Adventures in Nashville!

Yes I am indeed writing this post from my FABULOUS hotel room in Nashville, also known as The Room that Almost Wasn't. Story soon to follow.

This was yesterday: Went to class, walked back to the apartment where I packed (and later realized didn't pack my pajamas), then piled into a car with 3 other wonderful Furman females, and embarked on the 6 hour journey to Nashville, TN, where Laura the Roommate and Boy (Laura's fiance) ran the Country Music Marathon this morning.

So of course there was your typical fun long car ride that involved belting out assorted show tunes slightly off-key. Good times. Then we got to Nashville and registered for the marathon and proceeded to head to the Embassy Suites to check-in before dinner. After hauling our luggage inside, we were informed that No, there were no reservations under our name or confirmation number. Oh goody. And since there were 30,000 people running in this marathon, plus all their companions, plus a significant number of small children competing in a soccer tournament and their families all trying to cram into Nashville's normally-abundant hotel rooms, there was literally not a vacancy in the city. We know because we had 2 sets of parents and one boyfriend at home checking the internet, plus we'd called at least 10 hotels and stopped by 3 to beg in person.

At 9:30 PM (10:30 Eastern time), with no plan and no hope, we stopped at Jack-in-the-Box, where Laura called her mother to get her Tennessee cousins' phone number in the hopes that they would give us a place to stay. Several panicked phone calls, one vanilla milkshake, and 3 cheese sticks later, Laura's phone rang, and lo and behold, we were informed that our reservations were not at Embassy Suites at all, but at another Nashville hotel just a couple of blocks away. Apparently, Laura's mom was at her Supper Club and told those in attendance about our distress, and one of the other Supper Club ladies called up her friend, the wife of the Dean of Admissions at Vanderbilt, who talked with her husband, who was able to tell from our confirmation number what hotel we were supposed to be at. You can imagine how the wind from our sighs of relief shook the cash registers.

Now I ask you to remember the How I Almost Didn't Get to Paris story. Tell me, do I have a travel jinx on my head? I'm trying to shift the blame to Laura and Boy by talking about that other time they didn't get a hotel room... Yeah. Not my fault, I swear.

Thank God for almosts.