In Memphis I stayed in a hostel called Pilgrim's house, which was underneath a big church a bit outside the city. It was on this hipster street with lots of little shops and cafés, very cool. The place was very cosy and for $15 a night was awesome!
This was my deluxe bed that even had a sofa office underneath! I cooked up some noodles like a pro and got chatting to people from all over the world. The Irish tea went down a storm.
Also while I was in Memphis I had my first "couchsurfing" experience. If you have never heard of it, it is pretty much where people let you sleep on their sofa for free, organised through this website. My friend Paddy has had a load of people stay at his house in Belfast and so I thought I would give it a try.
I stayed with a girl called Brittany, who was an awesome host! She picked me up and we hung out at her apartment, and she wasn't crazy! Good times.
On the Sunday morning, I had planned to go to the Reverend Al Green's church. If you aren't familiar with the man, he is a legend of soul from the 70s who became a pastor. You would definitely recognise some of his hits.
Anyway he preaches at a Church in Memphis most Sundays and I had heard it was great fun.
Brittany lived quite far outside Memphis and had gone to see her folks that day, so I planned to get the bus to the church. I waited for about an hour and no bus showed up, so I made a little sign that said "Downtown" and stuck out my thumb. Half an hour later and I still had no lift. I knew I couldn't make the Al Green service in time, so I made another sign that just said "Church." Eventually this 16 year old couple stopped and after convincing them I wasn't a serial killer they agreed to drop me off somewhere.
They took me to this church called "Hope", which was massive and has like 8,000 people come every week. I got chatting to a few people and the hitch-hiking story went down a storm. Really enjoyed the service. Afterwards they had like 20 different types of free tea & coffee, it was better than Starbucks! There was this one old man I spoke to who told me he just came to church for the women and didn't like black people but everyone else was very nice.
After that I made my way down to the Greyhound station, ready for the next destination.
Memphis was totally awesome, a city with real heart and history, definitely will be hard to beat!
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