Friday, July 7, 2017

Vanderbilt Gives Back Too

Today we had two main objectives: Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum and the site visit at Vanderbilt. Despite not really being knowledgeable in terms of country music, I was pretty excited to see what the museum had to offer and to learn a bit about country music.

I woke up a little earlier than the others to check out the fitness center and I was there for about 30 minutes. For some reason, I expected a bigger fitness center then I remembered that we’re in a smaller hotel. It had two treadmills, an elliptical machine, two mats, a bench for weights, and several dumb bells.  

Afterward, we had breakfast in the area that I had assumed it would be yesterday. Turns out, the fireplace is very authentic and built from brick from a local high school. It was a very simple breakfast with a few fruit options, oatmeal, potatoes, omelets, and yogurts among a few other things; basically, it was the generic American breakfast items. I had a simple but filling breakfast and grabbed a yogurt to take in case I needed to have a snack; it came in very handy.

We walked to the car rental agency, just to encounter a minor roadblock in terms of the car rental. Within 15 minutes we had the keys to our lovely Kia Optima and were ready to head over to the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum.

Finding the museum wasn’t nearly as difficult as finding parking that was reasonably priced. Also, there’s construction going on all over Downton Nashville, especially in the area surrounding the Museums. After minutes of searching on an interactive map, we found a parking garage that would charge us $14 for the whole day at the most. It was about 3 blocks down from the museum, so we got there before the lines got too long.
The outside of the CMHFM
The lobby of the museum
The museum was very impressive as we walked in; the lobby has a very high ceiling to accommodate the fact that there are three floors worth of country music history and artifacts. We received our audio tour guides and walked to the elevator; the museum tour starts on the third floor. On our way, I heard that there was a line dancing workshop, which sounded tempting but we didn’t have time for.

The tour started with the newest exhibit, which is for Shania Twain. It contained pictures from her childhood and a number of her extravagant and bold concert costumes. To the right of that exhibit was an archive of country music and projected onto those windows were videos of classic country music that started it all.  There were also a stringless banjo and a very antique guitar on display.

Further down from the Shania exhibit there were more original country music artists’ costumes and photos on display along with some background on country music’s history. They talked about how “hillbilly” was a very negative term for country artists before the 1930s, and mid-1930s cowboy boots and hats became part of those country costumes. Then, Country moved to the west, mostly California, as people were losing their jobs during the Great Depression and the times of the Dust Bowl. Country music became very popular in California, far more than swing bands.

Past the very educational parts, we came to the exhibit of Elvis Presley’s golden Cadillac and Web Pierce’s silver dollar Pontiac. Both cars must’ve been incredibly expensive at the time of their purchase and even more so now. Pierce’s Pontiac was purchased for $20,000, and that was in 1962. Elvis’s Caddy even had a TV in the back. They were definitely extremely stylish men.
Elvis's Caddy
In the room next to that there were several interactive screens that showed videos of country comedy and rare tracks that apparently didn’t play on the radio but were extremely good songs, such as Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues. We spent a while with those interactive screens then headed over to the wall with over 800 Golden records. The wall didn’t really have all the records, but as we went down the stairs there were more records lining that wall.

The next floor we walked into was all about Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, the Nashville Cats. There were also these soundproof types of stations that would play a variety of songs from artists like Bob Dylan and Hank Williams. Once we left that area there was a whole left side dedicated to Jason Aldean. It started with pictures of him as a kid, just like Shania Twain’s, and went up to his most recent tour. Across from that was a wall with original artists’ notes when writing some of their biggest hits. They were all very different and interesting how personal they could’ve been.

We eventually got to some more interactive sections where we learned fun facts about different artists and duos, such as the fact that one of the members of Florida Georgia Line had a football scholarship to Florida State University. It’s the little things that make these famous people even more interesting. There was also a Taylor Swift mock tour bus in which we could mix our own version of either some of her songs or other artists’ songs and even do our own vocals. Next to that was a giant guitar in which I took a picture.

By the time we were done with the whole museum, which must’ve been about an hour and a half we headed over to the gift shop, which was more of a mini-mall but didn’t buy anything. We were getting hungry but we stopped by the puppet show, which was a little creepy if I’m being completely honest but the shadow puppets during an instrumental of Mr. Sandman was probably the best.

We didn’t finish the whole thing but as we exited we spoke to two of the ushers, one of whom was a girl from Walnut Creek! They directed us over to a restaurant a few blocks down called The Southern for some good food. It turned out to conveniently be nearby the parking garage we parked in. We walked in and they greeted us. Despite being a pretty busy restaurant we were seated right away. 

Hot Chicken Salad
The walls of the restaurant were decorated with platinum and gold records and photos of famous country artists. The waitress, Paige, was super sweet as well and kept checking up on us regularly. I got the Hot Chicken Salad with blue cheese dressing, and I do not regret that decision one bit. It was delicious and by eating Hot Chicken I feel I’ve really experienced Nashville. I also tried Sweet Tea for the first time! It was good but not exactly good enough to have another refill.

