The Glebe in the USA 2013 - Nashville - Part 1

N.B.I already uploaded quite a lot of pictures from my tablets. For anyone interested who never saw these posts these are the links.

Nashville 1

Nashville 2

Nashville 3

Florida 1

Florida 2

Memphis

I literally took hundreds, but I'll limit the pictures on these posts. Shame I managed to delete the photos I took on the plane over.

25th of November 2013

The day had arrived for me to take off on a trip I'd long dreamed of doing. I jumped into my car in the middle of the night, drove down to Manchester Airport and booked in for my flight. I was quite relaxed.
I'd have one change to make at Dulles Airport Washington. My company on the flight were a friendly couple from the Potteries visiting their son in Washington.
The United Airways 8 hour + flight seemed to go quite quickly and we were soon disembarking at Dulles.
I thought security and customs might have eased since my L.A palaver ten years ago...........not a chance, the two hours till my connection was taken up in security and customs queues. Luckily my flight on to Nashville was delayed by fifteen minutes otherwise I'd have missed it. (Leaving the U.S.A was much easier)
After disembarking at Nashville, I picked up my hire car at just after 6 pm Central Time Zone, making it midnight in the U.K. which meant I'd left home 21 hours ago.

My hire car, a Toyoto Corolla with a Florida plate

After re-familiarizing myself with an automatic and the other side of the road, I was soon travelling up the Briley Parkway and down Gallatin Pike looking for my Airbnb accommodation.
After a few wrong streets and finally remembering that American streets are usually ten times the size of UK streets I arrived.

My Nashville digs, in the very roomy basement.

(I used Airbnb in Memphis also, the freedom to come and go as you please is priceless.)

After dropping my luggage off, I was out again at the nearest Walmart Superstore to buy food and a cheap cellphone for the time I was in America. Trust me to buy the faulty one, however on return to the store in the morning the lovely LaCresha was very helpful in setting up the replacement. Thank you girl!

I'd had a good night's sleep and my first outing was down to the city. Being a stranger I asked a policeman about parking and he sent me to the Sheraton where my parking ticket ended up costing me 18 dollars. I would soon learn of an all day car park for 5 dollars, I think the cop must have been on commission. 

Hunger and Homelessness in America

This is the first picture I took downtown Nashville, he was still on the same bench on Friday. America has a big community of homeless people.
Now I headed downhill with my street map. I went looking for Broadway.

The Baptist Sunday School Board also known as the Frost Building.

Built in 1914, the historic Frost Building served as the first permanent home of the Baptist Sunday School Board and named after James Marion Frost 

In the city this is classed as a low level structure, it wouldn't be in that category in Newton Stewart !
I continued on down to reach the Bridgestone Arena halfway up Broadway.

Bridgestone Arena 

Home to the Nashville Predators and some great shows by the looks of it !

It's attached to the glass tower of the Nashville Music City Visitors Center. 

A Queue

I heard a great scream of excitement as this lot spotted the lead singer of the group they were queuing up to get tickets for.

Inquiring of a young gentleman he proudly stuck out his tee shirt proclaiming Paramore.

I'd vaguely heard the name before, but it seems they are well known. I see their Youtube video of Still into you  has had almost 42 million hits. I obviously am not up with the current round of popsters.

Legends Corner

The music, restaurants and bars begin here on Nashville's Broadway at Legends Corner. 

It's almost impossible in downtown Nashville not to hear music coming out of any doorway. Down by the Country Music Hall of Fame (which will be a separate post) there are even large speakers built into the sidewalk.(or is that pavement?)

I was to return to Broadway a few times to enjoy the food and music. 

 A Canadian from Ottowa took this picture for me.

Were I to go into all the clubs and bars I'd need a very long vacation.

Here's a taster of the free music on offer

Sorry about the video quality. 

If you guys from Indiana and California remember it's the 'Glebe Blog' then 'Hi'.

I took the occasional 'selfie' on my Kindle tablet.

Billboards and advertisements are all over the place.

Here's a sly old fox !

Hard Rock Cafe

Almost enough of the music for now, I also took in more of the history and buildings of the city. One of my problems though was arriving at Thanksgiving. Here I'm in part of what's known as the 'Bible Belt' of America and religion is a very serious matter. That being the case, many of the museums and libraries were either closed or on short hours for a few days.

 Here are just a few non music pictures. 

 These information are scattered about both Nashville and Memphis.
As well as the heartland of the civil rights movement, Tennessee played a major role in the civil war.

 The Tennessee Supreme Court Building.

 YMCA

Bottom left Korea, bottom right Vietnam.
Above is only a smidgen of the war memorials in the city.

 Now here's a name that takes me back to Saturday morning matinees at the Regal and La Scala in Cupar

 Lots of high rise buildings

This is quite a controversial plaque. Apparently he was an out and out racist and there's been continued efforts to have his statue removed from the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol.

Edward Ward Carmack (November 5, 1858 – November 9, 1908) was an attorney, newspaperman, and political figure who served as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1901 to 1907.

Following his political service, and after an unsuccessful run for Governor of Tennessee, he became editor of the one year old Nashville Tennessean. He was shot to death on November 9, 1908 over a feud precipitated by his editorial comments in the paper. 

 All I could do was walk around the State Capitol Building, it too was closed.

At first glance I thought this massive statue might have been Billy Graham, it certainly looked like the evangelist I remember visiting the U.K on different occasions. Hey presto, I was right.

The cross is seventeen feet tall. Not liked by all Tennesseans apparently.  

 Here's a historic building. It's the Custom House.
1877 - The cornerstone of this building is laid by President Hayes.
1882 – The clock tower is completed.
1903 – The rear portion of the building is completed.
1916 – The wings of the building are completed.
1972 – The building is added to the National Register of Historic Places.
1979 – Ownership is transferred from the federal government to the local government.

 Nashville's War Memorial.
It's Auditorium is nowadays a venue for top music acts because of it's near perfect acoustics.


At this point I should be saying 'Back to the music' !

This picture is three stitched together, and even then I couldn't get it all in. You'd have to be a couple of streets away, and then of course you wouldn't see it. It's Nashville's Music City Center. It sits next to the Bridgestone Arena and we've seen how big that is.

I've borrowed the next aerial picture from Greenroofs and Aerial Innovations to show it's size.

Earlier I mentioned 'Thanksgiving'..............................

Music City Center was closed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here endeth part one.

It'll be Opryland next.