leaving Chris' place in the morning

After a solid rest in Nashville at the home of our CouchSurfing host, we departed for Fido on 21st Ave, a local coffee and breakfast joint. Delicious.

Fido had a great atmosphere

Next up we paid a visit to the Parthenon. Yes, the Parthenon. Because Nashville has so many universities, Fisk University, Saint Cecilia Academy, Montgomery Bell Academy, Meharry Medical College, Vanderbilt, Belmont etc… it became known as the Athens of the South. When Nashville’s 1897 fair came around, a Parthenon replica was built and became so popular, it was made permanent. This thing is kind of hard to miss. It is a full scale replica. This made so much sense! Instead of actually getting out to see the world, we could see all the big stuff by building replicas in our own cities! Brilliant. It was all quite bizarre. It set the tone for the day which led us to conclude that Nashville was quite bizarre.

its like traveling the world, but only having to be in America

Then it was time to drive around for a bit. Nashville reminded of Austin, TX… a little bit. There was the music scene and the river and a few other things. The gaudy tourist attractions, the feeling that we had spent way to much time in Nashville. Good thing we only planned to spend one day here because Chicago and the US National Parks were calling.

we clearly had some decisions to make

Parking at a deck near downtown, we walked around the riverfront. Walked down towards some of the shops. Walked up on the pedestrian bridge. It was a pleasant time walk.

Jane looks at boots!

Nashville has boats! and football!

After our blatant tourism, we drove around a bit more and saw the Baptist center, some cool statues and visited a church retreat center, walking a labyrinth and viewing art from artisans with autism.

Ending the day with dinner, we were accompanied to Indian food with our CouchSurfing hosts and then met up with our host Chris for a drink at a bar. We discussed topics that ranged from my thoughts on extraterrestrial intelligences, the duties of potentially being the only intelligent life in the universe and other philosophical musings. Nothing too crazy. We had to get to bed early because tomorrow was our longest drive of the trip, from Nashville to Chicago. I wish I could say more about Nashville but it was kind of underwhelming. Glad we stopped there but probably won’t go back anytime soon.

Jane, Erby and me with our fantastic hosts Chris and Nene

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