Partyin' in Memphis

Beale Street.

Two weekends ago around 20 international students hopped on a Megabus that drove us from Little Rock to Memphis! $10 and 2,5 hours later we arrived in one of the southern music meccas.

On our first night we decided to check out the famous Beale Street which is filled with brighter than bright signs, numerous bars, live music, and drunk people.

Met some guys from the military.

Slight size difference between mine and Lilja's drinks?

Live jamming in a park on Beale.

We had a good night bar hopping and drinking all along Beale, and woke up to a nice and hot day of touristing around Memphis. I've heard really conflicting opinions on Memphis. Some people (many of who at least at some point used to live there) seem to love the place, other people shook their heads when they heard of our plans, and asked us why on earth we would wanna go visit?! I'm somewhere in between. I definitely thought it was worth visiting, we had some good food (probably the best quality and value brunch with mimosas, twice in a row, at the Majestic Grille!), walked around a bunch, saw some sights.

Joel and Nicolo as tourists.

I ended up not wanting to spend a bunch of money on the "must-sees", like the Civil Rights museum and the spot where Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot, or Elvis Presley's Graceland. Instead Joel and I walked around a lot and stopped by some cute little shops. The only sight-seeing we really did was the Museum of Rock and Soul, and the Gibson Guitar Factory right across the street. I had a great time, but I have to say that Memphis was for some reason super dead, although completely charming as well. I don't know if we were there at the wrong time or something, but even on a Saturday afternoon, the only people we saw were at Beale Street. In the surrounding areas we saw maybe a total of 5 cars as well as a bunch of abandoned houses, shops, and even an entire mall with nothing left in it.

Although a lot of the shops we went in to were quite touristy, they were a lot nicer than most touristy shops I've gone in to!

The Peabody Hotel (which we unfortunately did not stay at) is known for it's resident DUCKS!

After a day of walking around we decided to have dinner at the famous Rendezvous, which I thought was decent enough, but somehow just... could have been a bit better to be honest. Maybe dry ribs just aren't for me.

Rendezvous with (L-R) Eyvonne, Anne-Lise, Inès and Danielle.

After dinner we decided to check out the nightlife in midtown. We ended up at a random house-partyish type of gig for a bit, and then continued on to a bar that had live music for about a half an hour, but some really good drinks instead. Unfortunately I have no photos :(

Our bus back wasn't meant to leave until 10PM, so we still had the entire day on Sunday to get some damn good brunch (seriously, the silent-movie-theater-turned-restaurant Majestic Grille was awesome), walk around, listen to music and see Memphis.

Sunset as we drove out of Memphis.

We ended up trading with some other guys and getting a ride home a little bit earlier. :)

Our jolly crew of at least party somewhat hungover internationals!

(L-R): Inès, Ale, Lena, Salva, Pauline, Joel, Anna, David, Aldmar, Galen, Sunwoo, me, Anne-Lise, Danielle, Eyvonne.

(Thanks Nicolo for the photo!)

I can't wait for our next trip! Fall break in two weeks will be spent in Chicago, Halloween in New Orleans, Thanksgiving in San Francisco... I am going to be 100% broke. But it's definitely worth it.