Day 5 - Nashville

Today was a whole day in Nashville so we left the car at home much to K's delight. We hopped on the bus up to The Gulch and joined the breakfast queue at Biscuit Love. K went for the Gertie which was a split biscuit topped with banana jam, peanut butter, chocolate gravy and pretzel pieces and I had scrambled eggs, cheese grits, bacon and a biscuit. It was all very delicious but it didn't top Biscuit Head in South Carolina. Post breakfast we had a wander to see some murals in the area then walked down to the Ryman Auditorium via Broadway. We saw some brilliant buildings on the way including Union Station (now a hotel) and the wonderful art deco Frist Center.

When we got to the Bridgestone Arena the mayor was giving a speech so there were a lot of crowds. It didn't seem like anything exciting though. We wandered down to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in the super super heat via the Music City Wall of Fame Park which has all the country music stars in it. It was being set up for tomorrow when Amy Grant is getting a star.

When we got to the museum we needed a wee beverage cos we were roasting. The museum was amazing,  we spent 3 hours in it. It had a special exhibition about the Zac Brown Band who we love. It was super informative without being boring. It featured loads of instruments, cars, gold discs and information about the session musicians as well as the big stars. There is a letterpress company within the museum that has an exhibition and shop too. We chatted to some Americans in the shop who warned us we'll see some bad shit on our tour and asked us not to judge all of America by what we see!

We've spoken to loads of people and the all like to guess where we're from (mostly they get it wrong) and hear about our trip. Everyone has been super friendly.

Post museum we hopped on the hop on hop off tour. We only got off once due to the length of time we spent in the museum. We got off at centennial park which features a full-size replica of the Parthenon! We hopped off and took a million photos, we also came across a really cool suffragette statue too. The park seemed really nice, totally the sort of place we'd hang out if we lived here. Back on the tour we saw music row and Vanderbilt University which is apparently about $50,000 a semester?!?

Once we were back down town we went to a few shops and started our bar tour. Every bar has bands so we visited a few. In the first one we shared some tortilla chips and guacamole as we hadn't eaten since breakfast. The bands were good in all the bars but the 2nd bar we were in charged us $16 for 2 drinks. Badtimes. Just one drink in there!

We also stopped off at the Goo Goo Shop which sells an old fashioned candy with caramel, peanuts and marshmallow dipped in chocolate (it bleeds caramel just to know it's alive - sorry lame 90s joke).

We spent most of our time at Legends Corner with the band The Skallywags. They played a mix of covers and original songs and we ended up buying their cd. They played loads of our favourite songs and Give it Away by George Strait which is apparently our holiday song.

It was getting late so we hopped in an Uber back to our air bnb area for dinner. We went to The Flipside which sells topped chicken breast in breadcrumbs with a choice of tots or fries. K had hers topped with blt and mine was topped with mac cheese and chilli and we both chose tots. Obviously.

Our waitress was really nice and knew we were either Scottish or Irish but got it wrong. She was gutted as one of her best friends is Scottish. There was really old trivial pursuit on the table so we quizzed each other while we waited on our food. We did really badly but they were American and old so I dont feel bad. Post dinner we just strolled back to the house as k felt queasy post drinking.

Now we're chilling in the living room and k has full house on - again!

Tomorrow we hit the road and I'll be sad to leave Nashville behind cos I feel we've still got loads we could do. I'm looking forward to our next destination though!