West End

I took a stroll in the West End after dinner the other night.  

I felt like I was somewhere else, maybe a small town in North Dakota, it was that peaceful and quiet.

And the shops didn't seem like ordinary St. Paul shops.

But it also seemed like a neighborhood in Chicago, with the Catholic Church at the core.

Children were practicing their bike riding skills in the big asphalt playground and a woman was digging up hostas in her garden.  I could almost hear the children running out of the school at the end of the day, but the church school is now a charter school.

There are some funky looking places too.

But the only hipsters in sight were on the birthday card my son made for me.