and everything starts today

Nashville

fine! you all want an update? but you have to hear about my trip to Nashville. so... where to start... well we left entirely too early in the morning. i met mrs. dowell, brooke, and robert (and laurel) at laurel's house at 2 on friday morning. I remember driving over there thinking, "hmm, i don't remember this road being dirt...maybe i'm not going the right way..." well it was the right way and after quite a long time of trying to fit everyone's luggage in the van (and waiting on brooke, geez...) we were on our way. brooke and i claimed the back with laurel in the seat ahead of us and robert up front with Mrs. Dowell. met the other van in the parking lot of the grocery store (i think it was the grocery store...it Was about 3, give me a break) in wamego. don't know exactly why. stopped again in topeka to pick up kim and switch people around. so then it was me and brooke in back with marci and robert in front of us and kim and mrs. dowell up front. seemed like a good idea at the time... anyway, brooke and i were listening to Dane Cook and laughing our heads off, partly because that guy is so funny, and partly because we were so tired, and partly because it was annoying the other people in the van and that is always fun. the whole drive we made at least 30 too many stops. we stopped in St. Louis at the arch and went up. got some awesome photos. do you know how hard it is to sleep at a right angle on a computer bag? hard. literally. got to Nashville after 7. i'm not quite sure how late it was. hotel was huge!! it had a food court. it had it's own shops. it had a conference wing. it had a pub district. it had three pools. it had a river running through it (and a river ran through it... sounds familiar...) we know this because we got lost the first night. and the second. and probably several other times.

saturday morning we went to the Nashville zoo. of all places you could go in Nashville, we go to the zoo. i tried to make the best of it. ok no i didn't try to make the best of it. because there was no best of it. hot, muggy, we're in music city and we go to the zoo. oh well. later on we go to mcdonalds for lunch. catch the portugal germany game on tv. spent the drive back looking for it on the radio. the only station playing the 3rd place world cup game is in spanish. the only reason i knew it was the game was because i recognized the player's names. Deco, C. Ronaldo, Figo (he wasn't playing yet, but i thought i heard it), and then Klose for Germany. i know there was an attempt at a goal, but missed because i heard the announcer's voices go up in excitement but then fall back down with dissapointment. met dad at the hotel. then we walked to the Grand Ole Opry--walked. it took only a few minutes. the mall across the street might have been a farther walk. the Opry was sweet! Vince Gil played at the end. then we had a meeting after. dad was going to go get pizza for us with Karla Hoard, but she left with the other girls and didn't tell us. so we are dragging this suitcase thing down the hall trying to find our meeting room (me, dad, brooke, and marci). brooke is dragging the thing when this guy comes up behind us and brooke unknowingly tries to run him over with it. i say, "uh, brooke, be careful, there's someone behind you..." she looks and has basically the same reaction i was having--ooh, hot guy, polite, too. marci takes the suitcase from brooke so she can take it up the stairs, and the guy picks up the back end and helps her take it up the stairs. turns out the guy is the national officer from New Mexico. had a melting accent--i mean it, his accent was killing me. the meeting was boring, but brooke and i met Jared, Drew, and AJ from Toganoxie. they were funny guys. our state meeting caused a fight between the state officers and peer ed. that was interesting. the state officers were whining that peer ed was trying to take some power away from them when all peer ed was trying to do was help (which happens to be their purpose) anyway we got back and had some late night pizza. dad went back to his hotel down the street. brooke and i (and maybe marci, i don't remember) attempted to get lost again.

sunday we went to the wildhorse saloon. they had an awesome band playing, Jason Jones was the name of the lead singer. they were really good. we were up against the stage next to the lead guitarist. we talked to him a little bit. we found David, Michelle, and Travis (people who went to Japan with us last year). the band took a break and the first song to come on the speakers was Sweetness by Jimmy Eat World. i thought it was really funny to see all the girls who had been going crazy over the band stop and look around a little confused at the song that was playing. and brooke and i were singing every word. probably the only two in the place that knew the song. our day at the wildhorse wasn't over yet, but i got on the bus to go back to the hotel to watch the world cup final with dad. kim was worried about me going on a bus alone, seems she had forgotten that i had been on crowded subways with more stops in Japan last summer, i think i can handle a bus with FCCLA kids and only one stop. i got back to my room just in time to see the so called foul that called for Zidane's penalty kick and France's only goal. shortly after Italy equalized. then dad came and watched the rest of the game with me. then brooke and marci showed up to watch some of it before we had to go to a state picture meeting. talked to the boys (aka Drew and AJ and Jared from Toganoxie) and then finally got organized. as soon as they were done, marci and i sprinted back to the room for the rest of the game. it took a few minutes to sprint all the way across that hotel, it was so big. we had left right at the beginning of overtime and made it back at the 22nd minute. so we missed the head butt, but they replayed it later. several of us gathered in the room to finish the game. even dad was celebrating Italy's win (he had been rooting for France, but changed his mind part way through the game). then he left for Georgia and the group went to the mall. found a flag shop that had soccer shirts. there was a guy in there from italy whose daughters were (in his words) "roaming the streets of rome" i bet some of rome was on fire with all the flares going off. we met a woman in the candle shop from italy--she talked to us for a while because i was wearing my italia jacket. we ate at the aquarium for dinner. the waitress had a southern accent that triggered both brooke's and mine. we were terrible. perhaps it wasn't all on accident, again it is so fun to annoy certain people. tried to get lost and lose a tag-along.

