All singing, all dancing...

---

The next morning was spent hurriedly trying to get all of my things packed and then heading into the airport. I was in the new terminal, which is apparently, very exciting. I got there very early and had to unfortunately pay to check my suitcase, something I didn’t know beforehand. I got all of that sorted and had my boarding card printed and ready with a long time to go so sat and waited to say goodbye, which we did with a decent amount of time to spare. I went through the expert traveller security gate which is supposed to be for people who travel every few weeks, but I reckoned that I had been travelling long enough that I counted as an expert anyway. Which it turns out I was but I also couldn’t see the difference with the other security line. I went straight to my gate and waited to be called through, I was only there for about fifteen minutes and then got onto my hour and a half long flight to Atlanta. The flight was pretty uneventful and I was sitting next to a girl who was about the same age as myself. She was reading and taking notes so I assume she was still in college, and other than asking to borrow a pen we barely said a word to each other throughout the whole flight. We were given a drink and a bag of peanuts about half way through which were quickly recollected and then we were ready to land in Atlanta. Why I had to fly through Atlanta to get from Raleigh to Nashville who knows but it was the quickest and cheapest way of doing things so I wasn’t about to complain. I had just enough time to get a bottle of water and recharge my laptop in the Atlanta airport before we were lining up at the gate again. Completely typically of my luck I got on the plane and was sitting next to a woman who had brought her dog onto the plane. To begin with it was sitting on the seat in between us which I thought was pretty horrid but she did then put the creature on the floor. Just before we taxied she picked the dog up off the floor and proceeded to remove it from it’s bag. I was livid. I was just about to call the air stewards when one walked past and told her that she had to put it back in it’s bag. I cannot believe that airlines allow people to bring their pets onboard anyway so at least they do have some rules. This incredible woman then argued with the stewardess about why she had to put it away, who patiently explained that some people were allergic to dogs. Still not taking the heat she actually told the stewardess that it had fur that didn’t make people allergic to it, my goodness I was furious to the point of laughing by this point. I understand that, especially at the moment businesses need the money of people like this but to let them vote is surely a step too far. Ridiculous woman. She then proceeded to try to make the same argument with me and acted as if the stewardess was out of order because she was able to keep the mutt out on her previous flight. I rolled my eyes and watched as my brief stay in Atlanta ended. It was a very smooth and quick flight to Nashville where I got out and waited for my bags which had been transferred over. A gentleman who had been on the flight with us was on leave from the Army and met his little baby for the first time in the airport. He seemed to take to fatherhood like a duck to water and looked very pleased. I finally found the shuttle to the hostel, paid my ticket and got on where we only sat for a minute before leaving. It didn’t take much time at all to get to the hostel, which seemed to be a long way out of the centre of Nashville. The check in process was pretty casual and I was able to pay the balance of what I owed on my debit card and then check into my room. I was in the fiddle room which led off the sun room, a sort of common area at the time. There was a lovely girl in the room who was staying at the hostel before she went to check out the medical school that was just across the road. We were talking about her plans when another girl, Heidi Raye, came into the room. We had met briefly when I checked in but I hadn’t realised that she was in the same room. We had the usual opening conversation of hostels. The reason that I put Heidi’s full name in here is that I am also going to encourage people to look at her website: www.heidiraye.com. She is a country singer and songwriter and was in town recording her album which was very impressive, she’s been singing since she was knee-high to a grasshopper and there are samples of her music on her website or on Myspace at Heidi Raye Music. She had been in town for a week and suggested that I go to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. I headed there almost straight away, after a couple of quick e-mails, because I had eaten nothing all day and was famished. I got the vegetarian mix as it was a lot cheaper and seemed to have a bit of everything, it was pretty good and then I headed back to the hostel to catch up on some writing and, more importantly, some sleep. While I was sitting in the common area I met three Aussie guys who were travelling together: Grant, Matt and Kaye who were all great guys. I crashed out pretty early on, probably from all the travelling and the very late night I had had before.
The next morning I got up at a pretty reasonable hour and headed straight into town. It was about a mile from the hostel to the start of downtown so I was quite tired before I had done anything. I went into the library when I got there as it was about the closest thing and the inside was completely amazing. I spent a while looking at their books on Nashville but wasn’t really any closer to deciding on what to do. I was close by to a coffee shop that had a good offer on and so went in there and had a coffee and smoothie. As I left I was heading to an arcade which had pretty great food in although I wasn’t hungry so I just looked around. The plan was to walk from there to the Capitol building but on the way I ran into the Aussie’s from the hostel who were heading in the other direction so I joined them. Kaye was going to the Grand Ol’ Opry and Grant and Matt were going to the Country Music Hall of Fame. I walked with them but decided not to go in because I just didn’t have the money for it. I did manage to see both building as well as some of the other well known sights.
