Nashville, Tennessee is an up and coming place – some people even call it the new Las Vegas! So, I figured I had to write a post about my trip to Nashville the week of my 21st birthday with my two friends Melissa and Aimee, and their good friend Jackie. Melissa, Aimee and I worked at a country themed bar (which may have resulted in me practically loathing country music) and Nashville is the country music capital of the United States (perhaps the world) so we just HAD to take a road trip there! (IMPORTANT: before this trip we made a list of rules we had to all abide by, all of which I attempted to break during this trip) We left at 4 A.M. Thursday Morning in Melissa’s car after like five hours of sleep – I had tried to get the girls to black out on champagne with me the night before but this did not go as planned. So I thought it would be okay to stick my bottle of champagne in Aimee’s freezer. We realized what I had done and out of fear of the bottle exploding we had to leave it under Aimee’s porch when we left on our voyage. The three of them took turns driving (Not sure WHY but nobody trusted me behind the wheel..) oh well, I slept the entire trip, like seriously, I don’t know how a person can possibly sleep so much. We arrived in Nashville around three-ish I believe and stopped in a bar to eat – we were starving. I did not keep track of the first place we ate because we were so hungry, but people were allowed to smoke in the bar which was something I had never seen before. We then dropped Jackie off by her boyfriend (who was in Nashville) and checked into the Hilton hotel. We were worried the hotel may be far from the bars – boy were we wrong. We were right next to all of the bars. We decided to start drinking so we headed over to Margaritaville. We had Nachos to split and ordered a variety of frozen drinks, which we all shared with one another. After a few drinks in we were tipsy and headed over to the hotel to nap and change/shower. (I NEVER NAP… so I just sat on the bed tipsy and bored) Afterwards we decided to check out the Honky Tonk – a 3 floor bar with live music on each floor. This place became our home the entire rest of the trip, we were there more than our hotel. We had a few more drinks and I ended up outside of the Honky Tonk smoking cigarettes with a homeless man from Australia… Oops. Aimee and Melissa eventually found me and we returned to the hotel. Me.. being a drunk idiot deciding to order a pizza for the three of us… too bad I accidentally ordered the pizza to WASHINGTON. not my best moment.
The next morning we woke up early to look for cowboy boots. There are so many shops that sell authentic cowboy boots in Nashville – we did not end up buying any tho but we looked at a LOT of stores. We stopped in Coyote Ugly but it was not very busy (probably because it was early in the day) and then we decided to check out the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. When we finally found it – (it was right by our hotel, but naturally we got lost anyway) we were relieved and excited, I was not sure what to expect. It was awesome. If you head to Nashville if you only have a little time I would definitely recommend the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Honky Tonk! The museum had so much information and artifacts from Johnny Cash and Elvis – this is what I loved, but they had a lot of other artists too! Afterwards we went to eat at the Honky Tonk. We had chicken fingers while we listened to some live country and drank some Angry Orchards. We then headed back to the hotel to get ready to meet Jackie and her boyfriend for dinner, and to go out. When we got to the restaurant Melissa and I were not hungry so, naturally, we started drinking. By the time we all stumbled over to Honky Tonk I think we were drunk already – so why slow down? I eventually befriended one of the country singer’s that was singing that night (he can be found on iTunes) and he took us to another bar, Paradise Park. I do not remember too much at this point but it was this bar that was like “indoors and outdoors” but all indoors… like the carpet looked like grass and there was a car inside. It reminded me of the club in A night at the Roxbury. It also had pool tables, a Photo Booth, which I took pictures in that I found in my pocket the next morning…..? After numerous attempts at trying to get Melissa to kiss some guy in exchange for me buying her a beer I lost her at the bar and figured her and Aimee had gone back to the hotel (one of our rules was not to separate…) So I make the country singer walk me back to the hotel to find only Aimee there, where is Melissa? She asks me. Oops. I then call the singer back, you need to help me find Melissa! and as I am about to run out of the hotel here stumbles in Melissa. We decided to call it a night at this point. Now our room had two queen size beds and a couch… naturally I decided to sleep on the couch.
The next morning I wake up to Aimee, “Where is Demetra!? DEMETRA!” Her and Melissa come in the room to find me smashed up on the couch… which I then learned from the two of them folds out into a bed. Great. Today was our last day in Nashville so we had agreed it would be the day we would shop for souvenirs. We grabbed Pita Pit for lunch and I made it maybe half way through souvenir shopping before i had to return to the hotel, I was so fucking hungover. Aimee and I were miserable but Melissa felt great. “I have no idea how you guys are hungover, I feel fine!” Yeah, pretty sure she was still drunk because that hangover hit her hard later. We grabbed dinner at Cantina Laredo, a mexican restaurant which had table side-made guacamole. We had margaritas and I had Barbacoa tacos and OMG they were so good I can still taste them. The food here was so amazing! Afterwards we decided to have a few more drinks at the Honky Tonk for our last night in Nashville and at our favorite bar. The next morning we woke up early, checked out of the hotel and headed back to Chicago in Melissa’s car. I still wasn’t allowed to drive but I didn’t sleep as much this time. 🙂
Some rules we made that were broken or attempted to be broken this trip:
No accepting drinks from strangers. oops.
No getting separated
No trying to leave with guys
No trying to bring a guy to the room
No leaving one another at the bar
No leaving the bars alone
No blacking out
No ordering pizza to another state or sleeping on a pull out couch while its not pulled out… kidding about this one
Runaway Blond 