[ConundrumNL]

My other posters have covered things pretty well, but I will mention a couple things.

The St. John's area has three primary Big Box Centres: Kelsey Drive (located a 5-10 minute drive from the Avalon Mall), Stavanger Drive (located at the edge of the city, near the airport), and another located in the neighbouring city of Mount Pearl. They all have the Canadian Big Box standards (Wal-Mart, Staples, etc..), Stavanger Drive is the largest and contains the city's only Costco, and Target. All the centres are located on bus routes.

The Avalon Mall and the Village are St. John's primary malls: The Avalon Mall is the largest in NL, contains a fairly good selection of stores and the areas main cinema. The Village is much smaller, but contains the city's only Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Labels, and Rossy. Both malls act as transfer points for buses, so getting to them won't be difficult.

The two main Supermarket chains here are Sobeys and Dominion (Loblaws), local chain Colemans also has a couple stores in the area. If your daughter is staying in area around the university, I think the closest would either be the Sobeys on Kelsey Drive or the one located at the edge of the Rabbittown neighbourhood across from the Rooms.

If your daughter is going to have a car, I recommend picking up a decent sat-nav system. St. John's has a very organic street pattern, and compass points are of no real help. Traffic in the city isn't really that bad, however in my experience drivers in St. John's tend to have far less patience, and drive more offensively then in mainland cities.