From Loveless to Full of Love

Like yesterday, our third day in Nashville started out grey.  I woke up at about 8 AM, and relaxed a bit in my room until our cohort met in the lobby at 9 AM.  Being a little bit sleepy still, I ate breakfast while we were waiting for Ms. Hansen to come down. I was going to wait for breakfast at the Loveless Café, since we had planned on doing that. In the end, it was good I ate breakfast at the hotel, but I figured that out later. Once Ms. Hansen had joined us, we moseyed on over to the car and hopped in.

During the car ride, I was amazed (again) at how green everything is in and around Nashville. To get to the Loveless Café, we had to go along Highway 100 and through some of the Nashville suburbs, to the South of town. Honestly, it felt like we were driving along the country side, deep in Tennessee – and we ended up less than 30 minutes outside of Nashville proper! There were trees and greenery everywhere, and the houses were placed pretty far apart. It was really different from the San Francisco suburbs that we’re used to. Back home, we have more buildings and development everywhere, and the houses are closer together. I like the feeling of the suburbs here, they look nice and peaceful.

After a car ride full of listening to boy bands, we pulled into the Loveless Café’s parking lot. The café was really cool, and it wasn’t just a café but instead an entire complex of shops surrounding the main attraction, the restaurant. It was a good thing those shops were there, because the hostess gave us a buzzer and told us it would be an hour and 25 minutes until we could be seated. This is why I said it was good I had breakfast earlier, because otherwise I would’ve been really hungry.

Out in front of the Loveless Café 

The shops around the Loveless Café were pretty small, but there were a few of them and they all sold different things so we were able to remain occupied the entire time we were waiting. In one of the small shops, we met a nice woman by the name of Becca, who was manning the register. There weren’t any other people in the shop at the time, so we started talking to her. It turns out she has a son who moved to the Bay Area so he could go to San Francisco College, and is now taking courses at Berkeley City College. We talked to her a little about visiting Berkeley and the Bay Area, and then about things to do in Nashville. She told us that Cheekwood (a botanical garden close by) was a good one to visit, and the Frisk Center (an art museum) which was also close by.

Even after we talked to Becca though, we still hadn’t gotten a buzz from our buzzer, so we continued walking around. We visited a country market, a gift shop, a glassware/locally made art sort of shop (where Becca was), and a parcel shop. It was when we were in the parcel shop we got our buzz, so after Joceline and Cammie finished up their postcards home and had put them in the mail, we headed in to get some food.

Inside the complex of shops at the Loveless

Inside the Loveless Café it looked like an older type of restaurant, but it was a pretty big establishment. The food was the best part though. I ordered some pancakes with sausage, and I felt like I made the right choice. The pancakes soaked up all the syrup I poured on them, and although they were a little dry after I ran out of syrup, they were really good. The same thing goes for the biscuits, they were really good. The highlight of the meal, even. We all enjoyed them immensely.

We finished at about 11:30 AM and went on back to our car after a quick stop at the country market to get some marshmallow treats. Well, I say treats, but they’re heavy enough to be called bricks!

We decided to go to the Belle Meade plantation and go on a tour there. We hadn’t planned on it before, but it was close by and seemed interesting. I think we made the right choice. It was really interesting to see how the plantation owners lived in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The tour guides were also dressed up in costume, which added to the effect. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take photos inside the house, but we got some photos of the exterior and the grounds, too. We visited not only the main house, but the winery, the mausoleum (which didn’t have any bodies in it), one of the only remaining slave cabins, the dairy house, the river, and the cabin the family used to live in before the bigger house was built. I had a lot of fun there, and the plantation grounds were beautiful.

The front of the main house at Belle Meade

Once we had finished our guided tour and self-guided tour of the grounds, we headed back to the car to get to the Blue Bird Café. We decided to get there super early because of all of the horror stories we heard of massively long lines, but when we got there, no one was there! The Blue Bird Café was interesting for several different reasons. First, although it is a super famous place (and featured on the TV show Nashville) it’s actually located in a strip mall, and is super unassuming. Second, while we were waiting, a whole bunch of people came up to get a picture of the place because of the show Nashville that so prominently features it. I liked being able to see people from all over coming to get a look at the place where we were going, made it seem a lot more worth the two hour wait we had to endure.

The line outside of the Blue Bird Café 

Inside though, our wait was 100% justified. The food was great (I had smoked BBQ sliders with homemade chips), and the music was excellent. The highlight of the entire evening was the guest performer from the audience, however. The man, his name was Adam, sung a song to his girlfriend, Kylie. Close to the end of the song though, he sung “and I get down on one knee” and immediately everyone knew what he was about to do. Sure enough, he proposed to Kylie in front of everyone. It was amazing to see all of that, and made a great evening into an awesome one. Soon enough though, we bought some t-shirts and had to leave. By that time it was about 8:30 PM, but we weren’t done yet.

Inside the Blue Bird Café

We headed over to Vanderbilt next, and spent the next hour and a half wandering about taking pictures for the header of our blog. I think we have some great ideas (and some pretty good photos) and you’ll be able to see the fruit of our labors on our blog soon enough!

The Vanderbilt sign at night

By 10 PM, we were starting to get tired though, and decided to head back to the hotel. When walking back, we saw a couple of lightning bugs! I was happy I was able to see them, but I was really starting to get tired, so I was glad to finally make it back to the hotel. Tomorrow we start the VSA, so I’ll need plenty of sleep!