Ahhh, Nashville. How I’ve longed to see you... And you didn’t disappoint!
After a lazy afternoon of working out at the hotel and hanging out at the airport in St. Louis, I arrived in Nashville in time to meet up with Heather and Lisa. We checked into our fabulous hotel (the Homewood Suites, and it was SWEET) and headed out to Broadway to see what was going on. There really was music playing everywhere, even from some speakers inside metal boxes on streetcorners. After some scary horse statues at The Wild Horse and watching some line dancin’ and two steppin’ from a safe distance, we packed it up and headed to The Stage, where we got our own dance on. Lisa and I knew most of the rock songs the band played, while Heather knew all the country ones (and we knew a few...). Singing and dancing along, enticing some fun flirtations and a free beer, we closed down the place and decided that we had started off our weekend quite well.
Saturday, we were off to do some hard-core boot shoppin’. Heather and Lisa both located perfect boots while I, ever the picky and frugal one, decided they neither fit into my wardrobe nor my suitcase. I did find a perfect pair of jeans however, and was quite happy with my purchase. While Lisa and Heather went to find a FedEx to ship themselves each a box of their new purchases, I napped (oh glorious sleep!). When I called them up, they had found themselves priced out of the country music museum ($20, who do they think they are? The MOMA?) and scoping out a more pricey ($40), but more exciting ticket--to the Grand Ole Opry show later that night! With the last few hours of Daylight we wandered around Vanderbuilt’s beautiful campus, and then headed back to prep for our second night out.
Dinner at Sambuca (on the recommendation of a Nashvillian who Lisa met in DC... gotta love how PM’s get around and get things done!) was off-the-charts amazing. Lots of small plates of tastyness--salads, lamb
meatballs, sweet potato melt-in-your-mouth gooey goodness, giant tater tots of greatness, puffs of italian cheese and ham, crab-stuffed avacado, and more, plus wine and cocktails came out to less than $50 a head! Plus there was live jazz. Yah, it really does get that good sometimes.
We snagged coffee to keep our full tummies from putting us to sleep and shopped for a bit more at Urban Outfitters (in which I wanted everything, but thank god for full suitcases!), then it was off to the Opry at the
Ryman theater. While we were sitting waiting for it to start, I wikipedia’d the Opry, realizing that none of us knew anything about it. Nothing could have prepared us though... The sparkley jackets! The honest-to-goodness twang! The folksy old radio commercials every other song! The Cracker Barrel jokes! The amazing and surpisingly diverse music that just kept on coming! “Devil Went Down to Georgia” played by Charlie Daniels himself! Really, we were grinning like idiots the whole time and when the two hours were over, we were half shocked it had gone by so fast.
But the night wasn’t over yet! Off we went to the bars, ending up at Tootsies, a dive the local girls in the boot shop had recommended. The place was jammed, and not necessarily in a good way. It was like a mosh pit of people of every age, shape, color, and creed imaginable. There was Obviously-Implanted Lady, and Douche-with-boobs-almost-as-big-as-hers, Stuck-in-the-80’s Man with curly long hair under his cowboy hat, and plenty of You-can’t-be-21 girls. Everyone was pushing and pulling and crammed into this tiny alley of a bar. We stayed for a bit, and then when we decided to bail, it was 5 minutes before we could make it the 20 feet to the front door. Seriously, a fire code nightmare, but a great story.
The next morning, we warded off of our hangovers with a brisk walk to the Copper Kettle, a great brunch spot (and only #3 in Nashville according to their own sign). Everything you could ever want was there for you... and we definitely took advantage. It really topped off a wonderful weekend. Nashville, I love you.
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