Unfortunately, the most exciting thing in this restaurant was the bathroom. As soon as Cammie and I walked in we noticed a projector in the middle of the ceiling and it was playing The Sandlot movie. When I got up to the sink I was confused since I only saw a slab of wet granite stone with a faucet above it. I then noticed it was angled down so all the water went down an opening. It was definitely a unique bathroom.

Cammie also testing out the benches for comfort
By the time we finished our meal we had some time left over to explore the Downtown area a bit more. We walked over to a riverfront park where we might’ve creeped out a guy who was reading next to his Husky. We stopped staring as soon as we noticed some swinging benches. Cammie and I managed to make Evan swing with us for a while.

To the left of the benches was the Ascend Amphitheater. I didn’t pay too much mind but then Ms. Hansen saw some trucks loading in and asked who was playing tonight. To my awe and amazement, the guy outside the gate said it was My Morning Jacket. They’re a folk-rock band that I really like and I was freaking out to hear that they were potentially in one of the buses 100 feet away from me. I could not stop talking about it for a while. I even gave one of my social medias to the worker in case he was able to meet the band and maybe get a video shout out for me, definitely worth a try.

It was almost time for our site visit so we walked over to our car to drop it off at the hotel since Vanderbilt is not even a 10-minute walk from our hotel. We arrived on time, checked in and got a bag with some information brochures and a convenient 25% coupon for the bookstore. We walked into the hall and sat in the dead center and front of the admissions counselor who was going to be presenting to us.
The Vanderbilt sign as we walked up the street
The information session was held by an admissions counselor named Kayla, who happens to be in charge of metro-Atlanta and Alabama applications. She asked the basic questions such as who thinks they came from the farthest location, as Californians we came in second just shy of the family who came from Shanghai. She also asked about our summer plans and a boy mentioned he was doing VSA so we were excited to already see someone we would be meeting within the next three weeks. Of course, we had to inform her that we’d be doing VSA as well.

Kayla then continued on to explain the importance of finding a school that fits you because the next 4 years of our life is a pretty long time to be somewhere where you’re unhappy. She continued on by explaining things that make Vanderbilt the school that it is. One of the biggest things about Vandy that probably leads to how happy the students are there is the balance between academics and school spirit. Vanderbilt is part of the SEC and is the only private school to do so. Because of this, all sports games are free for students; all they have to do is show their ID. Personally, seeing colleges that are academically rigorous but are also pretty good at sports is very attractive to me just because going to a high school with no organized sports I want to have that experience.

She also mentioned how Vanderbilt is all about giving back, sound familiar? Most of the students of Vanderbilt engage in community service, whether it’s doing Alternative Spring Break or the other iterations of it or volunteering with non-profits. I think that could resonate with any ILCer since the ILC too is all about giving back and improving the community. Some students even go and help out at the socioeconomically depressed school districts in the surrounding areas.

Another thing that I think made Vanderbilt one of the more appealing schools I’ve learned about is its flexibility to switch between majors or colleges. Vanderbilt has 4 colleges and schools for undergrad students and if you get accepted into one but later one decide that it’s not for you; it’s possible to switch to another school. Also, you’re not really limited to classes in that school. Kayla actually took several classes at the Blair School of Music her senior year even though she was in the College of Arts and Sciences.  Our tour guide herself, Elizabeth Ojo (a rising junior) entered into the School of Engineering as a Civil Engineering major, but after experiencing with the modules that are required for engineering students she switched over to Communications of Science Major. All she had to do was fill out a request form explaining why she wanted to change her major and it got approved.

Overall, Vanderbilt has suddenly become very attractive to me. Each freshman house actually has a faculty member living on the first floor and they host icebreaker events so the 1600 freshmen can get to know each other and meet professors to ease the tension on the first day of classes. They surely sold the school well and it sounds like students have a lot of support from administration and are very happy. The campus also is very beautiful and with being Music City, USA there are several music scenes and cultural areas to explore near the campus.

We walked over to the bookstore when our tour ended and got our Vanderbilt gear. Cammie and I got matching yellow crewneck sweaters and Evan got a really good deal on a sweater that was originally $90. Maddie kept it really simple with a long sleeve t-shirt. The guy who rung us up was really nice and let us use the four 25% off coupons we had, saving us about $40.

You can see the grilled cheese poking out the side
Seeing as it was about 5 hours since we had eaten we headed over to the Elliston Place Soda Shop, the one we had walked by yesterday for some authentic milkshakes and diner food. After sadly finding out they didn’t have their grilled banana peanut butter sandwich, I got tomato basil soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. To my surprise the soup was a very large portion and so was the Nutter Butter Milkshake I got, but it was so delicious.

It was already dark so we walked back to our hotel when we ran into a guy that Evan became friends with at the information session. A rising high school senior named Jake from Indiana. He was pretty interesting and was a very energetic guy; he was really excited to see Evan. It’s so incredible how we’re already meeting people that could someday be very important to us or important people in general.

As we walked we made further plans for tomorrow, which is also going to be our last whole day before VSA starts. After seeing the Vanderbilt campus I’m even more excited to see how the program goes. 

1 comment:

  1. Like Cammie's blog you made me feel like I was there. Still want to see that sink, though.

    ReplyDelete