at some point we watched a band play in one of the restaurants in the hotel. they did some crazy moves on stage and were pretty good.

monday brooke, marci, robert, laurel, ashley and i all went to a meeting to become ushers for the opening meeting. one day (i think it was monday) we went back to the mall with megan and ate lunch there and shopped a little more. i bought jason a shirt and me a portugal key chain. they are awesome. i had fun at the meeting. i stood in an aisle and waited for people to look lost, then i would ask them where they were trying to go. before people started coming in, i talked to the texas state officers--i was standing in front of their section. the guy i talked to was entertaining. the national officers did a skit during the meeting.since it was music city, we had elvis, jessica and ashley simpson, dolly parton, two rap artists, and an emo kid. emo kid was the national officer who helped us in the hall saturday night. he was wearing a dashboard confessional shirt. brooke was distracted by the guitar on stage. i was distracted by the fact that New Mexico was wearing a dashboard shirt. so the meeting wasn't too boring. plus the guy doing the elvis impression was pretty good.

one of these days we met robert's roommates (i assume they were all from columbus because that's where James Dean was from)--Jim (james dean, his name was actually james dean), Nick, and Ryan. we also met Tim from Axtell. he looks familiar and he should because he plays basketball and we play their team.

tuesday, brooke had something to do, and the rest of us had sessions to go to. we listened to a guy bash high school relationships (yea! somebody else thinks they won't last, too), and some lady talk about character. two georgia guys we had met the night before got up on stage. they were great. we ate lunch with brooke in the hallway/lobby outside our rooms (one of many many many lobbies). we went to the business meeting in the afternoon, then went to the cancer walk. we walked a lot!

wednesday marci and april and i did our japan spotlight on project booth. brooke came and snuck marci and i out to watch the impressionist speaker. he was really funny. and really good. then we got back and april left to change. we went to the country music hall of fame in downtown Nashville. Brooke and i were the last ones out of there. well actually marci was but only because she didn't really know what was going on and was wandering around aimlessly. look at that. that is Johnny Cash's guitar. wow. that is all i can say. we went on a river cruise--it was nothing really special. had some entertainment and a fancy meal. brooke and i went out on deck to take pictures of downtown at night. we came back in another way down some carpeted stairs. i got down one and i must have stepped on the side of my high-heeled shoe because i went down suddenly. all the way down. luckily there were only three steps. it was so funny that i just sat there and laughed for a few minutes. we went out on the back deck to talk to tim for a little and then went back in for dessert and the rest of the entertainment. when we got back we stayed ing the lobby til midnight with our new friends like we had done every night.

thursday we slept in a little. til 9ish. we did something in the morning, but i can't remember what it was, so it must not have been important. went to the closing meeting. Michael got National President!! Yea!! Michael was the Kansas state president last year as a sophomore. he was on state board with me. nice guy. has a vendetta out for peer ed though. went to the gala--a dance held in two rooms. in the first room we met up with Jim and Drew and danced to country music until they started the line dancing. then we went to check out the other room. it was strictly a dance music room. it had that one beat that stays in your head for hours afterwards. after a while went back to the other room. saved jim from his group of young crushing girls following him around. i helped teach drew a line dance--it was funny. after that they went into the complicated dance and i gave up. back in the other room, brooke and i danced to some latin music--that was fun. at one point we were walking to a table to sit down, and this guy was walking toward us and giving us that look. brooke was almost oblivious andtried to walk into him. i returned the stare because by that point i was so tired of guys looking at me or whoever was with me and i was thinking, "what do you Want, loser?" when he got past us it suddenly dawned on me--that was the former national president, the one that had been on stage all week, certainly not a loser. my bad. michael, the new national president, never made it to the dance, he always got caught by someone wanting to talk to him or congratulate him and blah, blah, blah. so we got back at 11ish, talked to our friends, said our goodbyes, got pictures, and then went to pack. we fell asleep while mrs. dowell, kim and karla got the vans ready. we left about the same time--2 or 3. robert and marci grumpily took the back seat. ok. this time i slept on a box of food and my small bag. we spent a couple hours in hell--the Precious Moments Chapel. the small figurines with the crazy sad eyes have their own chapel. where you go to worship the tiny porcelin dolls. ahhhhh!!!! we got home about 9.

posted by Caity @ 3:18 PM