OK SO FROM THIS POINT ON, I AM GOING TO SPAM YOU WITH PICTURES AND STUFF TO SHOW YOU WHAT I AM DOING. MY BRAIN IS SCATTERED WITH COOL STUFF THAT IT'S HARD TO KEEP THEM ALL IN ORDER, BUT I WILL TRY! :)
This was my first shot coming into Nashville. It was so crazy to see "the Batman building" and everything else right in front of me. Up until that point, I just saw pictures of all this. It was crazy to think I was ACTUALLY there.
After driving around with my friend JJ (who is also my neighbor just 4 doors down) we had to stop and get gas. Beings that I lived in Oregon, I of course had never learned or even knew how to pump gas. Soooooo this was my first time. To be honest with you, I don't even remember anything I learned. Typical.
It was an incredible feeling to hold the keys to my first place. I felt like such an adult!
Obviously being adult didn't last too long.... This is me and JJ putting up a shower curtain in my bathroom. :)
In the afternoon, JJ and I took a drive down Broadway Street, which is pretty much where all the tourist, bars, clubs, pubs, and Nashville life exist. It was also just so crazy to be driving down that because again, I had only seen it in pictures. This street is AMAZING at night, and I have yet to get a picture, but when I do, I'll make sure you all get to see it.
I arrived in Nashville on Tuesday, August 14th. The next day, my neighbor JJ moved into her apartment with her roomate Heather. We spent the next couple of days driving back to her home in Madison, AL (just a couple hours outside of Nashville) to help her pack and get all her stuff in to her place here in Nashville, as well as my roommate Jessica getting here and moving in all here stuff around midnight on Wednesday. We are very blessed to be friends with some guys in a band called Half Priced Hearts, and we ended up being able to talk a couple of the guys into coming and helping us out. Their guitarist, Trevor, came over on Friday morning to help Heather and her parents carry all the heavy furniture up the stairs. He's one of the funniest guys I know, so it was a blast having him over to help.
This is Trevor being really productive at my house...
We told him that he probably shouldn't open that can of soda because we had previously dropped it on the floor. His solution? Throw it.
No but really, I love this dude a lot, and he was a tremendous help to all of us. Heather's mom made DELICIOUS pulled pork sandwiches for all of us to go to town on after moving stuff all afternoon. Southern food is so much better in the south, I will tell you that right now. A couple hours after Trevor left, his bandmate and lead singer of HPH, Bobby came over to help us finish stuff up. Pretty much everything was done, so he just carried a few heavy boxes up the stairs for us, and then ended up just staying to chat. We had no furniture at the time, so we all just sat on the floor and had circle time with Bob. He's such an amazing friend as well. It really is crazy to think that I was just listening to these guys in my ipod on the flight here, and now I'm just having casual talks and hangs in the living room. Again, I'm just so blessed to have these guys around.
The next day, my roommate Robin finally got here. I was so excited to see her since she's the one I've been planning all this Nashville stuff with since February. After moving all her stuff in (to the living room because we were WAY too lazy to carry stuff upstairs for about the 3rd day in a row) we got ready for our first night out. Our friends I told you about in the band Half Priced Hearts were opening for a band called Since Forever at a venue called Rocketown. It was Since Forever's last show as a band, and they were one of the first bands that gave HPH a chance in the start of it all, so it was a pretty special show for them. The bands Tell Romeo I Hate Him, and Farewell Fighter also played. Both AMAZING bands with amazing people I now call my friends. Here's some pictures from thaaaaaaaaaaat....
I loved the fact that the first night out and both Robin and I wore our combat boots.
This is Bobby, doing what he does best. He's such an incredible talent!
This is Kenny, the lead singer from the band Farewell Fighter. Such a nice dude and also incredibly talented. I'm gonna go ahead and post a video from them, PLEASE actually check them out on the real, it won't waste your time. I promise!
Me and Trev. :)
Me and Mike (bassist in Half Priced Hearts)
Me and Bobby!
Check out some Half Priced Hearts songs here:
After the show....me and Rob kinda got tired.... Rock n Roll though...
The next few days, we kind of just hang out and do whatever comes up. JJ and I have gone to another show at Rocketown to see a band called Dinner And a Suit, and like to just hang out there. One night, we went to Applebee's and ended up being seated in the bar section. Ok, now I know you all are aware of what Applebee's is, but Applebee's in Nashville is a MILLION times cooler. This one that we go to is really small, but REALLY cool. The bar section is right in the middle of the restaurant and then the rest of the seats kind of just wrap around the parameter of the room. On Wednesday nights, they have games and just kinda...hang out with each other. They have a MC named Vernon who literally just sits in the corner of the bar with his little microphone and just casually makes fun of everyone as they walk in. He was even giving us a hard time about anything he could pick fun at. We seriously loved him though because he was so funny, and he still took the time to come over, meet us, and thank us for coming in and spending our evening there. Not only was Vernon cool, but we became friends with the host/door kid named Mason, as well as all the random people at the bar just hoopin and hollerin with each other. The whole night we were just talking to each other about how cool it was that people are just SO nice. We were all there to eat dinner, hang out with whoever we were with, yet we were all talking and joking with each other. The waiting staff did a great job with their actual job task, but would still come over and just sit and socialize with us and everyone else. At one point, my roommates and neighbors and I all started singing a song that was playing on the radio, and the whole entire Applebee's was clapping along and listening. Funniest, craziest, and weirdest situation ever, but GREAT. Applebee's night was hands down our best night in Nashville so far, and we decided to make it a weekly thing from here on out, as long as we can all get together that night.
