The Novice Backpacker: Day 8.

Nashville baby!! Welcome to the south! May god bless you and all your children!

Well I was almost sure I wouldn't like The South, not because it has nothing to offer or because of the people but just because it had never seemed like my sort of place. I LITERALLY could not have been more wrong! The people, the streets, the bars, THE BEERS! It's all just absolutely amazing! It's strange because it's exactly how you expect it yet nothing like what you expect? I know that makes no sense, maybes it's more exactly how I expect but has a lot more to offer than it's appearance?

Our day was basically going to consist of driving, driving and a bit more driving. 7 and a half hours in total covering 410 miles across Virginia state. So I'm not really going to bore you with that.

Skipping over 7 hours, we were in Nashville, Tennessee. It was good to be back in a bustling city I must say, Washington was a lot quieter than I thought it would be for a capital. We pulled up into the campsite to ditch the trailer, set up and head out. We were staying at Yogi Bear Jelly Stone... (Yeah, I had the same thoughts) If I'm next to a load of frickin kids I will NOT be happy. I did not come on this trip to be bothered by kids! Well luckily we weren't! We had a really cute site actually, it was next to a dog park over looking a field (which actually had a family of deer in! A little Bambi!) and right near the shower rooms! Could not complain.

By now we're absolute pro's with tent construction, I'm a professional camper!! So setting up it's getting quicker and quicker which is good because we get more time in our stops! We are doing 2 trips into Nashville tonight, we're having a drive by tour courtesy of Becca, spending a little bit of time walking around. We are then going back in for the rest of night to get a bit of night life in us! So, as I said before, I didn't have many expectation for Nashville, but after we got off the bus and started walking the streets, WOW! The buildings are old red brick buildings, amazing graffiti pieces on the walls which just pop up from no where. What was odd, is considering how different they are, it reminded me of New York, the contrast between the old buildings with graffiti and the modern sky scrapers towering up from behind. We ventured onto Broadway which is the Main Street in Nashville for bars. It's a street full of neon signs, brights colours, cow boy bars, boot shops and real life cow boys!! It could literally be taken right from a movie! All I could do is picture how beautiful it would be at night, Nashville was beginning to pull at my heart strings...

(We found this guys just jamming away on the university campus)

So we wandered round a few tack shops which isn't tack at all, they're full of hilarious bumper stickers and sassy badges. If there was ever a shop that I would own, it's a sassy badge and bumper sticker shop!!

We had about an hour to wander the streets of Nashville, I'm not actually sure what is in Nashville apart from the Johnny Cash museum and Broadway (know as SoBro, South Broadway! Frickin love it!!) but I wish I had researched it more because I was really starting to love it! Walking back to the bus, we both felt unsure on the people of Nashville, they have a reputation of being such warm and welcoming people but we just got odd vibes... There wasn't a single person who was rude or anything it was just a strange feeling... (I was totally wrong FYI you'll find out later) DINNER TIME! But we had to go get some actual food first. We dropped in at Kroger (it's not a patch on target or Walmart) while dashing about for tonight's food, I saw the most heavenly sight ever. Minute Maid Lemonade in cans!! My delicious lemonade!!! And it was $5 for 12 cans!? It's just crazy!

We headed back to Nashville about 9:30, freshly showered and changed we were all in the mood for a good southern drink! We turned onto Broadway and it looked like a totally different street to the one we had seen only a few hours previously, everything was lit up - the signs, the streets, the pubs. The whole street was alive and buzzing, the people on the streets had doubled the pubs had opened all their doors and windows so the sound from the live country bands spilled onto the streets and the big bright neon signs all flashed and flickered the full length of the street.

We started at Honky Tonk which is spread over 4 floors and has a live band on each!? And on the top was a level surrounded with French doors and balconies so you got the blast of cool from the bar and the warm air from outside, perfect with a Coors Light! We sipped our beers and listening to the band for a while, they have a fantastic way of interacting with the crowd, throughout the night, the music would stop and the band would ask everyone to raise their drinks, holla at the top of their lungs then taking a good swig!! It was amazing!! It pumped up the crowd so much! There was also these three men who walked in - big, burly, macho menly men (the type that look like they would not dance even on their wedding day) WELL! Clearly their jam came on because they shook their fanny packs like it was the last thing they'd do! One even grabbed one of the girls from our group and span her around the dance floor! Brilliant! While another guy at the bar started talking to us about drinks and what he suggests and wished us a great night, I was so wrong at the Nashville folk!

The next bar we went to was Second Fiddle, and in no way was it second fiddle to the first bar. It was much smaller than the first but it was packed with energy, the live band were an eclectic group of people (oh by the way, in the UK the only bands you would see in a city would be young, not in Nashville! They're all 40+ and still rock the shit out!) who, I found out, don't get paid to perform there. They work solely off of the tips they earn. It was a $20 request for a song which I thought was pretty steep, but there was no shortage in Americans filling the jar up with requests. One guy paid his $20 and asked if he could get up and perform! And he was really good! After a couple more Coors Light (even the menly men drink light beer in the South! #watchingthewaistline) we headed to the 3rd bar that was actually recommended to us by Becca, it was called Tootsies. We couldn't leave before getting a photo with the bouncer on the front door who we'd seen when we walked in... He was totally a cow boy! I mean he was wearing a cow boy hat and being totally serious with it! I LOVED HIM!!! The Cow Boy also got a bit of a shock when we asked for a photo, as no American can understand us for some reason, as he misunderstood what we were asking for and thought we said 4some!?!? Jees! Buy a girl a drink first!

Tootsies is also spread over a few floors, now we're in Nashville, it's crazy hot still, we're clearly going to take advantage of the rooftop bar, so we headed straight up the set of stairs right to the top floor. The top floor had a stage at one end, a huge bar that ran the entire length of the room and a huge terrace at the other end scattered with people all drinking against the backdrop of the modern high rises in the background, pretty beautiful... We grabbed some Buds and took a seat. From the roof you could hear the band from the stage, the noise of the crowd and the bustling noise from the streets below. We pretty much just sat, listened to amazing music and drank Bud for the whole night... Ironically the last song before leaving was called 'Drunk on a plane'... Fitting for us considering out Amarula addiction on planes!