Day 21: Music City Misadventures

Matty Parsons
Jul 21, 2017 · 2 min read

I pulled into Nashville, Tennessee. It was stinking hot, humid as hell, but had a buzz about it that I hadn’t felt anywhere else yet.

For such a transient city, there was a lot of pride from each and every one of the people that I encountered there. It truly was a melting pot where everyone I met just seemed to enjoy exactly what this city was about and was ready to just take it in their stride.

After a morning of preparing myself for a sticky heat unlike what I know back in Adelaide, I headed out down Broadway, a vibrant string of honky tonks blasting out country jams and fun times the whole way down. This was just beautiful. I’m not a country music guy, but it’s hard not to have a smile creeping across your face as you get into the atmosphere at Honky Tonk Central as Hoss Skelton is barking at you about how the girls are prettier down south and the whiskey is pouring freely.

Possibly the most bizarre sight was a girl who couldn’t have been over 23 wearing a singlet emblazoned with a Reagan Bush campaign image. Like, girl you weren’t even alive then!

This was a kind of atmosphere that I couldn’t imagine anywhere else in the world at 4pm on a Thursday… The bar was packed, the drinks were flowing, there was a violinist standing on the bar playing her piece along with the band on stage. Just phenomenal!

After I’d had just about enough country for one city boy to handle, I went back on my way and started wandering along the rest of Broadway. Even without going into the bars, you still feel the energy of the city in every step you take. There’s no doubt this is Music City. It lives and breathes tunes.

I headed uphill a little bit, grabbed a bite to eat and headed down to the riverfront. There I continued my “stadiums I’ve seen on TV, but won’t get to go inside of” tour looking across the water at Nissan Stadium, home of the Tennessee Titans in the NFL. Absolutely massive structure! Seriously, the scale of some of these stadiums is immense. Short of the MCG, there’s nothing that comes close.

After wandering a little more, this guy was getting absolutely cooked in the hot Tennessee sun and had to head back home for some R’n’R before attempting to watch the all-important Crows vs Cats game (Spoiler: I fell asleep about 2 handballs in, it was 5am…) and pack myself up before heading onto the next stop, Memphis!

I’ll be jumping on yet another bus to get there, so most of tomorrow will be taken up by travel. Hopefully I have some stories to tell once I get there.

Matty Abroad.

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