite at home. I am living in the beach neighbourhood of Coogee with awesome roommates (sorry, flatmates) who pick me up from the airport and build me IKEA furniture. Our apartment is at top of a hill and the view is just stunning. Check it out:

Continue reading →

The Last Danish Chapter

February 18, 2013 By roopgill in Days of my Life, Denmark, Personal Tags: aarhus, danish, denmark, friends, goodbye, living abroad, nostalgia, student, sydney, travel, university 5 Comments

Goodbyes are never easy, especially when you are leaving behind an exciting country where you have countless memories with a lot of interesting people. (However, the pain can be eased with the knowledge that I am trading the cold Danish climate for a beachside apartment in Sydney.)

While I have been somewhat diligent in blogging about my travels within Europe, I haven’t written much about my day-to-day life here in Aarhus, Denmark. However, I have been reporting From the Field for Verge: Travel with Purpose magazine as a guest blogger. Over the last six months, I have written about how I adapted to a small city, my struggles with the language, getting used to a new (and weird) grading system, and more recently my biking adventures. If you haven’t checked them out already, here are my favourite articles that are worth a click:

Falling in love with Aarhus

I ditched the big city exchange experience and ended up in Denmark biggest village. One can bike across this city in less than 20 minutes. In December I wrote, “Naturally, I had my inhibitions when moving to Aarhus. Most people are nervous about moving to a bigger city, but I was really worried about moving to a smaller city. There is something about rush hour traffic, packed TTC subways and perpetually angry nine-to-fivers that makes me feel at home.”

How did I learn to love Aarhus? Find out! Continue reading →

God Jul: Christmas spirit in Scandinavia

December 6, 2012 By roopgill in Days of my Life, Denmark, Personal Tags: aarhus, christmas, denmark, god jul, gothenburg, holiday, holidays, sweden, travel, winter 4 Comments

Living in Canada, this is what I used to associate Christmas with: vacation pay, boxing day, Home Alone marathons, and postcards from friends. If you haven’t been raised celebrating Christmas, it’s pretty easy to escape the holiday fever in Toronto (except when I worked in retail and Christmas carols were even playing in my nightmares).

But, not in Scandinavia. You can try to be the Grinch, but the Christmas spirit will make its way into your home and heart.

Denmark kicks off the God Jul celebrations with J-day on the first weekend of November by launching the annual Christmas beer. It’s a strong brew that’s modelled on a luxury beer. I am not surprised to see that the launch of a beer is a national event in Denmark – bars are brimming, trucks are distributing free beer and swag on the busy streets, and everyone is having a jolly good time to get the mood for God Jul.

Soon after the that, the Christmas lights start popping up and just last weekend, Aarhus’s official Christmas tree made its debut outside of City Hall.

Here’s how my friends and I have been getting in the festive spirit over the last month: Continue reading →

Befriending our bikes

November 2, 2012 By roopgill in Days of my Life, Denmark, Video Tags: aarhus, aarhus university, bicycle, bike, denmark, international students, travel, video 1 Comment

One of the first things I did when I moved to Aarhus, Denmark was get myself a bike. For the first few days of school, I’d bike alone (read: I’d walk my bike uphill and pedal some of the way) and then eventually my housemates got themselves adorable bicycles too. Thus, started a quest to find bike lights, baskets, fix tires, find seat covers and familiarize ourselves with the best routes. It took some time, but we slowly became really good friends with our bikes (and each other).

Here is a glimpse of one of our mornings as we set off to enjoy Aarhus (or go to school, more likely).

Featuring my pro biker babes: Fanny (France), Sonja (Serbia) and Nina (Canada? Germany? Malawi? I don’t even know!)

Vegetarian in Europe

October 23, 2012 By roopgill in Days of my Life, Personal Tags: aarhus, denmark, europe, food, vegetarian, veggie Leave a comment

Oh boy! Post-graduation is hard.

Essays and presentations every week are part of the reason I haven’t been able to post anything this month. While I do intend on blogging more religiously in the coming weeks, here is something else I’d like to share in the meantime.

I started a new blog called Vegetarian In Europe, because I am a a vegetarian in Europe! So check that out, bookmark it if you like and stay tuned for more European updates, food and travel.

