August 6, 2021

You can walk out of St. John’s airport!

My least favourite airports are those surrounded by a sea of ramps and roads without sidewalks, whose designers obviously assumed that no pedestrian in their right mind would ever visit an airport. They seem designed for those people who struggle around the baggage claim with six suitcases piled atop a luggage cart. St. John’s airport has a beautiful sidewalk for those of us prepared to use our legs, and that’s especially good in the middle of the night in a city like St. John’s, where Uber and Lyft are absent and taxis are expensive. My plane landed at 12:30 AM (not having crashed despite being cursed by the creepy doll below) and I walked to my hotel nearby.

My tasks for today were buying fuel and food. I walked downtown to the only store that sells canister fuel, The Outfitters. I’m going to speak for all Saskatchewanians and say that when we think of St. John’s, we think of brightly painted houses squished together, and there were some of those, but suburban St. John’s looks similar to Saskatoon with its rows of spacious, pastel houses and chain businesses. The only difference is the greenery in the parks. St. John’s has evergreens that unfortunately don’t grow naturally in Saskatoon.

There’s a store downtown called ‘The Tickle Trunk’. I was recently dismayed to learn that some Americans think that ‘Tickle Trunk’ sounds dirty. How dare you!! It’s as pure as the driven snow!! And not copyrighted, apparently.