Zihuatanejo is home now, and I haven’t lived in Nashville for 25 years, but I will always consider myself a Tennessean. I was thinking, though. There are some parallels between Zihuatanejo and Nashville. So I came up with a short list of possibly surprising similarities.

1. Friendliness of people. In Nashville and Zihua both it’s common to say “good morning” or “hola” to strangers on the street. One of my favorite parts of riding the bus in Zihua is when someone gets on and says “Buenas tardes” and in return you’ll see 11 people greet the person in unison, “Buenas tardes.” In both cities you can expect a local to come up and ask if you need assistance if you look lost.
2. They are both really open to different cultures, sexualities, and all types of people. The Human Rights Campaign ranked 506 cities across the US last year. The average score was 60, with Nashville scoring a 70, as well as receiving the best score of eight cities ranked in Tennessee. Zihua is too small of a town to show up on any rankings, but we have a locally owned hotel that advertises itself as a gay hotel. Ali and I have met many gay couples traveling here, and the lifestyle here is to “live and let live.”
3. This spicy chicken craze or whatever it is seems like a new-ish thing in Nashville to me, but I hear from my friends often about eating at Hattie B’s or some other spicy chicken restaurant. This is mostly true across Mexico, but Zihua is no different. Every time I eat order something here that is spicy, the waiter has to inform this gringo what he’s getting himself into. Mexicans like spicy food, and they know that foreigners maybe are not as excited about “fire mouth.” But it’s common to put spicy peppers in everything.
4. It’s super hot in the summer and there can be some intense lightning storms. In the next week in Nashville they are expecting thunderstorms almost everyday, with highs around 90 and lows around 70. In Zihua it will thunderstorm everyday the next week, with highs of only 82 and lows around 75. Each city is a super breeding ground for mosquitoes in Summer.
5. Both play terrible music. Just kidding, only one of the two cities does not have good music. Actually, of course everyone knows Nashville is Music City and has great live music all over town every single day, as well as the awesome CMA Fest in June, which Ali and I attended a couple years ago. You can also find live music in Zihua every night of the week. And since 2004 Zihua has hosted an annual International GuitarFest, which brings in musicians from all over the world for a week of concerts. 

And lastly they are both historically huge hockey towns! Nashville is a bit of a hockey city, and Zihua is not known particularly as a hockey town. But I would bet that on any particular night during hockey season a higher percentage of sports bars in Zihua are playing hockey versus Nashville.