Writing about events is hard for me. Either I go overboard in the mundane details, or it becomes a step-by-step process. For instance:
We found lots of candy, and soda, and over priced tin signs. We found $10 shops, I found more scarves to purchase, and lots of yummy looking restaurants. By the time we hit the restaurant portion of town we were all starving, all that walking burning our sausage biscuits from the morning. Our plan was to try a burger joint across town, so we hurried back to our cars and headed out, tummies rumbling.
Burger Republic. Even Foursquare didn't have much to say about it, which should have been a sign in and of itself. Located in an apartment complex, the restaurant itself wasn't very big, making our party of seven a large group, one that was going to take 30 minutes, at the very least, to seat.
This presented another problem, as there was no where to sit and wait. Now what? Luckily I'd spotted Urban Outfitters across the street. Do we have time to go there? Yes? Yes we did. Yay! An hour later, we moseyed out of the store, and back to BR. Were they ready for us yet? No? Are you serious?
The group at the one table you wanted to sit us at isn't leaving?
Ook. ....
Luckily the manager thought quickly, and maneuvered some chairs and tables together along the wall, and got us seated. Adventure isn't my middle name when it comes to food, and I really just wanted something filling and simple, so I chose their Southern Style Chicken Sandwich, added cheese to it and switched Pickle chips for Fries.
The fries were good, but the sandwich was disappointing. The chicken was tender and well cooked, but it lacked flavor. My sister Kristen got the Veggie burger but was also disappointment as it was mostly just beans mashed to form a patty. Those who ordered actual burgers seemed well satisfied; but it was fun.
Our next stop was ... another book stop. McKay's book, a used bookstore where you can trade books for money or store credit (see also: Bookworms). Though we have one in Knoxville, Jennifer wanted to stop in Nashville, just to see. Since I do a lot of reading on my Kindle/iBook/Nook apps, I find myself steering away from books for new reading material. (I know, I know, its ... it hurts me as well) So I brought books to trade since we were going. I had a project I've been working on, and needed comic book pages ... :)
Alas all good things must come to an end, and after stopping at a local Cupcake shop, then a gelato (for those who didn't want cupcakes) We sat down to exchange our valentines gifts .... and that is when I discovered, my camera of six years had been violated.
Well, technically it was the lense, but seeing's how it was the only working lense for this particular camera.. it might as well be the entire thing.
As I sat in the ice cream shop,wailing hysterically , staring at what once had been my a part of me, while my friends tried to comfort me, oohed and ahhed over their gifts... all I could think of was ...
Welp, its tax time, this would be a great time to upgrade my lenses! It was my fault for just carrying it in the bottom of my bag. I didn't baby it as much as I should have, and have dropped it many more times than I should have. *deep breaths*
Oh yes. After that happened we headed home.
The End.
RIP 50mm 1.8 lens. i loved you.
- "We left the house at 8:00am sharp and pulled onto the road, headed towards the highway." (Which actually didn't happen due to the small fact that some of us were exhausted, didn't read the text properly, left their house at 7:00am, sat at the wrong house for 20 minutes before realizing for one thing, the meet-up time was 7:30am, and the meet-up house was in the other direction.)
- We got on the highway headed towards Nashville TN (only an hour late, with a pit-stop at Bojangles all the while debating whether or not Biggest Loser Rachel F. weight loss)
That's not what you would call, a fun read. But honestly its hard to put into words ... the feelings, the fun, the laughter, the joking ...
Back Story
Our church community is a very tight-knit group of people, despite the fact that we're spread across the United States of America, and though there are general church meetings throughout the year, it wasn't until about a year or so ago, the group around my age, realized how close we were to each other. 2012 we took full advantage of being single, young and having money and literally met up every month. We went rafting, to amusement parks, met up for graduations, birthday's and simply "just because." Last year we decided to get the girls together and meet up for Valentine's day and met up in Chattanooga TN.
This year, our group shrunk (new jobs, new boyfriends [ack!] etc..) but we decided to move forward with our plans anyway. Our desintation of choice? Nashville.
The fun thing about going to a city neither group has been to (often) is you can do things without many preconceived notions. It greatly reduces the arguments about what to do and when to do it, if you plan from a far.
 |
| The Plan |
Our [though it was our fearless leader Rebekah (pictured below in the middle) who came up with it] plan was simple. Eat, Shop and have fun. Our first stop was to a local coffee shop named Crema, which according to Foursquare is: "A coffee brewtique. Our love and respect for coffee means we never stop learning or experimenting and we’re always eager to talk about it, making us the most welcoming bunch of coffee snobs you’ll ever meet." Not being a coffee drinker myself, I just go along and hope they have hot chocolate. :) Unfortunately the general consensus about the coffee was mixed, some liked it, others hated it. Personally my hot chocolate was pretty yummy. What makes this stop so memorable in our minds, was the people we saw while we were there.
