Music City

Last weekend I traveled to Nashville to visit Jenna since I hadn’t been there yet.  I was so excited to see where she lived and worked both currently and last year when she was interning.  Even though we talk to each other most days, it was also really nice to get to spend some time with her and catch up since we haven’t seen each other since Christmas.

I arrived on Thursday when Jenna was finishing up work and saw her cute apartment and met her roommate and the cats. We hung out at the apartment for a while and ran to the post office for an errand and then decided to go to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner since I had never been there (S/O to rural PA). Everything was so delicious!! I got Spicy Chicken Chipotle Pasta and Tiramasu Cheesecake! It was to die for!! Jenna got Miso Salmon and Salted Caramel Cheesecake!

That night we went home and stayed up late talking and then fell asleep cause we both had long days.

Friday morning, Jenna didn’t have to go to work so we had the whole day for adventures! We started our day off at the Pancake Pantry.  It’s famous in Nashville and the wait didn’t end up being too long since we were there on a weekday. I tried the Banana Bread Pancakes and Jenna had Apricot-Lemon Delight.  They were both really good and we left there stuffed!

Afterwards we walked around some cute shops locally and then drove through Vanderbilt’s campus and I got to see where Jenna lived last year and see the Barnes & Noble and Starbucks she would frequent.  Then we went to Centennial Park which is a really beautiful park with a replica of the Parthenon representing that Nashville is the Athens of the South.

Afterwards we drove through other parts of the city including, Music Row (where all the record labels are located) and 12 South where theres cute shops and also Draper James!!! Draper James is Reese Witherspoon’s store and let me just say it is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.  I wanted to buy literally everything!!

After all of our driving around and window-shopping, we went back to the apartment to watch the #TGIT episodes we missed the night before.  We went to get dinner at a restaurant in The Gulch called Bar Louie. The food was okay but they had a good happy hour special so we got cocktails and this delicious bruschetta that had shrimp in it!

After dinner we were really tired and stuffed with food, but we rallied and went downtown to go to all the cool bars.  This was probably one of my favorite parts.  We went to Honky Tonk Central (my fave), Tin Roof, and Tootsies.  All of the bars have a different live band on every floor of the bar and theres so many people! Its such a cool atmosphere to experience and we had a lot of fun!

Saturday morning we woke up and grabbed some Dunkin Donuts (of course) and went to a mall.  We did some shopping and Jenna was able to FINALLY visit the American Girl Doll Place!! When we were growing up the only ones were in Chicago and New York and she never got a chance to go, so we were finally able to make all her dreams come true! We grabbed a light lunch and then drove back to the city.  We headed downtown so I could experience it in the daylight go in the souvenir shops.  There happened to be a Predators game and it was really warm so there were swarms of people everywhere!

We debated a lot of places for dinner that night and ended up picking a restaurant called The Aquarium Restaurant.  There were lots of live fish, baby sharks, and even a few (disgusting, repulsive) eel inside of a tank right in the middle of the restaurant.  We both ended up getting a seafood cannoli and it was really good.  We both cleaned plate.

The restaurant was located in Opry Land so after we walked over to the Grand Ole Opry and took pictures.  We tried to go inside since a show was letting out and we didn’t think there was any security but we were wrong and they didn’t let us in. I really wanted to see the Opry while there cause it holds so much history and is so famous.  Next time I visit I would love to see an awesome show there.

As the trip was closing to an end, there were still one thing on our list to do and that was to visit the Bluebird Cafe.  The Bluebird is where Taylor Swift was found and so many songwriters go there to share their music.  Its a pretty iconic space in Nashville. After we got breakfast at The Perch, which had delicious crepes.  We both had strawberry and nutella!

Sunday afternoon it was time to head home. I had such a great weekend visiting with Jenna and I can see why she loves Nashville so much! There’s so many cool things to do there.  I am already excited to visit again!

Until next time Nashville!