Nashville Day 5 & 6

Let's start on Friday morning.

My lovely roommate Colleen made arrangements to view an apartment in East Nashville (I think I mentioned she's looking to move here) and she invited me out to lunch with her afterwards. We met at this place called Batter'd and Fried, which we both loved, but her even more so because of its New England vibe. Afterwards, we walked around to see all the shops; I'd not been over to East Nashville so I was glad to have a buddy to check it out with. We stopped at quite a few places, but one shop in particular reminded me of the Toy Box in Ligonier back home. It was essentially this old house stocked full of kids toys. I'm pretty sure Colleen and I were best buds in a previous life because she HAD to buy these fantastic pirate finger tattoos (see my facebook for the visual) and we were equally ecstatic about wearing our pirate tattoos proudly.

After our shenanigans in East Nashville, we came back to the hostel and hung out for a while. I decided not to do an open mic that night as it was hard to find anything other than shows on a Friday night. So instead, Colleen and I decided to have ourselves a little party at the hostel. She had decided that she was in love with the place she looked at in East Nashville so we felt obliged to celebrate her commitment to her newfound home. We found this massive wine & spirit store and bought entirely too much cheap wine, came back to the hostel, and celebrated with anyone that wanted to join us in the common room. I gave Colleen a hairwrap (which led to like three more hairwraps Saturday morning. lol) and we sat around chatting with everyone late into the evening. There seems to be a lot of Australians staying here at the hostel; I'm pretty sure everyone there just really likes to travel. I never get tired of hearing all the places everyone has visited and their experiences there. One of the Aussie girls has been traveling by herself for 7 months now in the United States. I feel like I would like to do the same at some point, i.e. when I'm not flat broke.

I slept so good Friday night and woke up Saturday morning very well rested. Colleen was leaving early but had some complications with her flight back to Connecticut. I have confirmation that she made it back alive though, so all is well in the world. I didn't have any concrete plans so I hung out in the common room knowing that something eventful would happen at some point. As I mentioned, my hairwraps were a big hit here so a did a few more Saturday morning and made a little bit of cash, so I guess it's a useful skill to have! It wasn't too long until some of the people I'd made friends with decided to take a trip to Opry Mills Mall. I'd been there already, but I was looking for somewhere to go for lunch so I thought I'd tag along and grab something to eat. Five of us decided to go together so we took two cars and I rode in with Max from England. His accent is as lovely as you'd imagine. This turned into an adventure when we got onto the highway and ran into a crazy amount of traffic heading into the mall. None of us thought to exchange cell numbers so we realized it was going to be next to impossible to meet up with our friends after wading through all the traffic. I was glad to be stuck in the car with Max though; I hadn't met anyone else here from England so he told me all about life there and what London is like. Also, it was interesting to discuss the language differences. Apparently they call a sweater a jumper, and cheers simply means thank you, not hello or well wishes.

By the time we got through all the crazy traffic, Max and I were starving so after a failed attempt to eat at the Rainforest Cafe (it would have been a 2 hour wait!) we ate at Johnny Rocketts and enjoyed the employees wonderful dance routine to Aretha Franklin's "Respect". Also, we couldn't help but notice that there was a Christmas train driving around the entire mall. If only they let the big kids on there. Sigh.

To end the day, I went back out to the Commodore Grille to get a spot to play at the open mic and network as usual. There was a fantastic jazz trio there that night that I fell in love with. I was thrilled that Tommy was there again and was able to introduce me to the guitar player, who is a known songwriter around the area. I was able to play two songs that night but the best part was just talking with the guitarist. We seemed to see eye-to-eye with our thoughts on the music industry and we spent quite some time talking about our passion for music. He frequently talked about the ear and the heart in music and how important those two things are. As I was getting ready to head out, Tommy invited me out to a venue to go to today. I may not be able to play, but he says it will be a good networking experience. I'll be sure to fill in the details in my blog! I'm headed off to church right now, but I will back to update soon enough.