A Car City

This is a car city, our hosts tell us of Nashville. You're nothing without a car. When they'd first arrived in America, they tried to do without a car, they tell us. They walked and rode the bus everywhere. The buses are great here, they tell us. You end up having great conversations. Where are you from?, people ask you. Where are you going? But it takes hours to get anywhere.

So they've been forced into driving, they tell us, which is terrible. They're Canadians, they say. They don't drive! They're not used to driving! They walk, they tell us. They cycle through the wilderness, they say. They paddle canoes. They're not made to be drivers.

For a few months, they tried to manage without a car in Nashville. They cycled everywhere, for miles and miles. People cried out to them in the streets. Why are you cycling?, they said. Are you crazy? But they continued to cycle. They cycled from far-flung government building to far-flung government building, in the process of becoming American citizens. They cycled out to their favourite Mexican restaurant and their favourite Vietnamese restaurant, but in the end, it was too much. They have a car now, they tell us, something they thought they would never own – something they thought they'd never have to own.

The sad thing is, Nashville used to have a train station, our hosts tell us. They even drive us past it, the former station, which has become some kind of shopping mall. Imagine it, W. says, shocked, a city without a train station!