Day 16 - Memphis

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Attempted to go to Denny's for our free brekkie..... It took them half an hour to take our order.. and we had to be at the bus another 10 mins after that so when our food didn't come we just gave up and went without... So angry and shattered too..
Ran to the bus, we were on our way to Graceland! Elvis's mansion was amazing and very pretty. You're not allowed to go upstairs because even when alive he didn't wish to bring visitors upstairs.. So they've respected his wishes and noone goes up there.
Also around the side of the house, is the graves of Elvis and his family. Quite surreal.
Also went and had a look at the Heartbreak Hotel.. nothing too exciting though..
Went to the site of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination, the Lorraine Hotel. Also very surreal.. It's all set up the way it was from that day - with the cars out the front and everything... It just kinda looks like a movie set. Not real.
There's also a woman who protests out the front of the site, named Jacqueline Smith, and on the day we saw her, she had been protesting everyday for 21 years and 201 days... That's correct - longer than I've been alive! She basically is protesting again the memorials for MLK, and thinks that's going against the dream he spent so long trying to make a reality. She thinks the money they've spent and raised for all the memorials could be put to better use, in schools and hospitals etc.
We then went to and did a tour of the famous Sun Studios, which was really interesting. This is where dreams became reality for the likes of Elvis and Johnny Cash. Many people have and still do record in the studio, even artists as big as U2. You can also pay to record your own song and have it put on cd, though that's more of a karaoke type thing. We also had our photos taken with the mic Elvis used to record his very first song there.
A few of us then walked back into the main part of town, about a half hour walk. LV, Mich and I had lunch at Huey's. Quite cool there - they let you write on the walls, so we did!
Went back to the hotel and had a bit of a nap, then got ready and went to a place called Alfred's for dinner. They had a jazz orchestra playing, MJO - Memphis Jazz Orchestra.
After that we headed back to the hotel, we weren't up for a big night - but later head stories about how the others ended up doing karaoke at Alfred's which sounded pretty funny.
There was a decent sized group of us that just ended up sitting in the hotel, in the corridors. Somehow, even tho we were inside, a lot of us managed to get bitten by mozzies.... Though I was one of the lucky ones who didn't! =P

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