nye in music city | part one

The title of this post is slightly misleading, as we started our trip to Tennessee by celebrating the holiday with both sets of parents. We left Texas on Monday morning to go to Cleveland to see the Murdocks, and spent that evening and Tuesday with them. We enjoyed a delayed Christmas morning of opening presents, followed by the traditional Christmas meal with some extended family.

Wednesday 12.28.2016

On Wednesday we continued our trip to Murfreesboro to see the Snells. Here is where one of the best things happened….home videos of a young Nate had been recovered and put on a nice dvd, for viewing (and any future bribing I may need). We spent most of the afternoon reminiscing of years gone by and helped the Snells celebrate their 42nd wedding anniversary with a nice dinner at one of their favorite restaurants that evening.

| this is the *ultimate* snellfie! |

Thursday 12.29.2016

We made our way to Nashville to meet up with our Texas folk. We were all staying in a nice Airbnb in East Nashville, with enough room to fit about 8 more of us if we really wanted. Being the only Nashvillians in our group, Nate and I played tour guides, of sorts, and hoped to show our friends most of what Nashville had to offer.

Thursday evening: We started out with dinner at Desano, a Neapolitan pizza shop that has the best pizza outside of Italy’s borders. One pizza is enough to feed about 4 people…so of course we needed three...and an appetizer.

With dinner out of the way, we ventured over to The Patterson House for evening cocktails. If you’ve never been to Patterson House, do yourself a favor and go. Nate and I wanted to make sure we took everyone here on a Thursday night, because on the weekends you are looking to wait a good two hours to wet your whistle. Luckily, with a party of six, we were seated within 30 minutes…a big win at Patterson House.

The Patterson House specializes in cocktails made from only the best ingredients and spirits. With drinks being $12 across the board, you aren’t going to come here to get white girl wasted…there are no PBR or cranberry vodkas served here. The Patterson House is for sophisticated drinking…you are going to sip these cocktails and have adult conversations with your adult friends. It should definitely be a “must” on anyone’s Nashville bucket list.

After being super classy at Patterson House, we ventured across the street to a Midtown staple, Red Door Saloon. This is where you want to grab a PBR and get white girl wasted. It’s dirty, it’s loud, they stamp your hand…it’s college all over again. But, little known fact…they have a tiny hole in one of the boards in their flooring, and if you look through it, you will see a skeleton hanging out under you. I kid you not, there is photographic proof….because none of my friends believed me when I told them.

After our short trip back to our college barhopping days, we decided to head back home and play a few boards games before calling it a night.

Friday 12.30.2016

Friday was the day we were most excited about, we were going to be true Nashville tourists and head downtown to Broadway. Also, our best friend, Nicki, was coming into town and we hadn’t seen her since our last NYE trip when we went to Austin.

First things first….coffee! I stay caffeinated when I come to Nashville. It houses some of the world’s best coffee shops…no really, look it up. We were incredibly lucky that our house was right next one…so there wasn’t even a discussion of whether or not to go. Barista Parlor…it’s super pretentious. You can’t change the recipe of any of their beverages and you will wait up to 40 minutes after ordering to taste one of their signature espresso drinks. But…it’s some insanely good coffee. On this day, we decided to avoid the wait and got a cup of their seasonal cold brew…infused with orange and holiday spices, and delicious to the last drop.

If you know Nate, you know that he doesn't leave Nashville without having eaten at the Pharmacy....(luckily Barista Parlor + the Pharmacy are close neighbors, so Nate and I always leave Nashville super happy). They open at 11am...we arrived at 10am to make sure that we were able to get a table right away. classic Nashville.

It’s amazing how when you live in a city, you don’t really take advantage of everything it has to offer. We didn’t exactly live in Nashville, but close enough to visit and see all of the sights if we wanted to. With that being said, Nate and I had never been to the Ryman Auditorium…not even for a concert (which was immediately put on our bucket list after our visit). For tours, they offer two options: one is self-guided…you just pay to get in the door and walk around and look at all of the awesomeness the old building has to offer. The other is a guided tour which also allows you to go backstage and into the dressing rooms, and obviously learn much more history about the Ryman. We went with the self-guided tour, and even though it was a great experience, we definitely want to go back and do the backstage guided tour.

| a stage group picture was an absolute must |

After the Ryman, we ventured out to Broadway, had a little barbecue and then headed to Jack White’s record label, Third Man. Nicki has a tiny bit of love for the man, and it truly was a super cool experience. Lots of one of a kind Third Man vinyl recordings that you can only get there. So we all picked up our favorite 33’s and decided to head back to the house to get ready for the evening.

Pinewood Social. If you’ve ever picked up a travel magazine and read anything on Nashville, Pinewood Social was probably in there It’s the most hipster place you could ever go to drink/eat/or bowl…you will walk out being much cooler a person than when you walked in. Countless celebrities come through the doors at any given time, because it’s the place to be. So, naturally, this was the first thing we had put on our Nashville NYE list. We made bowling and dinner reservations back in October, just to make sure. Their set-up is a little different from the norm, you actually get full wait service at their bowling lanes. So we were able to eat and drink, while we bowled. It was a super awesome experience…Nate and I both way lost at bowling, but it was fun nonetheless.