Yesterday was a pretty chill day. I felt settled in at the hostel, I got some much needed sleep, and didn't get out of bed until 11. While I was being delightfully lazy in bed, I heard the door open and was glad to find I now have a roommate! Her name is Colleen, she's in her early 20s as well, and she's from Connecticut. She's a writer and decided she wanted to pick up and move to Nashville. We hit it off immediately. I've never been to Connecticut, so she filled me in on what life is like there and in the New England states. She strongly suggested I visit Boston and Burlington, Vermont. My trip here has made me realize how badly I want to travel and see the world. We chatted for quite a while but I could see she was exhausted from the trip, so I left her to have the room to herself for a while.
If you've never been to a hostel (I hadn't until this week), all you need to know is that it's almost exactly like living in a college dorm (minus the drama), but it's run like a hotel/motel. The more people I talk to, the more I find that not many Americans like to stay in the hostels, it's mostly people from out of the country. It seems like there's some weird connotation with hostels in the States (I blame it on that stupid horror movie) that doesn't appear to exist elsewhere. I think hostels are just more popular elsewhere as well. Anyways, on the first floor of the hostel, there's this community living space with sofas, a kitchen, television, etc. so I decided to hang out there for a little bit. I ended up talking to this guy from Brazil named Poul (sp?), which is apparently a nickname; When he was younger he was fairer skinned and had lighter hair, so his family would tease him and say he looked like he was from Poland. His hair and skin got darker as he got older, but I guess the name stuck. I'm sure the nickname is more comedic in Brazil. Poul spoke English fairly well, just a bit of an accent, but he seemed incredibly self-conscious about it. I asked him about Brazil, what it's like there, and what he thought was odd about the states. One of the first things he said was that he misses the food there. I wish I could mimic the look on his face when describing his first experience eating Wendy's. As much as I love greasy food, I'm pretty sure I speak for all Americans when I say that we know our food is crap; We just enjoy eating our crappy food, that's all. We talked a little longer until the conversation eventually led to music; There wasn't many other people in the lounge with us, so I went over and started to play the piano a little bit. I was glad to find Poul likes to play the blues so we jammed for a bit, and even had another guy join us, using a bar stool as his hand drum. Our drummer was a foreigner as well and I would have liked to talk with him more but his English wasn't as good and he seemed much more reserved than Poul. Regardless, we had this beautiful moment of bonding through music, even as complete strangers and despite our language barriers.
The evening came quicker than any of us expected, so we ended our jam session and parted ways. I made plans to hit up the open mic at Dan McGuinness Irish Pub. I got there early to make sure I could get a spot. Turns out I came super early so I sat down and had a beer while I was waiting. Turns out I was sitting next to the owner of the bar, Quinn. He was there with three of his buddies and they were curious about this young female that walked into a bar by herself. I told them I was from Pittsburgh and that led to a very PG-13 conversation about Ben Roethlisberger, whom he'd had the pleasure (displeasure?) of meeting before. We had a good laugh about it and chatted some more until the conversation eventually turned to music, as it usually does in these parts. One of the owner's buddies was a sound engineer and he shared with me about his time here in Nashville. Pretty much from that point on, everyone kept trying to convince me to just move here. haha. Maybe some day. I stayed and talked about twenty minutes or so with them and then went up stairs to the open mic. I'm still trying to get used to how friendly everyone is here. The regulars see someone new at an open mic and really make an effort to chat with them and make them feel welcome, and it's an awesome feeling to know you're constantly around other songwriters. I saw some familiar faces from the other open mics I've been to this week and even before I performed, some of them came up to me to chat. I could go on forever about all the advice given to me last night alone.
It was my turn to go up and perform. We each were able to perform one song and I felt like playing "So Far Away". I got a few compliments on my colorful keyboard. I've had this dinky keyboard since I was like twelve and I doodled all over it, but they seemed to like its character! I was glad to see that the performance was well received and I was really able to network/exchange info with people. The host even wanted a picture with me! I felt like a million bucks! It was probably just because I was a new face, but still. I felt pretty special. lol It's so hard to try to write about everything that happened because there was just so many conversations with so many people, I truly could write several pages about it. It's just incredible to feel a part of something even as an outsider. I feel like I fit in with these people.
I stayed a good while after the show but as I was getting ready to leave, I looked out the window to see a film crew filming right in front of the building. I had an awesome parking spot right where they were getting shots so I figured I'd wait to leave until they were done. We were all kidding that it could have been for the t.v. show "Nashville" but it could've been for anything, really. Either way, I was pumped that Francesca was in the shot. I always knew she'd look good on film.
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