NASHVILLE, BABY!!!

Hey y’all,

This week has been quite eventful in comparison to others! Read on to hear about all the fantastic, and not so fantastic things that happened!

Monday 23 September

Nothing of note happened this morning. This afternoon’s class saw another guest speaker, this time a member of the sport communications department at the university. He spoke about the different careers one could get into at the university and how to make your pathway there. Class ended up wrapping up shortly after that because our professor had to get to a meeting, so that was a bonus.

Georgia and I spent the rest of the night studying for our test tomorrow for our Family Law class. We ended up going a bit stir crazy by 10pm because we’d had enough, so gave up and headed to bed.

Tuesday 24 September

My first class today was super interesting because we had a guest speaker who was high up in the Memphis division of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency). He was captivating to listen to! He started off talking about himself and his journey to his current position – what degree he did, what jobs he took, what those jobs entailed and so on. He then went into telling us stories about some of the operations he’s participated in. The one he went into the most detail on was about an undercover drug bust that involved the DEA helping a drug lord transport 15kgs of heroin from Texas to Memphis, and then organise for someone to pick them up. The plan was so intricate and the DEA had every element covered, and they managed to catch both the supplier and the people who picked up the drugs (or at least what they thought were the drugs. It was actually 0.5kg of heroin, and 14.5kg of fake shit, with a tracker embedded inside the package – a safety measure in case they got away). This was one class I didn’t want to end!

Georgia and I went back to the dorm and got some last minute study in before our test. We tested each other and felt pretty confident! We got into class at 6pm, started the test shortly after, and were out of there by 6:30pm. The test was only 20 true/false questions, and 10 short answer questions. Fingers crossed I did alright!

Wednesday 25 September

The morning was spent chilling before we rode to the Grill for lunch. Pasta was where it was at again, and we got to hang out with a Scottish guy named Declan who is here on exchange and also runs track. He was telling us how he found out that haggis is illegal in the US and that upset him because he was really craving it haha.

I went straight from the Grill to Student Union to study for a few hours – I’ve found the change of scenery helps.

We spent the entire class doing a mediation exercise – so basically the negotiating we’ve been doing, but with a mediator in the middle. This was actually really good because by giving our mediator all the information, he was able to help us come to a deal that was reasonable on both parts. However, the girl on the other side didn’t understand all of her information and so I think my side ended up getting a way better deal. I heard some of the other teams negotiating and their deals were way different than ours.

Tonight ended up being pretty bad. I was on the phone for Centrelink for 1.5 hours trying to figure out why I wasn’t being paid my youth allowance, only to eventually find out that it had been cancelled on me the day before I left Australia because I’d earnt too much too many weeks in a row. I burst into tears when I got off the phone, because I was panicking at the fact that I now am not going to be receiving around $5000 I was relying on. We’ll work something out, though.

Thursday 26 September

I woke up feeling more relaxed this morning. Everything happens for a reason (even if it’s a huge inconvenience) but I’ll work around it.

My class only went for 35 minutes today (it’s supposed to go for 75) so by 3pm I was already on my weekend haha!

Nothing else spectacular happened today except for playing a bit of footy in the quad again.

Friday 27 September

Spent all this morning packing and getting ready for our road trip to NASHVILLE BABY! We were hoping to leave around 2:30-3 after everyone had finished class and both hire cars had been picked up, but there were so many issues with driver eligibility and their systems not accepting foreign bank cards, so everything took way longer than expected (or necessary).

Finally we pulled out of Ole Miss just before 4pm and we were on our way! I was in a car with Paula (Ecuador), Al (England) and Susanna (Scotland), and in the other car was Vera (Germany), Ciara (Ireland), Georgia (Australia) and CJ (Australia/New Zealand) (so lucky Al gets to deal with 7 girls on this trip haha). We convoyed the whole way there, and made a few stops for toilet breaks and refuelling. The journey was made entertaining by my car having singalongs, blasting some country music to get into the Nashville mood, and chatting about our personal lives to get to know each other more. The traffic wasn’t bad, but the journey took a bit longer than expected (nearly 5 hours) so we weren’t checking into the hostel until nearly 9pm.

