In Nashville...Day Five

Okay, you come to Nashville and you're supposed to be all corny and talk about 'live' music in a Jools Holland fashion and pretend you really love it when in reality you're simply not that bothered. Who gives a hot damn about the Grand Ole Opry? I mean the downtown area is fine, for about half an hour, but then you realise that all the food there is 'fast', bar a couple of upmarket eateries you can't really afford, and even if you could you'd think 'why did I pay all that money, it wasn't THAT good!' Well, yeah, you start to think there must be more to life. And there is! The Gulch is an area outside of town that's a little bit more European and offers some light relief from the 'party' that is Nashville's downtown. You can reach it on foot in about 20 minutes from the town centre, just walk up Demonbreun and between the bridge over the railroad tracks and the interstate there are some stairs that will take you down there. I'm sure there are other ways of getting there too.

The Gulch is a cut above the downtown area, put it that way, but the problem, of course, is that the places offering classier food also charge more for it and you end up staring at the usual burger and fries style menu trying to find an exception to the rule. There's always an exception, and invariably it's Atlantic salmon.

Oh how I wish I'd not ordered this dish!

So, the Gulch. Well, I've been dreaming of sitting in a Starbucks in the USA with my book, nursing an English Breakfast tea and an almond croissant, and finally I was able to do it.

The Gulch is a short walk from my hotel, which makes it all the better.

There's a great hotel at The Gulch called the Thompson. It's a trendy-looking, hip boutique style, similar in many ways to the Ace Hotel group, particularly the Ace in Portland, Oregon, that will always be my all-time favourite place.

According to a Chugger I met on the street, Kid Rock was staying at the Thompson recently. Kid who? But this place has all the ingredients of a cool hotel.

The Thompson's dinner menu was a little pricey and after my experience at The Palm last night (see previous post) I figured something a little more sensibly priced would be best. So I headed for the pub across the street. It's an English pub selling English beer like Old Speckled Hen (awful stuff in my opinion) and Fuller's ESB (not that good, let's be honest). So I opted for Sweet Water Extra Pale and a couple of glasses of Devil's Backbone Schwartz Bier. The music was good: The Smiths, the Stone Roses, the Rolling Stones, the Police, you get the picture.

I liked the pub's English theme. It was, for all intents and purposes, an English pub, but not as rough around the edges. Most importantly, though, the fact that I was English made me the star of the show, or so I thought. I was the cool dude because I was actually English, but it's impossible to 'out-cool' an American. They have bags of it stored up. Take the barman, he looked like Johnny Depp, he had two arms full of tattoos and he probably owned a Harley. Who am I to compete with that? My Specialized Rockhopper mountain bike, my Toyota Corrola, who am I kidding?

I ordered Atlantic salmon with brocolli and rice but then ruined it by ordering whisky bread and butter pudding, which arrived with miles too much ice cream. I ploughed through it, wishing I hadn't ordered it – like I always do when dessert wins the day – but ultimately the experience was fantastic and I'll probably head back there tomorrow for my last night in town – but hold the dessert!

There's other places in The Gulch, like Burger Republic, which I might try tomorrow, but in all honesty I need some exercise, although I've done a fair bit of walking around the city, bearing in mind that it's 20 minutes on foot from my hotel to the convention centre, so I've been putting in at least 40 minutes a day.

Devil's Backbone Schwartz Bier... nice!

My colleague has flown home leaving me alone to experience the cabin fever of solitary dining. Sometimes it's alright, but once a bit of alcohol kicks in it can take me two ways. Either I embrace the loneliness and ride the lightening of desolation or I inwardly crack up and start thinking about my family back home. I waver between the two and often tip the balance, but today I was fine. I paid up and left and took the lonely walk home along Division Road, which I admit I had thought about prior to undertaking it; I've read about how you need to be aware of your surroundings in Nashville, especially if you're alone after dark. Alright, it's more for women than men, but you never know and I was taking a lonelier route than usual. It was fine, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing along that road and I'm glad I just about got back before nightfall. The crickets were out making a lot of noise, put it that way, it was just like being in the movies.

The Gulch is a fantastic place and, as I mentioned earlier, the Thompson Hotel looked wonderful. Not much else to report other than the price of clothes. There were shops selling shirts for ridiculous prices and with the pound being not too far off the dollar these days, there's little to gain for an English visitor to the US so I'm assuming nobody buys anything unless, that is, I'm the only pauper in town. Who knows and, more importantly, who cares?

I'm back in my hotel room now, but once again I go to bed too early, and now I'm up at 0137hrs tidying up this blogpost and listening to the birdsong. Better get back to bed.

I write a lot of hotel and restaurant reviews on Trip Advisor, which can be read by clicking here.

In Nashville, Day Four...*

There's a lot of raised voices outside of my room and it's 0520hrs. A woman and a man are raising their voices at each other – arguing in other words – and it can only be a matter of time before somebody from the hotel management arrives or somebody opens their door. I think the kerfuffle (that's a good word) is coming from next door, room 508.

Woman's voice: "My God, get you're shit together!" There was much more, but I can't remember what. At one stage I heard the woman use the word 'abnormal' and the man seemingly protesting or justifying whatever it was that she thought wasn't right.

Now it's gone quiet, perhaps somebody has had a word. My room and next door's are linked by a door that is obviously locked, but I'm always slightly uneasy about internal doors into other people's rooms. Earlier, resting my ear on the door I thought I'd better keep away in case one of them attempted to shoot the other and the bullet flew through the door and hit me. I'm making a sweeping generalisation here that all Americans are gun-toting maniacs who can't have an argument without shooting at one another.

