Day 50: Nashville

📍 Location: Tootsies, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

After Chicago I’ve started to head south. Leaving the big cities behind me for now and entering the more countryside of America. At least that's what it feels like. A long night bus ride would take me there. The girl who I met in Chicago said that so far her bus rides had been really cool. That she met a bunch of nice people there and even got very friendly with a cute guy who sat next to her at one point. I don’t know how she does it. So far I’ve been surrounded by the opposite of cute guys in busses. And again, this time I had the pleasure of sitting for at least twelve hours next to an old man with the worst, most rotten breath I’ve ever smelled - like death was already on its way to come and get him.

Me and my gassed nostrils arrived around noon in Nashville. When you set foot in this city, it feels like you immediately enter a complete different world. A world where everyone wears cowboy boots and cowboy hats and where people actually like country music. It can’t get more American than this. It’s as if this city lives in its own bubble with its particular culture and doesn’t give a shit about what the rest of the world think of them. Fascinating to see. For Europeans this would be what the typical ‘American’ image would look like. Oh, fun fact: Miley Cyrus is born and raised in Nashville.

Nashville is the place to be if you want to party. The Americans themselves like to visit the ‘Country Music Capital of the World’ for a weekend getaway. They dive into one of the hundred bars in the night to listen to the performing bands and party their asses off before returning back to their daily jobs.

I stayed at a big hostel in the center of Nashville. The hostel itself was a really nice one; it had a huge public hang out space with lots of couches and a pool table, the rooms were big and the bathrooms were clean. The only downside to big hostels in general is that the more people there are, the less cosy the vibe will be. People are more to themselves and don’t really hang out with each other. But that was okay for me, since I only stayed there for two days and began to really appreciate it to be alone sometimes. So me, myself and I explored the city and discovered a great bar called Tootsie’s. It’s a three-level bar and on each level a different band was playing country music. Really cool. At first I thought that it would be very awkward to go to a bar all by yourself, that people would think that I was sad for coming alone. But actually no one will care. You just have to enjoy yourself. And traveling alone makes you very good at that.