Thursday, May 10, 2007
Nashville: The Update
First of all, welcome back (to me). I had a fabulous few days off. Fabulous. I didn't want to come home. Nashville was a total blast, even though it took us a good 11 hours to get there from Raleigh. I don't know if boys have smaller bladders than girls or if they're just bigger pansies about holding it, but those kids had to go literally every hour and a half. So every hour and a half, we had to stop, which made it take us longer to get there, which meant that it was getting later and later, which meant we were getting more and more tired, which meant we had to stop every hour and a half anyway to get out and walk around to wake ourselves up. We caught a second wind when we realized that we'd changed time zones and it was, in fact, an hour earlier than we thought. This was purely a mental trick, but it worked for a little while. We finally ended up getting there around 5:00 a.m. (Central time) and going promptly to bed.
I woke up at 8:45 a.m. (yeah...do the math), and we started our day around 10 with a tour of the neighborhood where the kids will be doing their mission trip next month. This'll have to be a whole other post because it was a very cool place, and I'd love to do something like it in Raleigh, but it was such a unique situation that allowed to be possible there, and I don't think the same thing could be done here, but we'll talk about all that later.
After the tour, we went to Opry Mills, which is a mall next to the Grand Ole Opry. The kids thought that this was the greatest thing ever. C and I thought it was a mall. The Opry itself, though, was really cool to see. We couldn't go into the actual auditorium part, but we went into the gift shop and the museum, which has a part where you can stand on a wee "stage" looking out at an "audience" that's really just painted onto the wall in front of you. But there's an old microphone there, which makes you feel ten times cooler than you felt before stepping up to it. So now I can say I've performed "on stage" at the Grand Ole Opry.
Next, we "got lost" trying to find the zoo and ended up downtown. The zoo, as we later discovered, is absolutely nowhere near downtown, so I'm pretty sure C just didn't want to go to the zoo at all, because I KNOW he really wanted to go downtown. And it was totally worth it. Broadway is great. There is live music going on inside every other door. I just couldn't get Alison Krauss out of my head singing, "It's been a steady pace to keep my steps between these cracks on Broadway and my stride in rhythm to the beat of home sweet home."
The funniest thing about downtown was that the kids were kind of scared of it. When we took them to the mall, they asked if we all had to stay together, and when we told them no, just meet back here at 2, they were gone. But when we went downtown and told them to just walk up and down this one street, they said (all nonchalantly), "No, that's cool. We'll just stay with you." So we walked in and out of stores and bars (which had no age requirement before 6:00), where the kids seemed certain that everyone was not only completely wasted but also a raging alcoholic. Then the waiter at the Hard Rock Cafe freaked them out. He was a totally nice guy. He was just hard-rockin'. Black fingernails, bottom half of his head shaved, spiky cuffs, that sort of thing. So the girls are looking around at the waitresses and saying things like, "Everyone working here is a total freak," while I'm looking at the same waitresses and thinking, "I really like her hair." I guess they just need their world-view broadened a bit. I wonder if I was like that when I was 14. Probably. Mom? Any insight?
The drive back on Sunday didn't seem to take nearly as long, although it only took about an hour less. The fact that we were fully awake probably helped. The fact that we knew it was going to take more than eight hours definitely helped. And the fact that C and I were giggling hysterically the whole way at ourselves replacing all the "yous" with "Jews" in all the songs would have made any amount of time fly by. If you don't find this 100% racist and cruel, give it a try next time you're singing along to the radio. Feel free to pee your pants laughing. Unless you're a girl and can hold it.
Here's one to get you started. Thanks, Lionel.
Jews are the sun, Jews are the rain
That makes my life this foolish game.
Jews need to know, I love Jews so,
And I'd do it all again and again.
I woke up at 8:45 a.m. (yeah...do the math), and we started our day around 10 with a tour of the neighborhood where the kids will be doing their mission trip next month. This'll have to be a whole other post because it was a very cool place, and I'd love to do something like it in Raleigh, but it was such a unique situation that allowed to be possible there, and I don't think the same thing could be done here, but we'll talk about all that later.
After the tour, we went to Opry Mills, which is a mall next to the Grand Ole Opry. The kids thought that this was the greatest thing ever. C and I thought it was a mall. The Opry itself, though, was really cool to see. We couldn't go into the actual auditorium part, but we went into the gift shop and the museum, which has a part where you can stand on a wee "stage" looking out at an "audience" that's really just painted onto the wall in front of you. But there's an old microphone there, which makes you feel ten times cooler than you felt before stepping up to it. So now I can say I've performed "on stage" at the Grand Ole Opry.
Next, we "got lost" trying to find the zoo and ended up downtown. The zoo, as we later discovered, is absolutely nowhere near downtown, so I'm pretty sure C just didn't want to go to the zoo at all, because I KNOW he really wanted to go downtown. And it was totally worth it. Broadway is great. There is live music going on inside every other door. I just couldn't get Alison Krauss out of my head singing, "It's been a steady pace to keep my steps between these cracks on Broadway and my stride in rhythm to the beat of home sweet home."
The funniest thing about downtown was that the kids were kind of scared of it. When we took them to the mall, they asked if we all had to stay together, and when we told them no, just meet back here at 2, they were gone. But when we went downtown and told them to just walk up and down this one street, they said (all nonchalantly), "No, that's cool. We'll just stay with you." So we walked in and out of stores and bars (which had no age requirement before 6:00), where the kids seemed certain that everyone was not only completely wasted but also a raging alcoholic. Then the waiter at the Hard Rock Cafe freaked them out. He was a totally nice guy. He was just hard-rockin'. Black fingernails, bottom half of his head shaved, spiky cuffs, that sort of thing. So the girls are looking around at the waitresses and saying things like, "Everyone working here is a total freak," while I'm looking at the same waitresses and thinking, "I really like her hair." I guess they just need their world-view broadened a bit. I wonder if I was like that when I was 14. Probably. Mom? Any insight?
The drive back on Sunday didn't seem to take nearly as long, although it only took about an hour less. The fact that we were fully awake probably helped. The fact that we knew it was going to take more than eight hours definitely helped. And the fact that C and I were giggling hysterically the whole way at ourselves replacing all the "yous" with "Jews" in all the songs would have made any amount of time fly by. If you don't find this 100% racist and cruel, give it a try next time you're singing along to the radio. Feel free to pee your pants laughing. Unless you're a girl and can hold it.
Here's one to get you started. Thanks, Lionel.
Jews are the sun, Jews are the rain
That makes my life this foolish game.
Jews need to know, I love Jews so,
And I'd do it all again and again.
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