I recently wrote about how friendly I found Nashville to be.  But the metaphysical Nashville threw some things at me to test my adoration – I had my pinky finger slammed in a cab door when a bellboy closed it in haste, was stuck for the better part of a half hour in a crowded malfunctioning hotel elevator and got trapped in a cab with a cabbie suffering some sort of emotional distress who wanted to take me somewhere other than back to my hotel (the first time in my life I seriously considered jumping out of a moving vehicle).  That would normally sour me on a place, but not with Nashville.

Rolling with the punches is a life lesson travel will attempt to teach you pretty often.  If you can take the inevitable challenges travel throws at you with a dose of good humour, you’ll at least end up with a good story in the end.  After my finger was slammed and stuck in the cab door and the requisite screaming was done, I asked the bellboy for some ice, a towel and two Tylenol, then got the cabbie to take me where I was planning to go.  My finger was all kinds of swollen and sore, but this was my one chance to see the Country Music Hall of Fame.  I was even the recipient of a sympathetic free shot of bourbon at a downtown bar later that day when the bartender caught a glimpse of my finger.

Traveling home from Nashville, I had another opportunity to roll with the punches.  My flight from Philly was cancelled leaving me with ten hours to kill and a strong likelihood my new flight would never take off.  What did I do?  I ticked two things off my “not yet in Philly” list.  First, a cheese steak from Tony Luke’s, and the best one I’ve ever had in the city in my well researched opinion:

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