The Nashville Experience.

Disclaimer, my 1 week in Nashville was excellent! Nashville possess a 4 season climate, bustling urban mixed-used development, mega-city flair and friendly people. In conversing with current residents, uber drivers, the opposite sex and society in general, I was not able to uncover any true negatives on the city. This Nashville literary experience is derived from my 1 week of an attention based vacation. There will be 2 parts. You'll see, just keep reading.

 PART 1.

The Bachelor Party. It was the original reason for my trip. One of my friendly Austin, Texas real estate clients invited me to join his mostly San Francisco based entourage. We shall call our lead Bachelor character Medusa. Why Medusa? He often had many tentacles of alcoholic beverages located within the immediate orbit of his head. Medusa is my smart, long distance bike riding, million dollar town-home owning friend. In describing the make-up of our 10 stag party bro's, I was the lone Texan. For your information, I even got to kiss a Kansas State cheerleader at the Honky Tonk Bar one night. Our most sexually successful character we shall dub BC. (the B stands for beachy and the C will stand for conservative) B.C. was able to party effectively and cold call the beautiful bachelorette patrons downtown in the super-sized BROADWAY bars. He even convinced 2 of the pretty ladies to join our social male heavy group on the lake one afternoon. Another character in our vagabond group of partying mercenaries we shall dub, Captain Canada. Captain Canada was a bearded, shot taking twenty something, with comedic laugh inducing, constant Bull Shit.  My verbal diatribes although entertaining, paled in comparison to Captain Canada's jokes. He was from Toronto. One morning he refused to rise from his couch crashing place of sleep, until his morning wood boner went back down naturally. It was honest hilarity.

Our groups place of residence was an MTV CRIBS style, 3 floor back house AIRBNB. It was located nearby the new-age, yuppie and bourgeois Gulch neighborhood in central west Downtown Nashville. The Gulch neighborhood possess a Thompson Boutique Hotel level of luxury.  Did our place have a refrigerator, yes. Was there ever actual food in there? Nope. But it did have enough cases of beer, liquor and bloody mary mix to revive a parched Calvary. All 3 nights, our pack of female seeking men imbibed and ventured to Nashville's downtown BROADWAY area.  The "Times Square" florescent, party pumping, Hot Music playing, Tourist mecca.  The BROADWAY area could  be compared to an Austin, TX 6th street  or new Orleans Bourbon Street on steroids. The Broadway strip has epic-ally large Country Music Star endorsed bars with pricey beers, tons of bachelorette parties, multiple stages of  musicians and plenty of nightlife going on. One door guy told me the slower BROADWAY Bars could earn $100,000 per week, while he guesstimated the Jason Aldean Music Star sponsored bar earned roughly $250,000 per week. Our group crashed most of the places, including the rooftop bar at the Dirks Bentley 3 level space. Each night our group of men sucked in the MARQUEE light, drank, and made our best efforts to attract the beauty of the female species. Our entire group was even privy to sold out tickets for a Shania Twain concert. It was a female friendly, sing along crowded sports stadium. Shania herself looked fashionably attractive and sounded equally as good if not better. Ms. Twain has a fully projected country pop voice. One day of our trip, our group was lucky enough to book a watery Lake Day. I can't recall what named body of water we were on, but it was natural. In actuality, our tour guide informed us, we were technically boating on a River. Regardless, the afternoon cruise, sun worshiping, and social water cove meandering was awesome! After 3 days and nights with the constantly moving, thirst killing, late night party people, my body was yearning for rest and reprieve. There my friends is the exuberance deficiency between a 36 year old and a 26 year old.


PART 2.

Ahhh....the utter joy of a successful private AirBnb studio check in, located  in the Midtown West neighborhood of Nashville. I can still feel that welcoming and much needed afternoon nap. My 4 night studio rental was a modern style apartment with a balcony overlooking the pool and common areas.

After rejuvenation, I made myself walk through the Vanderbilt University campus grounds, and on wards to Centennial Park. Both green spaces were peaceful. I would advocate for a Centennial Park stroll. It is like a baby NYC Central Park. It has walkways, a serene pond, Ultimate Frisbee players, and a historical replica of the Parthenon. For a young country like the U.S.A, sometimes we have to fabricate and copy foreign nation's landmarks, I guess. Thanks Sayrod for the Nashville tourist recommendations.

My younger brother musician advised me to venture out for MoTown Monday's at the 5 SPOT in East Nashville. The 5 points neighborhood in East Nashville is a relaxed cool.  East Nashville is much more residential in real estate terrain, than west Nashville's extremely urban,  hi-rise and mixed-used Downtown and Westside neighborhoods. While in 5 Points, I ate cheap Pizza and took down stellar tap beers. Later, I happily danced and flirted with the very cute and edgier girls at the 5 Spot venue. I stayed for a while. Upon being energetically gassed, and finally leaving Motown Monday, I walked the sidewalk and randomly bumped into one of Nashville's younger Country Music Stars, Thomas Rhett. He was friendly, and cool, and his model-level female friend even took a smiling picture of us!  I reminded him how much faster the Nashville Country Music sound is compared to Texas Country Music's general slower pace. Earlier in my trip at the Florida Georgia Line Bar, a 25 year old blonde chick I was flirting with wouldn't stop raving about this exact Thomas Rhett.  He was her favorite Nashville Star. In a timely fashion, I had previously that exact same day viewed a floor display of Thomas's country star prowess at the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum. Nashville's Music Museums were my intellectual and favorite sobering activities. The Country Music Hall of Fame is 2 floors of history and glory. The Museum encompassed country's early biblical days, to the rebellious Hippie Rednecks' Willie Nelson, & Walon Jennings in Austin, Texas, to the Modern New Country mainstream Music Stars of today. The Country Music Hall of Fame was easily worth the 25 bucks. Thumbs way up! The Final exhibit is a towering church like circle room with all of the plaques in them. The Johnny Cash Museum was my next favorite. Along with Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash was one of the USA's first big time chart topping stars, musicians and loving performers.

During my remaining time in Smashville Music City, I made an honest effort to try and go NASHVILLE local in my activities and venue destinations. I made it to the BASEMENT, an intimate live music venue. I was able to catch live gigs and performances by the mother/daughter group BELLE and the NYC transplant singer-songwriter, Clarence Bucaro. The Basement is that ideal live music venue, where either before or after the performances, you can talk and visit with the stage stars firsthand. Now that's a real experience.

On my last day in Nashville, Tennessee, I was informed I should make the 12 Avenue South stroll. I would compare 12 Avenue South, similarly to a South Congress vibe in Austin, Texas or Prince Street in SoHo, NYC. It is a commercial friendly road strip, with adjacent residential upper-end homes nearby. 12 Avenue South has hipster Coffee Shops, a Reese Witherspoon southern girl clothing boutique, a peddling bicycle store, local breweries, swanky ice cream shops, glassy restaurants, yoga studios and more. Ideal for the modern Nashville living urban-ite!

Thanks for reading about my Nashville Experience. I even got a guided free tour of the Tennessee Government's Capitol Building.