Thursday nights are really awesome also. Some friends of ours are in a band called The Coronation. Right now they have a residency at a bar called The National Underground, so they get to play every Thursday night from 11-2am. For those who don't know, The National Underground is the bar that is owned by singer Gavin DeGraw and his brother. It's located downtown on Broadway, across from the Hard Rock cafe. OH WAIT FUNNY STORY ABOUT OUR FIRST NIGHT GOING DOWN BROADWAY! So our first night out on Broadway, we were going to see The Coronation, but it was pouring down rain outside. Like, hurricane style! The boys were all telling not to come out and that they would play another show next week, so naturally....we didn't listen and went anyway! So here we are, hair and makeup done to be downtown, dressed up for the night...and we are literally RUNNING through downtown Nashville to try to find this freaking bar. Good times... Great story for the kids some day....
The next couple days again were just kinda chill. We've all been looking for jobs so we've been hitting up Opry Mills Mall and all the stores there, seeing who's hiring and what not. I have had an interview at Starbucks already and am waiting to hear back from there. I also applied at The Rainforest Cafe in Opry Mills. It's literally the coolest thing ever! As you can see here, I really liked the fish...
Fun story time again! So a couple nights ago, my roommates and I were sitting in my room, having our little roommate pow wow/bonding time, and a HUGE spider decided to crawl up the wall. Let me just stop right there: The bugs in Nashville are the WORST. I'm not sure I live in the south, or Africa, because these bugs are huge and I hate them all. ANYWAY! Being the girls that we are, we all ran and cried and got scared. Both of our beds got ripped apart trying to find this spider. All of us were armed with proper spider killing tactics including, but not limited to: raid, windex, air freshener, shower cleaner, paper rolls, a kleenex box, and a hanger. By the end of the night, and by end of the night I mean 3:30am, we ended up moving all our beds downstairs to the living room and sleeping together in there. Spider: 1 Us: 0
This last weekend, our neighbors were getting some more furniture dropped off for them, so Trevor came over again to help move that for them. We spent about an hour moving a couple couches and then JJ's parents were kind enough to take us all out to lunch. Later that day, our friends Hannah and Ashley came from Kentucky to visit us. We spent the day at the mall, visiting SATCO, which is a really yummy taco place that everyone told us to check out, and trying to find Taylor Swift at her house. :)
Hannah and I.
Taylor lives in one of those rooms up there. Her curtains were actually open that day, and we saw her little twinkle lights she has in her living room. I'm pretty sure she's still in Nashville right now, so we're all just trying to keep our eyes open for her. We will find her one day!!!
SPEAKING OF TAYLOR SWIFT!
My pals in Half Priced Hearts just put out a cover video of them doing Taylor's newest song. It's crazy good! They're currently trying to get their cover to be seen by more people, and possibly her, so if you could help them out by sharing this video on facebook, twitter, email it to people, or simply just go WATCH it on youtube. The more views it gets from people, the better they will get noticed! Check it out here:
Again, we all just really like to hang out with each other, and do dumb stuff like watch Disney movies, write songs, and just hang out. Rob and I have actually got in a habit of waking up every morning and going and having morning talks with each other. I treasure that time with her because it just allows us to catch up and have someone to talk to and trust. We also have nightly swings and do the same thing. It tends to happen anywhere between midnight and 3am, but we just go out back where our apartments have a little playground. There's also a pool right outside our back door where we lay out and tan and go swimming when it gets really hot. (Yes...it's hot in Nashville. No, I am not dying yet.) We also have Sunday dinners every Sunday and usually invite the neighbors too. The first Sunday dinner we did a good ol southern dinner of fried chicken, mash potatoes, and gravy. This last Sunday Robin's uncle told us he would order us pizza, so we took him up on that offer. Not only did he get us two large pizzas, but he also got cinnamon sticks, garlic bites, and soda. The 5 of us went to TOWN on that, and spent the evening watching 5 tour document and live concert dvds, one after another. One of those was The Backstreet Boys from 2000, the first concert I ever went to. That night was a blast!
Every other day in Nashville looks something like this...
Well..... I guess that's it for now. I know this was really long, but I wanted to make sure I didn't leave anything out. Again, I will try to post at the end of every week, and recap everything I did. This was the first 2 weeks, so it was really long and I have been clearly doing a lot. Now that I'm a bit more settled, we don't do much right now. I do hope to start my youtube channel again soon where I will be doing my own cover videos and hopefully some of my own music, as well as music Robin and I have been working on. I just want you all to know that I miss you all so much already, but I am SO happy with my life right now. Every day I find myself asking, "Do I really live here? Is this really my life? How am I this lucky? Are these people really my friends?" I am amazed that this is the life I now have. Every day I have woke up happy and spend all day laughing and having crazy adventured with the best people I could ever ask for. For those of you who don't know, today also marked 10 years since I lost my mom. It's hard...I cried. But I after writing this blog and realizing all the cool things I have had in the past 2 weeks, and knowing this is how the rest of my life will be, I know that my mom would be so happy and proud of me. I AM happy and proud of me. I can't wait to see what happens next.
Until next time... I love you all! :)
xoxo,
Audrey.
Audrey.
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