Picture vintage red brick buildings that hum of a bass and rhythm of a drum, neon colors glistening over the streets drawing you in like a moth to a flame and the endless options of specialty boutiques so full of history you wish you could go back in time and relive it all at once. That's Broadway street of Nashville, Tennessee. I moved to Nashville in January 2013. I was living in California again 8 months later, in September 2013. Did I go for Nashville or Bust? No. Did I give up on Nashville to early? Maybe. Do I regret the decision to move back? Not at all. Nashville has made itself the hometown to MANY of MANY people, so please don't let me drag you down, or dampen your hopeful spirits in making the move to Nashville. Bit if you're interested, here is my real, raw opinion and experiences of living in Nashville.
I had considered myself a seasoned mover by the time I made the move East from California. I had traveled and moved many times throughout college. Moving to Nashville, TN was the hardest move ever (for me). Nashville is a great city. There are unlimited events, festivals, markets, clubs, and happenings in Nashville to keep you awake for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But being new to a city full of musicians, you tend to only meet musicians and then you end up only knowing musicians. Since I am not a musician, I was left bored and feeling out of place. (If you are a musician, your transition into the city may be much easier for you than us "non music folk"). So I really had to make an effort to meet people who didn't play an instrument or sing for a living. I started working as a waitress to meet other's my age. I also drove all the way to Williamson County once or twice a month to join the Young Farmers and Rancher's committee to meet others in agriculture in hopes to make friends and make potential job contacts. Looking back now I probably should have joined every club I could get my hands on; a running club, a dog club or a "Lonely Newcomer Club". I was just so lonely and frustrated! Meeting new people and making friends had never been so hard before! I was totally out of my element in Music City.
I had a few folk's ask me "How could you be bored with all the music and happenings in downtown Nashville? Why didn't you go downtown every night?" Well I don't want to discourage anyone, or make it sound that Nashville is boring, but once you go downtown Nashville a few times.... you've seen it all. And being from Chico, CA the whole downtown bar scene is OLD NEWS to me. A bar scene is a bar scene no matter where you go, the crowd is just a little different every night. Its a beautiful place downtown Nashville, don't get me wrong, but once you go there a few times and once you live right down the street, the whole Broadway music scene gets old. So in that sense, I became a local. When you speak to local Tennessean's (people born and raised in Tennessee with accents and blood veins full of sweet tea) most of them have never been to downtown Nashville and almost 100% of them have never been to the Grand Ole Opry. The locals know the history, they hear the music from afar, but they have no interest in the drunken tourists, over priced parking, and they don't fit in the music crowd either. Ok, now that I've made you feel bad for me I'll move on ;)
I wrote this list in July of 2013, and here is what I had to say.
"I have been here since January, so its been 7 months that I have lived here. Has it only been 7 MONTHS? 'Cause it feels like 3 years..... Anyway I keep telling myself that I have not given Nashville a fair amount of time to win over my heart. This being said, I know I have not lived here long enough to give a true Nashvillian's opinion, but I'll tell ya what I know so far about living in this big, bright, loud, crowded state capitol known as Music City.
The "Up's" to Living in Nashville, TN:
1. Endless Music. Good and bad music. Music is either free or cheap. There is SO much and so many shows that they cannot charge very much due to the competition. I have seen Ashley Monroe, Craig Campbell (twice already), and Phil Vassar for free and Mark Chestnut, Daryle Singletary, Jo Dee Messina, and Vince Gill for a decent price ($5-$15).
2. I have seen more celebrities in these few months than I have in the last 24 years of my life. Easton Corbin walked right past me at work, John Oats (Hall and Oats) sat a few tables away from us, I met Vince Gill and Daryle Singletary at a show, we were one bar over from Jenny Garth, Buck parked Hillary Scott's (Lady Antebellum), Deirks Bentley, Vince Gill, and Cesar Millan (Dog Whisperer) cars' for them, and the list goes on and on.
3. Restaurants EVERYWHERE. You could never go hungry in this town. We are a fan of Demo's downtown. It is delicious Italian food that is CHEAP. There is a parking garage right across the street so parking isn't THAT difficult if your willing to pay for the hour or so. If you like BBQ or Meat and Three's your gonna be in heaven. There are too many to count. Most of the locally owned restaurants close at 2 pm though, so you better like lunch.
4. There are some really nice areas of Nashville. My favorite area to shop, eat, and do business is in Green Hills. The traffic in Green Hills can be annoying as there is only a single lane for each direction of traffic and it gets crowded down there, but I believe its worth it because there are nice stores and businesses that you can trust. There aren't any scaring or sketchy people or businesses in the Green Hills area. If your from California you'll love it because there is the only Trader Joe's in Tennessee. There is a really fancy mall (Macys, Dillards, and actual Free People store) so if your on a budget... don't go to that mall for a deal. I would suggest the Cool Springs mall (about 20 minutes away). They also have a really nice Kroger. There are Krogers ALL OVER this town, and some are wayyyyyy worse than others. The Kroger in Green Hills is like a laid back version of Whole Foods or a nice Raley's. They have a Starbucks inside, a bakery, a deli, a salad bar, a sushi bar, and a clean store. The Gulch is a newer part of downtown that is really, really nice but extremely expensive. Midtown is where the locals hang out, and where Taylor Swift lives. East Nashville is an up-and-coming area where the houses are extremely expensive but the streets are still relatively unsafe. East Nashville is known for the "hipster" culture/vibe and gay friendly community.
