the good, the bad, and your mother?

So I was in Nashville all week. And its pretty much the only time I've been to the states. I might have been in Buffalo once for a couple of hours, but I don't remember.

That's why I've compiled these lists of phenomenae.

Welcome Deviations from the Canadian way of Life
- I saw few (in fact, zero) Team Canada t-shirts. As opposed to the normal 1-in-3 t-shirt ratio.
- Drive-through banks. Not like the ones we occasionally have. They were like converted gas stations, with pneumatic tubes that shot your bank-business upwards and into the heavens.
- Funny accents (although when I got back into Ohio on the trip back, I was relieved to hear people that didn't talk like freaks. I then realized they just had <i>different</i> freak accents)
- Kentucky is beautiful, though strangely lacking in fried chicken (see also: Louisville, Kentucky, on the next list)
- HBO is pretty neat
- Bowling Green, Ohio, has really new, really clean hotels (the stairway smelled like peanuts, though), a University, and a good Mexican restaurant
- Lil' Jimmy Dickens. The 4'11" joke-cracking, ass-kicking, country-singing, 80-year-old being comprised entirely of awesome and rhinestones.

Frightening Abhorrations and Disfigurations of all that is Normal
- Everyone was either white or black. I could count the number of Asian people I saw on one hand, the number of Middle-Eastern people on one finger, and the number of Mexican people on one restaurant and several hotels.
- Louisville, Kentucky: hellhole. I'm sure they were nice people, but nobody knew where the hell they were (and more importantly, how the hell to get out). We got lost almost instantly, and sent dad into a McDonalds yelling "Help me I'm lost and I'm English." A chorus of "I think its this/that/the other way"s resounded and we became infintessimally frustrated. Eventually, we got the aid of a police officer, who proceeded to lead us to the highway... At twice the speed limit.
- The news. It sucked.

Other happenings. I'm undecided as to their wholesomeness
- All day breakfast. All of America is obsessed with having breakfast for lunch, dinner, and a light snack.
- Waffle House. There is one on every corner. Its like Tim Hortons, but with a different kind of pastry, and shitty coffee.
- Nowhere to get coffee.
- Everyone in Tennessee is really tall and overweight to varying degrees. I am by no stretch of the imagination a small person, but I really felt like a little guy there. Everyone towered over me.
- If somebody is wearing a cowboy hat and not on a stage or dance floor, they are most definately not from Nashville. They're fucking tourists. Every single one of them.
- I was in a guitar store when a guy came in and asked us (we were pretty much the only people there) if we had the van with the Ontario licence plate. He then proceeded to tell us (in a thick Southern accent) how he was from Thunder Bay, but moved to Idaho for Bible college, married, and moved to Nashville. He then proceeded to witness to us. The literal act of preaching to the choir is a rare, but hilarious one.

Places People Thought I was From
Ireland
England
Scotland
Chicago
New Brunswick

Places I Told People I was From
Canada
Toronto
That place where the plane crashed yesterday/a few days ago
Soviet Union
Zecheckisblankistan

There are like a million pictures and I might post some, later. Yup.