Four days of Dining, Dancing and Drinking....In Nashville!

We landed in Nashville on a dreary Seattle-esque day. Miss Jamie picked us up at 9:00am after a night of flying through Portland and Atlanta. Side note: In Nashville, your hosts can actually bring their car to the “arrivals” gate and wait. The only rule, you must have your trunk open the whole time. Odd, but it worked. Our first stop…Jamie’s adorable studio apartment. It was charming, cute and so HER. Decorated impeccably endearing, I was amazed at how she made the space work for her. She had Branden’s air mattress all made up, coffee brewing and Krispy Kreme’s sitting on her tall white pedestal kitchen table. It was such a wonderful welcome to Nashville.

Prior to our travels, Branden and I (well mostly him) had done extensive research on food. Yes Food. I mean we did some research on touristy-stuff as well, but mostly just food. We had grand plans of where we were going to eat on Friday morning, but weather deterred us. The rain unfortunately held us back from waiting in line The Pancake Pantry. Apparently, this restaurant is supposed to be delicious, but rain mixed with a line around the block isn’t as appealing. Instead, we went to an amazing lunch at Arnolds Country Kitchen. Check out THIS  video to get an idea of what we ate and how we ate it. Simply put: a meat and three. That’s what we did, and ohhh how we enjoyed it. Even though we had sworn against it, we definitely came back and took a nap. Arnolds and lack of sleep did us all in.

On Friday night, we ventured to the neighboring town of Franklin for a Haunted Ghost Tour "thing." It wasn't quite what we expected, so we ditched it early. Adorable town though, I'm happy we took a quick nighttime tour. We returned to Mid Town, an area close to Jamie's apartment and went barhopping to The Red Door Saloon and to Losers (as opposed to the bar next door called Winners). Losers was jam-packed with a live band. Unfortunately, I got a full beer knocked out of my hand by a guy dancing a little too hard and little too much. Luckily, he was a southern gentleman and bought me a new one :) And if you're wondering, Loser's is apparently a lot cooler than Winner's. I love a good play on words. Two things I noticed about the bars: Even if a band is playing LIVE music, they still don't charge cover. Nashville score! However, I very much appreciate the "no smoking" laws back home. Seattle score!

On Saturday, the weather took a turn for the BETTER. It was still crisp, but the sun was out. We stopped by Jamie's second weekend job. Loved the store! I could have spent much more time looking around. But, I'm pretty sure Branden had endured enough wedding invitations, baby presents, and window shopping. We then visited Vanderbilt and did (a few) drive-by's of some fraternity parties. They were partying, mid-day, doing keg stands on their front porch as if it was no big woop. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Officer Bell would have put the kibosh on this here situation.

We skipped breakfast this day, and went to lunch at Bolton's Spicy Chicken. And holy moly, it was SPICY. Too spicy for my wimpy taste buds. However, Jamie and Branden managed just fine.On Saturday night, we celebrated Halloween!! And we went a "honkey tonkin'!" Also known as going out to loud, rowdy bars that play country music. There was whiskey-shot taking (not by moi), where's Waldo-ing, and lots of wiggling to live country music. Again, NO cover anywhere--it's incredible.

Sunday was NFL GAME DAY/recovery day :) We went to Germantown Cafe for breakfast. Although it wasn't our first choice, the area was adorable, brick lined streets, small churches. Definitely has potential. Then, we headed to the Titans vs. Colt's game. This was Branden's dream come true, gone slightly wrong. He's a huge fan of the Indianapolis Colts, and more specifically THIS GUY. We bought tickets months ago. He was pumped to see Peyton Manning's mad skills as one of the best quarterbacks in history. Sadly, Mr. Manning underwent neck surgery and is out the rest of the season. Peyton being able to play again at all is still tbd. Although, we didn't witness a win from the Colt's, the game was still a good time and the seats were awesome.

We re-fueled at Jack's. This was another cafeteria, "meat & three" style restaurant. Also very delicious. We went back to the apartment, rested, then went out to a Sunday Night Jam Session at the Station Inn. Very cool show...by the end there were about 18 string musicians all just playin' along. Love that blue-grassy feel. However the frozen Totino's "like" pizza I ate there, probably was unnecessary. The three of us moved on to the Whiskey Kitchen. This was a swanky bar that served good drinks and good wings, which Branden thoroughly enjoyed. He had the right idea and skipped the $13 frozen pizza we had previously ordered. After all that swankyness, we were pooped and decided to end the night with a flick and a cozy bed.

Monday morning, we finished off our trip at my favorite restaurant of the weekend, Monell's. Talk about food. Talk about LOTS of GOOD food. We shared a table with a lovely local couple. They do lots of family style seating here in Nashville. Here's just a snippet of what we enjoyed and passed amongst ourselves: mashed potato's, meat loaf, biscuits, green beans, broccoli salad, cole-slaw, fried chicken, chicken & dumplings,  strawberry shortcake ect....Then it was off to the airport. Bags in hand, we said our goodbyes to Jamie-girl. What a jam packed, fun weekend away. Thank you again girlfriend for hosting us! We'll see you in December!! XO