Day 6 - UNB Fredericton

Hey friends, today we made it to the Atlantic region to the wonderful province of New Brunswick. As we started started to enter the province, the sky was starting to clear, the signs were starting to be in English again, and very suitably "Barrett's Privateers" started playing on my playlist, so it was a great start to the day. The drive through New Brunswick on our way to Fredericton was very scenic, we drove through the mountains and around some beautiful parts of the country that I've never seen before. An added bonus to this was that the speed limits were higher here than I've ever driven in, which felt even more liberating! One interesting thing that happened was that as we were driving, we entered a new time zone and were an hour ahead of Quebec and Ontario; I've flown to different time zones but have never driven between time zones, so that was pretty cool. While on the Trans Canada Highway, we saw signs for the Grand Falls, so we decided to stop by for a bit and see the falls. Turns out that the overall volume of water at these falls was 9/10 the water of Niagara falls, so it was a neat stop to go to.

After a roughly 6 hour drive from Quebec City, we final made it to Fredericton, and it's such a beautiful city. Have been in the capital cities of both Ontario and Quebec, this was definitely a vastly different experience. We made our way to the University of New Brunswick - Fredericton Campus, and was again astonished at how large the campus is. It's situated on a mountain, so the view was amazing, and it was a bit of an exercise making our way around the campus. We finally made it to Head Hall, the main Engineering building, and walked around until we made it to the EUS office (which was closed because it's a Saturday, plus it's summer so no one was around). Fun fact: UNB is the oldest English speaking university in Canada, opening it's doors in 1785. For the completionists out there, the oldest university in Canada is Laval, which started in 1663. Because it was a beautiful day today, and because of the overall beauty of the UNB campus, I can very easily say that my day at UNB was a blast!

After leaving UNB, we met up with the person who was generous enough to give us a place to crash for the night, Mitch Dionne. This was my first time meeting Mitch, he's a former VPX at UNB but graduated 2 years ago. When I was looking for a place to stay, my friend Laura Wishart was kind enough to ask around for me, and Mitch was kind enough to offer. We dropped some stuff off and he pointed out some things for us to go see in Fredericton. Because of all the flooding that happened over the past while, a lot of places were closed, but we actually went to go see some of those places and it was fascinating. There was a parking lot completely under water, with only the handicap signs sticking out of the water. There was even an entrance to a highway that was flooded, so it was cool to see because this isn't an everyday occurrence in Southern Ontario. We then went down to a restaurant in DT Fredericton called Dimitri's, which is apparently a Fredericton staple, and had some pretty good Greek food. We then went back to Mitch's apartment and chatted for a few hours, Mitch was a wonderful host.

One thing that I still cannot get over is how kind and gracious everyone has been to me thus far on my trip. So many people have gone out of their way for me, and it's just been wonderful. Tomorrow we hit the road with the goal of making it to Saint John and Moncton, so we'll hopefully get to see a good chunk of New Brunswick when it's all said and done!

UNB Fredericton: www.instagram.com/p/BiasjVZlQpU