Dixie Days! A life changing day! Grand Ole Opry!

This day was the most wonderful of my whole America trip, it was the day I would fulfil my dream of visiting the Grand Ole Opry.

Tim's text woke me up early, 'i'll be there in 30mins', uh oh I was still in bed damn. I quickly showered and got changed and met him outside the hostel. He'd been working in Orlando but had flown to Nashville via Charlotte early that morning so was a bit tired. It was a very nice sunny day. We went for breakfast at a Cracker Barrel which was so fun, the shop sells all sorts of Tennessee items or as Tim put it 'Its all s###'.

We waited 20 minutes for a table as it was really busy, i had a really nice oven roasted turkey salad which was so scrummy and i got to try 'grits' for the first time, to me they tasted like rice only slightly plainer.

The waitress was such a sweet southern belle, she leant me her pen so i could write a postcard home. After lunch i bought some friends back home some strange candy and some postcards of Nashville, the lady serving told me she adored my accent but it was role reversal, i adored her southern twang and she thanked me for visiting Nashville and told me to tell people to come to Cracker Barrel so here's my promotion for them, go to Cracker Barrel if you're in the South, dammit its worth it!

We then went to Tim's hotel to dump his stuff  and we headed into Nashville and spent the afternoon shopping and sight seeing, i bought hoards of souveneirs such as magnets and t shirts, i felt like such a tourist just minus the fanny pack :s.

We then went over to the Opry Mills Mall and had dinner at a TGI's Friday, it was also really good and was my first time at a TGI's.

We then headed for the Grand Ole Opry, we had tickets for the mezzanine level, the show started at 8PM and is broadcast live on the radio around the world and was such good fun to be a part of. I wore a shirt, it wouldnt feel right wearing a tshirt and shorts to the Grand Ole Opry! Now I am such a huge country fan, i adore the style, the instruments, its music that can be so tragic and touching yet also full of life and warmth. Country singers always make you believe their songs as you feel they truly come from the heart.

We saw performances by The Whites, Kathy Mattea, Rebecca Lynn Howard, Connie Smith, John Conlee, Jimmy Dickens, Dailey and Vincent, Eddie Raven and Ray Pillow amongst others.

My favourite performance was from Kathy Mattea who told us to sing along to her song '18 trucks and a Dozen Roses' and to sing so loud that we cant hear our neighbour and we'd all be singing so loud that our neighbour wont be able to hear and judge our singing so there'd be no need to be embarrassed and everyone sang along. It was really funny! It was so hard to sing as we were all laughing so much! Kathy was amazing and so funny, she did a big shout out to her fellow West Virginians!

The music of the whole evening was just amazing, i was in music heaven. A truly wonderful experience. After the show Tim got us lost and it took about 2 hours to get back to my hostel. Id had a great day in Nashville, the music city of the world! Me and Amiya stayed up talking until about 2.30am again! Tim was picking me up at about 9ish  the next day as we were heading into Kentucky! Yee haw!