The last time I eavesdropped on an argument between a man and a woman in a hotel room was in Pittsburgh at the Quality Inn, but I can't remember the gist of whatever row they were having.

The interstate

We're back to silence and birdsong, which has been pronounced over here. It's now 0526 and its brightening up outside. I can hear the distant roar of the interstate, or perhaps its the aircon. The interstate is a shortish walk from the hotel, possibly 10 minutes, but I'm thinking now that it's the aircon, although I might be wrong.

It's Wednesday and I'm up early because I went to bed early. Since Monday it's been work during the day, an early dinner with a colleague and then we part company, around 1930hrs. I walk back to my hotel, it takes 20 minutes along Demonbreun, which is pronounced De-mon-breun and not Demon brewin' as I was saying until somebody who lives here corrected me. Once in my room and with no urge to go back out again and nothing much going on in the hotel I simply jump into bed and fall asleep, waking once or twice during the night but then rising around 0500hrs.

What to say about Nashville? Well, you won't be surprised to hear that I like it (I like everywhere I go). There are high-rise buildings here, of course there are, but not as many as Portland or Cleveland or Indianapolis, but the downtown is growing, hotels are going up and so are office buildings, probably much to the dismay of the locals, but then I guess that high-rises and hotels bring in money and generate wealth and that should, by rights, benefit everybody. There's a large Marriott going up next to the Westin, there's already a Sheraton, a Hilton, an Omni, all the big brands are here, and they're being fuelled by a huge and impressive convention centre where I'm spending all of my days while here in the city.

I've been told it's a pretty safe place, although it's probably not safe for women walking around alone at night, but that's pretty much the same as in the UK. I've seen the odd down-and-out, but so far, that's about it; although, oddly, yesterday morning, my mobile phone sent through an 'amber alert' alerting me and millions of other mobile users in the city to a paranoid schizophrenic who had broken into his girlfriend's apartment and stolen her baby. I'm not sure on the latest, but I found it odd that my mobile received the message. I went down to breakfast and there on the television was the same words that had appeared on my phone, "Amber Alert" along with photos of the abducted baby and the madman.

While the madman and the baby is the local news, the big national story is Donald Trump's sacking of FBI director Comey, the man heading an investigation into the Trump administration's links with Russia. Odd that the man running the investigation into Trump has been sacked by Trump, but I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions, although, if it wasn't politics but gangland, I'd imagine Comey would have been bumped off.

Jackelope Bearwalker, 6% abv at the Omni

On the food front I can't say I'm impressed as it's all kettle chips with burgers and beer. I'm generalising, but there seems to be two extremes: either you go to places like the Hard Rock Café where there are lots of burger-type meals accompanied by fries or 'chips' – the terminology can be confusing, but basically if 'chips' are offered you're going to get crisps and that appears to be the common culinary currency here. The other extreme is places like the Palm, where we went yesterday evening and realised pretty quickly that it was 'posh'. Posh but still a little brash. It was a haunt of 'celebrities' which over here means film stars like Mel Gibson. The reason I mention Mel is because his is the first face I see – drawn on the wall, in colour, by a cartoonist and placed alongside many others. There are, of course, prices to match and a certain pushiness on behalf of the waiting staff. I'll give you two examples: first, the wine waiter (yes, there's a separate waiter for the drinks). I order a Cabernet, mainly because I'm not a great fan of the beer over here, but I'm not at all happy at the prices. Put it this way, two glasses of wine cost more than the food I ordered. Now that's not on for a start, but what I found irksome was the Ned Beatty lookalike waiter's assumption that I'd ordered a 9oz glass. I hadn't. In fact I hadn't said either way, but the prices were high so I was going for the 6oz. He came back with a smaller carafe and slung the contents into my awaiting glass.

I ordered linguine with clams – the bias here was steaks. There were bread rolls and some horrible-tasting iced tap water. My bill, without the tip, was almost $74. Never again, put it that way, as most of my 'potato chip and burger' meals have cost far less.

The waitress who took our food order was annoying too. She insisted on bellowing out the desserts rather than hand us both a menu. It was the usual fayre but at vastly inflated prices: Key Lime Pie, loads of chocolate-based desserts and, of course, cheesecake. We declined them all, paid up and left.

I moseyed on back to my hotel in the evening heat. It was still light as I made my way along Demonbreun and stopping off en route at Del Frisco's Grille just to check it out. It's close-by the hotel, meaning I don't have the 20-minute walk and can simply finish work, come back to the hotel and then go out later – I'll be alone from tonight as my colleague flies home. I stick around for the plant trips on Thursday.

Actually, I say that Del Frisco's is closer to the hotel in which I'm staying (1201 Demonbreun, I'm at 1407) but it's still on the other side of the interstate, although I'm guessing no more than 10 minutes. The prices look more reasonable too; put it this way, I could have two entreés for the price of one small glass of wine at The Palm.

So, it's 0622hrs, the sun is out, all is still, the skies are blue and I can hear the sound of a helicopter. I'd better get ready for breakfast and a catch-up on what's been happening with the schizo and the baby and, of course, the latest on Trump. Amazing how the two are mentioned in the same sentence.

* The reason there's no Day Three is simple: nothing much of any interest happened.

I write a lot of hotel and restaurant reviews on Trip Advisor, which can be read by clicking here.