To celebrate our third anniversary, Scott and I hopped a flight and went to Nashville for the weekend.
We dropped our bags and went right downtown when we arrived. Its a quick flight, so even though we worked a full day, we were able to get a full night out. And a full, college-style night out always beats a full day of work.
Honky Tonk Central! That was the name of the bar…not my description of downtown Nashville. Although it works both ways.
Hint to future Nashville-travelers. The really good bands come on at 10:30. I would recommend getting to a honky tonk (bar) a bit earlier so you are guaranteed a good spot – or a spot at all. Scott and I saw a ton of people waiting in line outside as the night went on, so we just stayed put. And it was totally worth it. We saw 3 different bands, which got progressively better.
On Saturday we had biscuits and gravy and walked around the downtown area. 
We test drove some boots.
And hats.
We walked the pedestrian bridge.
And then we got down to work eatin’ and drinkin’. Nashville is so popular right now, so everybody had a list of restaurants we needed to try.
Acme Feed & Seed is three stories tall and has a great open space on the 3rd floor overlooking the river and the pedestrian bridge. And cute coasters.
Puckett’s was a great spot for lunch and it was still slammed at 2:00 pm. I had the fried chicken and you should too.
After lunch, we hopped around some of the honky tonks downtown since we only saw one the night before. Hint: they all start to repeat the same songs after awhile. It’s a good time nonetheless.
We explored a new area of town and had dinner at a nice restaurant named Josephine’s. Thats about when we started dreaming of opening our own restaurant in New Jersey. There just aren’t any great restaurants of the caliber of Josephine’s or the quality we got used to in NYC. Fun to dream, right?
On Sunday, we had a late flight, so we explored the Vanderbilt campus. After a phenomenal brunch (blue cheese biscuit eggs benedict!!! Praise Jesus!) at The Southern.
We have good friends who went to Vandy so we had to stop in. It was a beautiful little campus. I kept commenting on how quiet it was. We only saw a handful of students and it was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Virginia Tech would have had at least three pick up football games, people laying in the sun and lots of sweatpants-clad groups making their way to lunch. Scott informed me that a lot of very smart people go to Vanderbilt so they were probably doing work in the library. I tried not to read too much into his implications about my own alma mater. Ahem.
Right off the campus there is a scale model of the Parthenon. I’m not even kidding. How come Rayna James never visits that on the show Nashville?? (Sarcasm)
On the lawn nearby there was a small festival with live music, food trucks and lots of puppies. Korean tacos? Delicious and spicy.
That is what we loved the most about Nashville – was the constant music. Next time we go, and there will be a next time, we will be sure to get tickets to a place like the Bluebird Cafe or Ryman Theater (the original Opry location). That way we will see original artists, instead of the covers that they do at all of the honky tonks. But these are our lessons learned. And I’m not complaining.
Oh, I also recommend staying downtown. We were at the Gaylord Opryland. We spent so much in taxis getting back and forth. So book early. And my last piece of advice is to learn all of the words to “Rockytop.” You would hate to have a microphone thrust in your face and not know all the lyrics to every verse…in Tennessee. Heavens.
The Fitzgeralds 