I walked past the Tennessee State Museum and headed inside as Matt had told me that it was free. There was a fair amount to see there but I have never seen such a disorganised museum in my life. There was no clear route around and the exhibitions didn’t seem to blend well at all. However it was a good way to spend an hour or two and afterwards I walked up to the Capitol building. Tennessee has an interesting Capitol because most of it is below the ground. There is a tunnel in line with the main entrance that you can walk through to get to most of the buildings built into the hill. I walked all the way around the building which seemed to be deserted. This might be a good time to try and describe to you how cold it was, although I have been colder it is not a city that seems to be built for keeping warm. Walking all the way around on a very cold day with a bitter wind made me homesick for central heating. The Capitol was very impressive and they have some lovely statues in the grounds but really the appeal was for the politics geek that reigns within me. Afterwards I walked around the war memorials. They had a very large building with an impressive courtyard, acting as a memorial to the World Wars. Just around the corner from that was the Korean and Vietnam memorials and another part of the State Museum which was dedicated to the Armed Forces. It was also pretty disorganised but there was a lot of very interesting information. I was pretty tired by this point and so I bought myself a sandwich and headed back to the hostel. I was on the top bunk the first night and so moved to the bottom as it was just me and Heidi in the room that night. She and the boys were heading out but I had just had an idea for one of the pieces that I am writing so I stayed in and worked on that. I wrote until about half eleven and then got to sleep.
The next morning I was up early and showered so I could pack ready to leave although my bus wasn’t until about five that evening. I went into the lobby-area and checked out. I was asking Cameron (guy who works there) how much a taxi would cost me when a man who was sitting in the room said that if I didn’t mind what time I was dropped off that he would take me in his car to save me the money. I agreed and we agreed to go for a drive before to get something to eat. I sent a message to my friend with his license plate and details, just in case. We ended up driving for over an hour trying to find something that he had seen on the way into Nashville. In the end we did get something to eat and then headed back to the hostel. Heidi, and I were going to get something to eat at the Mexican place and he joined us. The food was pretty good and it was nice getting to chat to Heidi again before I left. She had a meeting in the early afternoon and so the man also offered to drop her off before taking me. Yes, I didn’t get his name, so he remains the man from Nashville with a car…I sent a few more e-mails from the hostel before he picked me up and then we had great fun trying to pack me into his very very full car. My suitcase went into the leg-space by the passenger seat while I sat cross-legged on top of it. Must have looked completely absurd. Anyway, we got there with no drama and I sat down to wait for my bus to be called. The selection of characters sitting in the bus station was pretty entertaining. One woman who decided to come and sit next to me shouted at the television every time one of the experts talked about the economy because she thought she knew better. Several people kept chatting to each other, saying goodbye and then running into each other again. There seemed to be a queue forming along the gate which I had been told was my bus, with two and a half hours to go I didn’t bother joining it but sat and listened to the economy-predication machine next to me. When the queue seemed to be getting very long I grabbed a drink and joined it. Several people joined soon afterwards including a man about my age and a middle aged man. The young man was heading for Jackson, Tennessee to see his grandparents, one of whom was having an operation the next day. The other man was ex-military and was going to meet his son who had just finished his second tour of Iraq and they were going to take shifts driving the son’s car home so that they could sleep in between. I imagine, knowing a few fathers, that seeing him a few hours earlier was worth the long journey anyway. We started talking because he thought I was pretty young to be knitting! We still had about an hour to wait and an official was putting a teenage girl on the same bus that we three were travelling on so he gave us a running commentary of what was going on. It turned out that we were very much over-subscribed and so they were running the regular bus and then another one on top that was just going to Memphis. Made us all feel a lot better knowing that we would get on especially as people had started to cut the line. Eventually our little group said it’s goodbyes and headed onto the bus. It was completely packed and there was a very large man sitting next to me who took up much more of the space than he had paid for. We changed around a lot of people at Jackson and were again packed because no buses were running to Chicago because the weather was so bad. Another pretty big guy sat next to me, we didn’t talk until we got near to Memphis and made friends over the fact that we were both being driven mad by the screaming children on board. He had been down visiting his brother and was trying to get back to Chicago. When we got to Memphis we were very close to the station and then our driver got horribly lost and it took us another 45 minutes to get there. I was met by my friend, Daters, who I was to spend the next ten days with. We had lived together in London for about six months while she was on a work visa in the UK. Before she left she had said she would definitely be back some day and I had promised that I would come and see her to go around the South. So that was the plan. We went to a restaurant where people throw their toothpicks up in the air and try to get them to stick in the ceiling. I didn’t have much to eat as I felt ill from the travelling but the food was very good. We went across the river to Mud Island where we were staying with Daters’ friend and her boyfriend. It was great to collapse and finally get some sleep.

---