Sometime early this past summer, I made the random comment that since the greatest soccer player in the world, Lionel Messi of Argentina, was now playing in America for Inter Miami FC of Major League Soccer, that it would be cool to actually see him play in person. However, at the point, Miami had already visited Columbus, the closest MLS city to Pittsburgh, so that was pretty much that.
Well, my birthday rolled around in September, and Linda presented me with my gift: a Lionel Messi Inter Miami jersey. Then she gave me an envelope containing the rest of my gift. She had made plane and hotel reservations for a trip to Nashville that included tickets to the MLS match between Inter Miami and Nashville FC this past Saturday. She had also purchased tickets to see a touring Broadway musical, "The Outsiders", for Friday afternoon at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. And she bought a Messi jersey for herself as well.
So there we were this past Saturday at Geodis Park, a soccer only stadium in Nashville to be a part of a sellout crowd (30,000+) and getting to see the greatest player in the world.
And did he ever deliver.
Our seats were fantastic. Seven rows up from the pitch, and with a perfect view of the goal which turned out to be the goal that Miami would be attacking in the second half. If we were looking at a football field, our seats would have been on the 20 yard line or so.
The game itself was terrific. Nashville led 2-1 at the half, and yes, the Miami goal was scored by Messi. The second half was all Miami, who ended up winning 5-2, and the best part was that Messi scored three goals, including one on a penalty kick right in front of us and assisted on the other two. Six of the seven total goals were scored at our end of the field right in front of us. If I tried to write up a script for what I wanted to see that night, I couldn't have come up with a better one.
HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS of the game showing all seven goals, including Messi's hat trick. Here also are some photos that we took with our phones that night.
The soccer game was the main purpose of our trip, and, as I said, it could not have been scripted more perfectly. It will go down as one of the best sports spectating experiences of my life, but the rest of our Nashville Adventure was pretty cool, too.
We stayed, not in the heart of Nashville, where all the tourists go and the honky tonks are, but in an area called 12 South. It is an area of about six blocks on 12th Street, south of downtown Nashville (hence, the name), consisting of fancy coffee shops, some bars and restaurants, and some upscale retail clothiers. You want a pair of $350 jeans, this is where you'd go. For you Pittsburghers out there, think of it as an upscale Shadyside. Our hotel, The Gilmore, was right in the center of 12 South, and it suited us perfectly. The area was very busy. Lots of people, lots of tourists. We found a cool bar called the Bottle Cap to eat and watch sports on TV, and a fancy linen tablecloth restaurant called Urban Grub for our special "birthday dinner", and a couple of cool breakfast places.
The courtyard at The Gilmore
One of those neat breakfast places
On Friday morning, we ventured into downtown Nasheville for brunch and the 1:00 performance of "The Outsiders", but before the show, we did walk along several blocks of Broadway, and "experienced" Nashville. At 11:00 on a Friday morning, the place was jumping. Party buses all over the place, live music coming out of every doorway that you passed, and people, masses of people, everywhere. And when we left the theater after the show and UBERed back to our hotel, the number of people had increased exponentially. We can only imagine what it is like at night when, we understand, you sometimes have to wait two hours just to get inside a place. It was quite the experience.
Some street scenes.
Brunch before we hit Broadway!
"Make good trouble."
Day drinkin' and music at Garth Brooks' place.
Only in Nashville, I suppose
One stop for Miss Hockey!
I must also note that seeing "The Outsiders" was also one terrific experience. The show won several Tony Awards, including Best Musical, during it's original Broadway run, and you can see why. Set in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1967, it is about kids on both ends of the social spectrum co-existing, or actually NOT co-existing. The Greasers and the Soshes in this show could be compared to the Sharks and Jets in "West Side Story", so it is a familiar dramatic theme, but the staging in this one was really a marvel to behold. The show in based upon the novel of the same name by S.E. Hinton, which, I understand, is the best selling young adult novel of all time.
Both the show and the theater, the Tennessee Center for the Performing Arts get Four Stars from The Grandstander.
Our last full day in Nashville was spent visiting with pal David Cicotello, who motored over from his home in Murfreesboro, TN to spend an afternoon with us. A splendid time was had by all.
Two final comments on our trip.
One, our room at our hotel did not have a telephone in it. How's that for a shifting paradigm?
Two, this is the first time we ever took a trip where our transportation was totally dependent on ride-sharing, UBER in our case. In all we took six rides with UBER: to and from the airport, to and from the soccer game, and to and from downtown Nashville. Our total costs were $186.73. I don't believe that we could have rented a car and paid for parking over the four days we were there for less than that. Also, after visiting downtown Nashville, that is just about the last place that I would want to be driving.
I will close with this toast to Linda and thank her for just about the most wonderful birthday gift ever!
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