See you again St. John

This past weekend found us in St. John, NB, a city I don’t think I have ever visited but may have driven to when I would have been too young to realize where I was.

We were there for Camrens swimming meet, his first off-Island meet and the largest since COVID turned kids lives upside down.

The uptown is full of wonderful architecture with intricate detail and I loved the sturdy old brick homes. At the same time there was a certain edge to the place, which might be due to it’s current and past industrial activities, but also the poverty that was evident for all to see. The uptown suffers from the same fate as Charlottetown, as it’s extremely quiet, with few locals about, as most prefer to live in the outer edges and shop and eat at the soulless big box stores. It’s a shame that it is only tourists who appreciate an interesting downtown.

St. John is home to not only Crosby Molasses, but also a couple fine coffee roasters, which I will get to brew over the coming week. Drinking copious amounts of coffee there re-affirms to me just how lucky we are to have The Shed. There is no comparison.

We are looking forward to going back to St. John in the first week of May for Canada Games trials, and we’ve already booked an AirBnB for that period. The hotel’s in Saint John look like they haven’t had much in the way of investment for 20 years, and at least in the place we stayed, it shows.