(Paula - Ecuador, Al - England, Susanna - Scotland, and me)

We had tickets to a country singer’s gig tonight that started at 8, so we quickly rushed to get ready and head to the show, and had our fingers crossed that we’d only missed the supporting acts. We’d all done our makeup before we left Oxford or in the car, so we just had to change. We power walked to the venue because it was only a few blocks away, and when we got there he (Chase Rice) thankfully hadn’t started yet! We grabbed some drinks and headed towards the stage. The venue was pretty big and cool (think Festival Hall Melbourne, but no seating and not quite that large, with more of a country barn kinda feel), and it was packed!

The show was great despite us only knowing 1 or 2 of his songs. They played a few other classics and he was very easy on the eyes, so all in all it was super enjoyable! Here’s some highlights:

(Ciara - Ireland, me, Georgia - Australia, CJ - Australia/NZ, Al - England, and Vera - Germany) (Paula and Susanna didn't go to the show)

(Chase Rice, the country singer. Very clearly easy on the eyes)

(Georgia got on my shoulders)

(Me, Georgia, Ciara, CJ and Vera)

(We chatted to one of the members of the band and he loved that we were all internationals!)

After the concert we headed into the city and found ourselves on Broadway. I didn’t even know Nashville had such a bright and iconic strip of clubs, so I was very pleasantly surprised! We got ourselves into a place called Honky Tonk Central, grabbed some drinks and food, and then danced around to the live band that was playing.

We then moved on to another place called Kid Rock’s Honky Tonk and headed up to their rooftop. It was an amazing view over Broadway and the city! Unfortunately our time there got cut short when Al called me from outside the club because he’d been kicked out. Even though security at the front let him in with an underage ID, the bartender asked for ID when he went to buy drinks and she realised he was underage. Then there was a whole debarkle about him believing security had taken his ID, so we spent a good 20 minutes trying to get security to get it back for him, only for us to find that Al had put it back in his wallet and it was there the whole time! So frustrating, but he was pretty drunk.

We headed back home and all pretty much immediately crashed into bed. It had been a great night!

Saturday 28 September

We all dragged ourselves out of bed at around 10am and got ready for the day. The plan was to grab some brunch and then head out sightseeing for the day. But of course, nothing ever goes to plan.

We decided to drive our cars to brunch to save on uber costs, but parking was an absolute nightmare – it took us about 30 minutes to find a park! The place we went to – Fido – was really cute and the food was great! The area it was in was right next to Vanderbilt University (we’re playing their football team at home next week!) and it was giving me some real Toorak Road vibes in terms of it feeling a little more upper-class with cute cafés, boutiques and the lack of parking spaces haha.

After brunch we drove into the city and tried to find a park so we could do some touristy things. The parking here was even worse, not because there was no parking, but because it would cost us $33USD for 4 hours!!! We decided to just drive back to the hostel and uber back into the city.

We decided to split up into two groups because we wanted to do different things for the afternoon. One group (CJ, Ciara, Vera and Al) wanted to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the others (Georgia, Susanna and Paula) and I wanted to do some sightseeing.

The girls and I caught an uber into the Belmont Hillsboro area, and hired some scooters. Electric scooters are the thing in Nashville – they’re sitting all around town and you just download the app of the company who own’s the scooter, load some money on your account, scan the QR code on the scooter, and you’re good to go. They were so much fun! We rode around finding a bunch of cool graffiti walls they had in the area, and then finished up our little adventure with some shaved ice. At one point when we were riding through a park, we stopped and had a break and I swear we interrupted a drug deal from happening. My criminology self came out and I was so interested in the situation, but also had to be careful in case the people had guns or they were being watched.

After we had seen everything in the area, we caught an uber into a more inner-city area called The Gulch to see Taylor Swift’s What Lifts You graffiti wall. The line just to take photos with it was huge because it’s a popular attraction here.

After we got our pics, we headed to Starbucks and then to Urban Outfitters to have a browse. We then got a text from the other group saying they’d found a dinner spot, which it turned out was 150m away from where we were! We walked over there and it turned out to be a place called The Pub which was English-themed! We all enjoyed some NORMAL fish and chips in a pub that felt more like a home pub. Down Under came on at one point and we all sang along out loud. We got some weird looks but we were just having a ball! Ciara and I were also having fun sitting in throne chairs at the ends of the table:

We headed back to the hostel, and all ended up napping/chilling out for about 2 hours, exhausted from being out and about for a few hours hahaha. There was a point where we all weren’t sure if we actually wanted to go out tonight, but we were in Nashville to have a great time and see the city, so I convinced everyone to get ready.

We headed out around 11pm and went to the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge and got to see the city all lit up – it was beautiful!