If you're like me, you follow a lot of people on social media that you never expect to see in real life. I've had the pleasure of meeting quite a few SMPeeps over the past few years, some on purpose and unexpectedly in person, but non of "celebrity" status. (Sorry guys! You were still great!! I promise!)
"I follow that girl on Instagram"
Rebekah inclines her head, ever so slightly towards a young lady sitting with a group of men at the table behind us.
"Really? Oh my goodness, you have got to say something to her!" Just don't be stalkish about it. What a small world?
The girl in question was a nanny for several big name Christian Artist singers and happened to live here in Nashville, and just happened to be at the same coffee shop we were in. [It wasn't until later that we realized she was sitting with some of the band members from Christian recording artist Big Daddy Weave. We all had to laugh at us getting excited to see the Nanny, and completely not recognizing the actual band members)
Anyway Kelsey was extremely nice and we all went away feeling warm and fuzzy.
Footnote: Traveling in a new city? Download the Foursquare App! Not only do you earn points for checking into places, but you can general find great tips about where to eat, what to do, etc..etc.. [this was not a paid promotion, though they should probably do so.] 
The next stop on our [Rebekah's] list was the Nashville Public Library. We're all bookworms and this library was beautiful. It boasted three floors, with so.many. books. I could have stayed there all day and not been ready to leave. There were historic rooms, rooms just for research, fiction rooms, non-fiction rooms, rooms for the deaf, civil rights areas, a courtyard with a fountain ... a grand piano!?
I got lost a couple of times, just because it kept going on, and on, and the further you wandered the more you found to look at! I briefly considered finding out how much a library card would cost, but honestly it wouldn't be worth the cost of shipping books back. *sigh*
 Once we gathered everyone back up, which took a while, we decided to walk the downtown area a bit, to see what we could see, to see what we could see... [But the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain, the other side of the moooountaaainnn... ok ok I'll stop]  |
| The Girls |
We found lots of candy, and soda, and over priced tin signs. We found $10 shops, I found more scarves to purchase, and lots of yummy looking restaurants. By the time we hit the restaurant portion of town we were all starving, all that walking burning our sausage biscuits from the morning. Our plan was to try a burger joint across town, so we hurried back to our cars and headed out, tummies rumbling.
Burger Republic. Even Foursquare didn't have much to say about it, which should have been a sign in and of itself. Located in an apartment complex, the restaurant itself wasn't very big, making our party of seven a large group, one that was going to take 30 minutes, at the very least, to seat.
This presented another problem, as there was no where to sit and wait. Now what? Luckily I'd spotted Urban Outfitters across the street. Do we have time to go there? Yes? Yes we did. Yay! An hour later, we moseyed out of the store, and back to BR. Were they ready for us yet? No? Are you serious?
The group at the one table you wanted to sit us at isn't leaving?
Ook. ....
Luckily the manager thought quickly, and maneuvered some chairs and tables together along the wall, and got us seated. Adventure isn't my middle name when it comes to food, and I really just wanted something filling and simple, so I chose their Southern Style Chicken Sandwich, added cheese to it and switched Pickle chips for Fries.
The fries were good, but the sandwich was disappointing. The chicken was tender and well cooked, but it lacked flavor. My sister Kristen got the Veggie burger but was also disappointment as it was mostly just beans mashed to form a patty. Those who ordered actual burgers seemed well satisfied; but it was fun.
Our next stop was ... another book stop. McKay's book, a used bookstore where you can trade books for money or store credit (see also: Bookworms). Though we have one in Knoxville, Jennifer wanted to stop in Nashville, just to see. Since I do a lot of reading on my Kindle/iBook/Nook apps, I find myself steering away from books for new reading material. (I know, I know, its ... it hurts me as well) So I brought books to trade since we were going. I had a project I've been working on, and needed comic book pages ... :)
Alas all good things must come to an end, and after stopping at a local Cupcake shop, then a gelato (for those who didn't want cupcakes) We sat down to exchange our valentines gifts .... and that is when I discovered, my camera of six years had been violated.
Well, technically it was the lense, but seeing's how it was the only working lense for this particular camera.. it might as well be the entire thing.
As I sat in the ice cream shop,
Welp, its tax time, this would be a great time to upgrade my lenses! It was my fault for just carrying it in the bottom of my bag. I didn't baby it as much as I should have, and have dropped it many more times than I should have. *deep breaths*
Oh yes. After that happened we headed home.
The End.
RIP 50mm 1.8 lens. i loved you.
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