5. The fitness trend has defiantly came to Nashville. I'm used to the healthy living and fitness lifestyle, being from California and a college town, but Nashville defiantly offers a good amount of that lifestyle here. I enjoy Hotbox fitness, a heated kickboxing and interval training studio on 12 st downtown. Its a little pricey but worth it if you need instruction and a class environment rather than an open gym. If you want the open gym environment I liked the Nashville Athletic Club, its cheap and decent but its located on the south end of Nashville and can be difficult to get to with the traffic on 24 during traffic hours. The farmers market is very popular here and is open EVERYDAY downtown. There are numerous other markets too that are scheduled at different times and different locations throughout Davidson County. Calypso Cafe is a popular natural food restaurant, as well as Nashville Juice company (gulch area and mobile).
6. The Nashville Flea market comes every 4th weekend to the Nashville fairground. I LOVE the flea market. Lots of vendors come with junk, used goods, and antiques. It is so much fun to wonder and look through the junk that people bring to find a treasure.
7. I almost forgot to mention how cheap it is out here!! A boring fixer-upper house in California on average runs you $200,000 and a $200,000 house here in Tennessee is a NICE one! The gas prices are better too for the most part.
8. Nashville is part of the "bible belt" so you have numerous churches to choose from (which is actually a daunting task) and they are all bEaUtIfUl buildings. Tall, tall steeples that you hear about or see in the movies? They exist here.
9. Lightning bugs. AMAZING. Beautiful. Things I thought I would never say about a bug, but these little suckers are just cool. I accidentally crushed one with my broom once and its lightning juice spread all over the cement and it stayed glowing for a while! I was in awe. :)
10. People are just friendly. Not necessarily in Nashville, but in Tennessee the people are nice, they smile at strangers and talk to anyone, anywhere. I had the hiccups last night in Barns and Noble and this man chased me down just to tell me how to get rid of them. I also had the hiccups a few weeks ago in an antique shop in Franklin, and an old woman came to my rescue there too!
11. The history. The history of this town, the south, the civil rights movement, and of course the music is amazing. President Andrew Jackson lived here in Nashville once upon a time. Martin Luther King Junior was shot right down the road in Memphis, TN. Lots and lots of history.
12. The farmland out here is beautiful. If you can get out of Davidson County, you will see beautiful hills, gorgeous farms and small streams running throughout. I haven't seen it all, but I am in love with Columbia, TN and College Station, TN.
13. Southern charm and old money. If you want to get a feel of old money and feel like you should stop for afternoon tea while gazing at the million dollar southern homes, drive through Belle Meade. Goodness gracious.
The Down's to living in Nashville, TN:
1. There are some seriously sketchy areas in this town. One minute your on a multi-million dollar street and you turn a corner and then your locking your car doors. Its really that scattered and really that scary sometimes. So if your trying to rent a house or apartment BEFORE moving out here via the internet... BE CAREFUL. We got extremely lucky and almost rented a beautiful house in a terrible, terrible neighborhood. My advice is to crime map all your potential locations on the Nashville Police Department website. It will give you an idea on the neighborhood.
2. Nashville drivers are horrible. You will see a crash or two in one day. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in Nashville is from out of town, so no one knows where they are going. Some of the roads are bumpy with pot holes and they have really short interstate exits with multiple lanes with short notice signs. And news says that Tennessee is ranked the highest in texting-while-riving related deaths. Just drive slow, watch out, and stay off of your phone.
News link:
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130724/NEWS21/307240154/Tennessee-ranks-worst-nation-cellphone-related-driving-deaths?sf15351909=1
3. Undercover cops and the cop car lights. Almost all the police cars you see that have a vehicle pulled over with be an undercover cop. The majority of them are silver Chevy Impala's. Just a heads up. Drive the speed limit in city limits. And some people like the lights, I don't really care for them. The cop car lights out here are strobe like lights that blink very very fast and bright, rather than the smooth rolling around like lights back in California. I do not know if these lights benefit the cop somehow.... but they drive me crazy and i'm sure any individual with epilepsy must hate the lights too.
4. The Mexican food and Chinese food. We are hard to please since we both were brought up on delicious authentic Mexican food from California, especially with Buck's mom being full blooded. So we are never pleased. But we find some satisfaction with Oscar's Taco Shop and Chuys. And the Chinese food. Don't even get me started on the Chinese food! There is NONE! Chinese food here is Panda Express. That's it. SO, so, so, so sad. If your a donut lover though, you'll find a doughnut shop on every corner.
5. Traffic. If your used to traffic and are used to planning around it, it may not be such a downer for you. But I never had to deal with traffic jams really, so they utterly frustrates me.
6. The weather. The weather is terrible as it starts out as a perfect day and then halfway through it rains and gives you 70 mile an hour winds. And it rains on you when your wearing shorts and a tank top.... because its hot and humid outside. The weather is bi polar. And you get flash flood warnings and tornado watch warnings all the time. I don't know about you, but I am NOT looking forward to a flood or a stinkin' tornado thank you very much! I still don't really know what to do in a tornado except crunch down in the bathtub with a mattress over us. Our mattress wont fit in our bathroom and there is no way I'm going to be able to keep Bluebell in the bathtub for that long if she is scared. We are hopeless. But..... I do know that the weather could be worse though. Tennessee just gets a lot of "warnings" and humidity.
Well, I'm sure I could go on and on the more I think about it, but for the most part this town is nice. Busy and never ending, and great for musicians. Though the musician life isn't easy here, but we will save that for another blog. ;)
XoXo-
Sarah Beth"
Broadway during CMA Fest 2013.
Bluebell in our backyard. Lots and lots of green with all the rain we have.
