More stetsons than I can shake a banjo at (Tennessee part I)

PDX-DEN-BNA-MIA-LHR

(if nothing else, this year has supplied me with enough airport abbreviation codes to be potentially useful on a pub quiz team)
More pre-Christmas American shenanigans for y'all.
7 days. 2(ish) cities.
Tennessee whiskyed me.

Here are all the pretty pictures:
click

Olivia and I went venturing to the mystical south. 3 days in Nashville followed by a 3 day adventure to the real rural East Tennessee - what would a trip to Tennessee be without a visit to Dollywood?

Rather than give y'all the ins and outs (because what would we have to talk about?/ As a rather overdramatic storyteller you'd be scrolling along forever wondering when you've been a good enough friend to stop reading/ I really could talk about this forever) of this magic trip, I'm going to hit you with concision and precision. BAM. A whole new me.
So here's the abridged version (hopefully)


NASHVILLE

- So if you've been living under a rock and missed hearing about the insane amounts of crazy crazy snow America had just before Christmas, we were trying to travel  through it. Around it. Over it. Luckily the only drama getting there was O's 3 hour delay which left me at Nashville airport rocking on a rocking chair in baggage claim, snooping on all the stetson wearing, guitar case holding cowboys (and boyyyyyyyy was I not disappointed). Sadly all these musiciany types made me pretending to huddle over my journal, doodling, in the hope that I was looking all writerly and might be mistaken for some sort of cool artsy lyricist and be swept off into the magical land of Nashville by some producer or other. Sadly, all that did happen was me dribbling chai all over the page when I accidentally made eye contact with one, said, musiciany looking guy and the brain, motor function dichotomy was temporarily disconnecting... smooth...  This fabulous incident was then beautifully followed by Hottie Mchothot at the hostel check-in desk. So distractingly hot, it made Olivia lose her ipod. I left my laptop in an elevator.
I need to learn to be a  real human being.

- First night, eyes glinting with that fluorescent delight in the tourist mecca that is broadway. Even on a Saturday night (being December and all) it was surprisingly quiet. A much more chill experience than coming at peak times if you ask me! But still, 'quiet' in Nashville doesn't really mean much - music spilling out of every doorway, lights strumming neon banjo signs, and more stetsons than every Western I've ever seen put together. We had to hit a grand ole opry show at the Ryman (not because I'd been watching ABC's Nashville avidly or anything...) and holy smokes (as O would say), Miss Clare Bowen happened to be performing. Done. Trip already made on night one.











- Cowboy boot shopping. Worst. Vegetarian. Ever
< But look how preettyy. Don't ask me how much. I'm refusing to look at my bank a/c. I blame the stupid plaid-shirted beardy guys calling me maa'am and lifting their Stetsons before holding doors open for me. I wasn't behaving rationally. But I must say, Southern hospitality, not going to complain...

 - We wandered. We took photos. Fell in love with a lush little coffee shop. Hit the Johnny Cash museum, the Frist gallery, Hatch Show Print. Wangled free breakfasts. Forgot to ask for hot tea and ended uo drinking more sweet iced tea than I'd've preferred in December. Toured the Ryman (narrowly missing making a cameo in the next season of Nashville) and had dinner at little Jazz bars. Oh sweet lord the food. Saweeeet potatoe fries. Enough said. Followed up with a peach whisky chaser (I was in the south y'all) and southern comfort hurricanes (I was in the mood for cliches) at a blues bar on printer's alley that the two girls in our hostel room recommended (which we returned to enough afterwards to call 'our spot')

- oh TheBluebirdTheBluebirdTheBluebird. A few weeks before I braved a 6am early morning in order to reserve a table. Dedication. So so worth it. We went back. Twice. They stage open mic writer's nights for song lyricists to showcase their original works as well as showcasing established writers and musicians. So naturally, we had to see a night of each. Both were spectacular. Crammed in on tables with strangers, the whole room literally stacked human-jenga-esque, even off-peak this place is a guaranteed sell out. My obsessive compulsive googling pre-coming worked in our favour and we arrived 2 hours before opening to queue and got chatting to a lovely song writer jess who was showcasing her work that night. Eager to chat, she shared her 'living out of my car', trying to make it in Nashville story. She writes a blog. I'm yet to find it :( before offering us a ride back to the hostel (thank god because The Bluebird is tucked away near a bunch of strip malls on the outskirts of Nashville.) Now with BRIT having instilled ridiculously high expectations of theatre/music/performancey things I'm a pretty ruthless critic but my God she was easily the best of the night. This more than made up for the shit we had to endure at another open mic night at a 24 hour greasy spoon. Yeah, we should've known better...

- On a side note YES, IT'S A REAL FREAKING PLACE. If anyone can enlighten me as to why the film is set in NYC not Nashville though... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200550/

in a cassette tape and record shop naturally

I don't know what it was the hooked me about Nashville. Maybe it was seeing others chase smoke that reminded me why I write. Maybe it was because I had so little preconceptions (stetsons, banjos and cowgirl boots aside) and a stressful end of semester run up (that had a dorm mate walk in on me having scooped out my shoes and writing essays with a lamp squished in the bottom of my closet...). I don't know. But I left with a heck of a lot more than I arrived with.

TBC.