We then walked back into Broadway, and we split up again. Georgia, Paula, Vera and I headed in to find Linda and Franziska, two German exchange students from Ole Miss who had also come into Nashville for the weekend. We went to a bar called Tin Roof, but we weren’t there long because it was mostly filled with older people. This wasn’t uncommon for Broadway – there were so many middle aged people out – but this bar just had no other young people. Vera, Linda and Franziska headed off somewhere else, so Paula, Georgia and I went back to Kid Rock’s Honky Tonk’s rooftop bar since we didn’t really get to experience it last night with having to leave to deal with Al. We had a great time just chatting, downing several Screwdrivers, and having a little boogie.

(Paula and I)

When we were leaving the club and grabbing some hot dogs, we heard a cop say there’d been a shooting down the road at a McDonalds. This was pretty scary, so the girls and I jumped in a cab and headed home. We passed the McDonalds and saw about 10 cop cars out the front. It was a bit of a sobering moment since it was our first experience of a shooting occurring within close proximity. I never think about it in Oxford because it’s a really safe small town.

The others had already gotten home and fallen asleep, so we quietly creeped into bed and crashed.

Sunday 28 September

This morning we had to be up and about early because check out was at 11am. After we’d checked out, we headed into town to find a good brunch spot. However, after getting there, we realised that brunching was obviously a popular thing to do in inner-city Nashville on a Sunday morning, and we weren’t willing to wait an hour and a half for a table. So we instead decided to head over to the mall we were planning on visiting to eat there and then shop.

We ate at Rainforest Café, which we didn’t realise until too late was a family restaurant where many children go to have their birthday. Every 5 minutes, the waiter staff would come out clapping and singing a birthday chant with a dessert. On top of this, there would be a ‘thunderstorm’ in the café every 15 minutes where the lights would flicker and animal noises would play very loudly. It was a pretty place and the food was delicious, but we were glad to get out of there.

We browsed the mall for an hour or so. There were a couple of good stores like Forever 21 and H&M, but I wasn’t really in the mood for browsing. I had some Cinnabon, though, and got some churros which were good. We eventually headed back to the cars around 3 and headed off towards home.

Al drove the first 2 hours and everything was going fine. We stopped at a service station near Jackson (Tennessee) so we could fill up the car and I would then try driving the rest of the way home. Al and I filled up the car with Paula’s directions, and we headed off. After getting back on the highway and driving for maybe 2 minutes, the cruise control automatically turns off and the check engine light comes on. I panic and pull over to the side of the highway.

After a group discussion we realise we put Diesel into the car. A car that takes Gas. Fucking clowns we are. There was just some miscommunication between us all, and now we were stuck on the side of a highway in basically the middle of nowhere.

(A mid-debarkle pic we took)

We quickly got on the phone to the hire company, who after 45 minutes finally had a tow truck on the way to us. We’d also been in contact with the other car, and they went back to the gas station and confirmed that the pump we used was in fact a Diesel one. We then called the emergency Study Abroad number and Maggie, our advisor, picked up. I explained the situation to her, and by some miracle she was only about 10 miles down the same highway as us. What are the freaking chances! We explained where we were and she turned around to come and help us. It turns out she was on her way back from the other side of Nashville! She was happy to take Me and Susanna and all of our stuff, because Paula and Al had to wait with the car for the tow truck.

We set off towards Oxford and kept in contact with the others the whole way. Maggie had her two dachshund dogs with her so I got to cuddle them the whole time. They were so cute!!! The original plan was to go to Maggie’s sister’s house in Olive Branch – a Mississippi suburb on the border and near Memphis – so that we could be nearby to pick up Paula and Al from the tow truck’s destination in Memphis if need be. As we were approaching Memphis, though, it turned out that Al and Paula were only 20 minutes away, so we waited for them where they were getting dropped off at Memphis Airport. We all crammed into the car and headed off to Oxford. Maggie was so lovely about everything and was happy she could help.

We eventually got back to the dorm just before 11pm (4 hours later than expected lol), I freshened up, and pretty much went straight to sleep. What a day, and what a story. We’re not looking forward to finding out how much this whole shitstorm cost us, but I’m praying it doesn’t break the bank too much. At least we could all laugh about the whole thing haha.

Well this weekend was certainly eventful! I had a great time in Nashville and the ride home is one I definitely won’t forget! Next weekend the football comes back home so it’ll be the usual antics, except that this whole upcoming week is homecoming week so there should be heaps going on around campus!

- Emily xx