Hoorah for Nashville!

I am not a big city girl. After spending two summers in NYC, I know that city living is not for me. I don’t like sharing a sidewalk with rats. Depending on others for my transportation gets on my nerves. Although- having food from any restaurant delivered right to your door is kind of amazing. So I live in a college town and I enjoy it. Nashville is a pretty big city, and generally I am apathetic to its existence. I don’t like to go to clubs or hockey games, so Nashville usually doesn’t appeal to me very much.

However, in the last two weeks I’ve had some fabulous times in Nashville that I wanted to share. It is a nice place, filled with very interesting people. There are parts of it I really love, so here are some pictures…

First of, the Woods at Fontanel. David got me tickets to see Idina Menzel there for my birthday. If you don’t know who she is, Idina is a Broadway star who won a Tony for her role in Wicked. I was lucky enough to see her perform the night before she won that Tony, and she is phenomenal! So she performed with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra at this lovely ampitheatre at the Woods at Fontanel. It was a great show!

I didn’t want to spend too much on the tickets, so we got general admission. Turns out that was a great choice for this venue! All the numbered seats were just folding chairs. Our “general admission” was on the grass right behind the chairs. So instead of sitting in a folding chair, I sat in a lovely camp chair with a cup holder! It was a beautiful day and it wasn’t too hot (now we’re having 100+ weather…). This was our view.

The only time I regretted our seats was when she WENT INTO THE AUDIENCE TO SING WITH PEOPLE!!! It was hilarious and I was jealous. A few of the people were decent singers. One of them hugged her for waaaay too long. My favorites she did were “No Day But Today” from RENT and “Somewhere” from West Side Story. And of course, for her encore, she did “Defying Gravity”. Here’s a legal video… This isn’t her Nashville performance, but I didn’t want to put up an illegal one…

Not the Nashville version, but still amazing!

The second Nashville event we went to was a food truck festival! Yes, a festival full of food trucks! It was super fun. Unfortunately, it was also super hot. So hot that you didn’t even really want to eat anything… But we did look around and get some food. We ate some there and then had to go home and eat the rest because we were about to be roasted. Here are the pictures:

This is my buttermilk cheddar cheese, fried egg on italian garlic bread grilled cheese sandwich.

Here is the Grilled Cheeserie Truck I got it from. Delish!

Here is David’s sweet chili stir fry. SO GOOD! Also there were spring rolls and this very delicate Jasmine dipping sauce. Oh, YUM!

And the DegThai truck he got it from. He says this truck sits by the capital building sometimes.

This was the most unique one we saw. Wild Bill’s Olde Fashioned Soda Pop! Free refills all day! Sadly, David doesn’t drink soda pop, so we didn’t get any. But it looked great!

Barrels and barrels of soda!!!!!! mmmmmm. They had grape…

This is a REAL ice cream sandwich. None of those flimsy chocolate wafers. Two chocolate chip cookies with salted caramel ice cream 1.5 inches thick in the middle. Perfect for this hot weather! SO scrumptious!

Cheeserie love!!

Nashville, I salute you!

Winner!

Last Saturday, I won my first athletic award! I placed first in my age group in a one mile race! I was so excited and proud of myself. Having my name called as a first place winner is something I had never imagined would happen! After the race, I thought I had done well. I guessed I finished within the first 20 people. We decided to stay for the awards ceremony, because I thought if age group awards were given, then I might have won something.

It took for-ev-errr. The DJ was taking his time reading off all the names, and even stopped at every name he wasn't sure about and asked if he was saying it right... On top of that, they lost the page with my age group on it so it was the almost last thing announced! I was really glad we stuck it out, though.  When he finally got to us he called the third place winner, I had seen her cross the line after I did, so I was excited. When they called second place and it wasn't me, I got confident. "First place, me!" I whispered to David. When the DJ called my name I was so excited! David even yelled out a whooo! I was so touched at how proud he is of me. As an award I got a picture frame with a postcard inside that says 1st place- 1 mile race. Very fancy :)

This experience reminded me of another time I won first place. It was in sixth grade and we were having a 4H speech contest. I remember when he called the third place winner I was annoyed because I didn't think that person had done very well. I was thinking of how unfair it was that I wouldn't even win anything and she did... I was so upset I didn't hear the 2nd place winner. I just knew it wasn't me. More disappointment. Then he called me for first place. Shocked is the best way to describe how I felt. How could I have won?? My shock turned to joy as I realized that mine had been the very best one. I was so proud!

Since Monday I have been in the ISI for the Middle TN Writing project. I wrote about this experience in a few different ways. We had to try 3 different leads: interrogative, onomatopoeia, and dialogue. Here is my favorite one. (this is a first draft. don't hate! but nice comments are welcome.)
"What was my time?" I gasped. My legs were burning. "Oh I didn't look. Sorry!" he responded. My legs felt like jelly as I maneuvered precariously across the rocks in the ditch beside the road. I flopped into the grass next to the finish line and took a long pull from my water bottle. I came up for air, panting. "Need your inhaler again?" he asked, concerned. I shook my head. "Just sprinted at the end. I'm OK." When I caught my breath we wandered around the booths aimlessly, waiting for the results. We waited and waited. Eventually the awards started, but we were still waiting due to the DJ losing the paper my age group's results sheet. I was nervous. I thought I would place, but I didn't want to wait around so long for nothing. Finally, he announced us, "First place for female 24 to 29... Lauren Person!"