Of all the cities that I am least interested in, the one I’m currently standing in is top of the list. But Nashville is where the NAVUG conference is and I work in NAV so Nashville is where I am. Nothing against the people who apparently came here intentionally; they may’ve been tricked. Who’s to say.
The only thing on that list above the undesirable cities is the hotels within those cities. Take something uninteresting, wrap it in four beige walls, hang a few bad pieces of modern art, make it smell like an elevator and, tuh-duh, you have hotel. Put it in a candle and it will not sell.
But that’s only my biased opinion.
I am in an excessively fancy hotel – a resort, in fact. Which is to say that it outdoes itself in amount of beige and seizure-inducing carpets. It practically drips upholstery. To be fair, the 4 acres of indoor gardens are expansive and impressive and excessively easy to get lost in. I’m pretty sure that I met some guests pulling rolly bags who’d been wandering for like a month. I would’ve asked but I ran away before they could eat me.
So, urged on by the carpets and the walls, I left the hotel in favor of giving the town another chance – equipped with shell (cool Colorado word for rain jacket), phone, laptop (in the expectation of finding a cozy cafe to write), and a pack of peanuts from my flight in (emergencies, people).
“Are you all waiting for the downtown shuttle?” I asked a few ladies standing by the curb outside the hotel. They nodded. I had hoped they were waiting on a Lyft they were willing to share.
“Do you know much much it is?” I inquired, hoping it was free.
“They have tickets inside. $20 for the day…” she explained. “I looked into Uber but it was $25 one way which would be like $50 total so we’re taking the shuttle.”
I nodded. The Lyft (and Uber) rides I’d looked into were $15 one way. I mentioned this and she reaffirmed that it was like $50. So I thanked them and ordered the Lyft, knowing that my planned route didn’t include the same drop off and pick up locations because I wanted to see more than Honky Tonks.
The Lyft driver arrived within 90 seconds.
It was a little uncanny hopping into a car with an Indian driver to take me to downtown Nashville. I couldn’t help smiling to myself at this exotic place. We had a nice chat the whole way down and learned that this forthinking fellow had once worked for Microsoft, then moved to Alabama – where his brother urged him to work at some of his gas stations (I didn’t ask if they were Seven-Elevens). But this fellow decided that the 10-12 hours days weren’t for him and began driving for Lyft, which is now his full time job from which he pulls in more money than I do.
So we talked about time and jobs and how life is short.
By the time he dropped me off the humidity had burst into a gentle mist. Within a quarter of an hour the droplets had formed into platoons and by the time an hour passed my jeans and shoes were soaked.
At least the rain makes for good photos.
I slogged from Cumberland Park, over the river via the footbridge, and down into the Honky-Tonk section of town on Broadway. Everyone was wet, which made me feel better about myself. A group of women scurried along the sidewalk in whitish ponchos like ghosts – or like very short KKK members, which was interesting considering the context.
After a while I ducked into a boot shop (one of approximately 43,000) to escape the storm and see if removing my hood would scare small children. The small mirror posted to a wall of straw hats showed the grisly truth: I looked like someone who had attempted to take out their dreads. I turned from the mirror to a short lady in a poncho who was staring up at me. She raised a hand to her own hair. “What was the point of combing my hair this morning!” she exclaimed, which instantly cheered me up.
Broadway is what it is: not my cup of tea, possibly because it’s a barrel of beer.
The street is lined with three things only: bars, guitar tunes, and boot shops – all on repeat.
So I wondered along a few parallel streets for a while before finally puddle hopping my way to the bus stop where I met Nashville human No.2.
“This bus goes to…” he was saying. I looked up from the map on my phone to see an older man peering at me over his beard. “The sign’s broke on this one but it’s going to…such and such.”
“I’m looking for the 25 – to get me near the Parthenon.”
“The 5?”
“The 25?”
“Oh, the 25, yeah.” He proceeded to explain all I needed to know to get to the bus and as he got on, the bus lady waved me in, offering to give me a lift to the bus station, which would be faster. And so, because some local generosity, I found myself on a bus with Mr. Beard chatting about bus routes and listening to the general chatter on the bus.
Bus driver lady: (peering out the windshield) “You see dat? That dangerous. I can’t believe he just did dat.”
Mr. Beard: (peering out the side window) “Huh…Those guys must be twins.”
Bus driver lady, shaking her head: “I can’t believe dat fool.”
Mr. Beard, clearing his throat and speaking up: “Yeah, they must be twins.”
Meanwhile, my attention had been fully arrested by a gyro place on the other side of the window. A few minutes later, having discovered that the 25 wouldn’t arrive for a long long time, I was still thinking about gyros. So I made a break from the bus stop and hoofed it back to the spot I’d taken note of on Union and 5th.
Needless to say, it was delicious. Not only was it a way better deal than the $5 slice of pizza I had turned down on Broadway but the cooks behind the counter even argued in Arabic, which added to the atmosphere.
To keep this post from taking as long as it took me to walk to from the bus to the Parthenon and then from the Parthenon to Cafe Coco and from the cafe to a corner shop for a few supplies, I’ll stop it here.
Regarding the Parthenon, I’ll just add as a P.S. that while it’s size was impressive and the casts of the statuary were worth seeing, aggregate concrete just doesn’t do what marble does. Also when the tour guide mentioned that Athena’s spear was made from an old McDonald’s flag pole and that her chin was based off Elvis’…the impressiveness shrunk a little, like to the size of a happy meal toy.
Anyway, as it turns out, Nashville wasn’t so bad. It beats sitting in a hotel.