Hej fra Danmark

September 6, 2012 By roopgill in Days of my Life, Denmark Tags: aarhus university, denmark, erasmus mundus, living abroad, masters, student, student house, study abroad, travel 5 Comments

Directly translated, that means “Hello from Denmark”

If you are my Facebook friend and/or have been following me on Twitter, you will know that I have left my beloved Toronto behind and moved to Aarhus, Denmark, to start my Masters degree. I am getting my MA in Journalism, Media & Globalization with a specialization in Business & Finance Journalism. This course is one of the Erasmus Mundus programs and is taught over two years. I’ll be spending the first year in Aarhus, Denmark and moving to one of my favourite cities, London, for my specialism year. Some of my other classmates will be specializing in different fields of interest: war and conflict (Swansea), EU politics (Amsterdam) and reporting on cultures (Hamburg).

My program

At last count, there are 45 nationalities that make up this program. You are probably wondering, “That sounds just like a Toronto classroom.” Well… that’s sort of correct. I loved living and studying in Toronto because of the diverse backgrounds students came from.

But, my masters is going to be a very diverse Toronto classroom on steroids.

At least everyone in Toronto was Canadian. While, they represented a plethora of cultures and values, the Canadian identity resonated throughout the class.

Now, I have the important job of representing Canadian ideas and values in group discussions at the masters level. I share this responsibility with three other Canadian ladies (one of them from Ryerson!) who are also in the program.

My first official lecture is tomorrow, but from the two days of introductions and orientations we have been having, I can safely say this: my program is going to be challenging, demanding, but also really interesting. Continue reading →

T24 Project: Screening

March 9, 2012 By roopgill in Days of my Life, Journalism, Personal Tags: coffee, films, Short films, T 24 project, t 24 project 2012, t-24, t24projet2012, toronto, toronto youth short film festival, Wake Up, young filmmakers 3 Comments

I ended my first blog post about the T24 Project experience by inviting you all to the film screening of Wake Up so we could garner some votes to win the Audience Choice Award (since we were out of running for the Visual Thesis Award for being two minutes late). Turns out that if one or two of you folks came (big THANKS to those who did, by the way!) we probably would have won Audience Choice: we were the runner-ups while a very deserving team took home the award. Like us, the film Metro also couldn’t compete for the Visual Thesis Award and the filmmakers were first-time participants.

Win or lose, at the end of the day, the point of this was to challenge ourselves, make a film and be proud of it. Cherry on top: the film was actually very well received.

Blogger Alfonso Espina ranked Wake Up number 3 in his top five picks for the challenge and said: “With visually compelling cinematography and images on-screen, guided by an eloquent narrator, Wake Up successfully encourages the viewer to think about how they define the city.” Thanks Alfonso!

FilmArmy‘s Addison Wylie recapped the T24 screening in a video blog and said, “… that personal connection can be found in Wake Up. By using coffee to find similarities between it and a cityscape, was just something we could easily connect to. It’s an everyday element that we could instantly connect to and follow along with the story.” He also said that our film was “technically well made.” Thanks Addison! Continue reading →

T-24 Project: Production

February 22, 2012 By roopgill in Days of my Life, Journalism, Personal Tags: Amanda Cupido, Angie Torres, canon, film making, film students, Films Toronto, jean-francois taylor, nikon, Short films, T 24 project, t-24, T24 project, toronto, Toronto coffee culture, Toronto Youth, Wake Up 3 Comments

For better or for worse, my travel blog is turning into an autobiographical documentation of my encounters with film making. However, the last project I participated in (or the result of it) can easily classify as a travel log for visitors to Toronto. And coffee drinkers too.

Angie Torres, Jean-Francois Taylor, Amanda Cupido [all fellow J-school graduates] and I participated in the T-24 project hosted by Toronto Youth Shorts Film Festival. At 7 pm on a snowy Friday evening we were given a question. We had 24 hours to make a film that answered that question and hand it in at 7 pm on Saturday.

What was the question? Well here’s a stab at answering that:

As soon as the question was handed out to the participants, they all ran out into the Toronto blizzard… except us. We huddled around a coffee table in Innis Hall and re-read the question. This time, however, it made much more sense. Continue reading →

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