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Chattanooga
One of my first friends in residency was Jenny Rosen, who defended my pride when senior residents were disappointed in my mistakes and kept us both laughing when it felt like, as she put it, we were swimming through the hospital, wading bleary eyed and sleep deprived to find our way from one far reaching annex to another as our 24 hour calls came to a close.
In September of 2018, she graciously invited me to her hometown of Chattanooga, where we stole away from the first three months of residency and remembered midday icecream, sleeping in, and walks along the water stung by jets of sunlight.
State of Confusion
Part of downtown’s Southside at E Main and Passenger. There’s a lot of outdoor seating, and the margaritas are fantastic. I also got the Confusion Salad, which was delicious. It used to be a salvage yard called Estate of Confusion - a lot of the art that is used to decorate the restaurant looks almost steampunk. The nachos are great late night food (basically potato chips with delicious queso). Plenty of parking.
Community Pie
Cute bar with lots of eclectic, mechanical chandeliers behind the bar. Great for New York pizza, salad, pasta. Part of the Monen Family restaurant group, which includes Milk & Honey (homemade gelato). There’s actually a Milk & Honey Coffee Bar in Community Pie - with coffee, gelato, and breakfast items.
Poblano’s
Super cheap brunch - my chilequiles were $8. $2 double mimosas. $3 sangria all day on Sunday. Covered outdoor seating, not super crowded. Their chips are perfect with queso.
Tivoli theater
We saw Aziz Ansari debut new material for $50 at the Tivoli - there are a lot of big artists that come through all the time for comedy, country, rock, Broadway, etc. It opened in 1921 and still has the original box office. The chairs are kind of small but are beautiful red velvet plush. The lobby is gorgeous, with crystal chandeliers and a white floor inlaid with green marble.
Sculpture Garden
The art museum (which isn’t free… so we walked around the sculpture garden instead) is right on the river, across from the Aquarium (which has beautiful glass pyramids housing the butterfly gardens atop the building). It’s a fun and engaging walk through the sculpture garden, including work by Deborah Butterfield and George Segal.
Chattanooga Shoe Company
I didn’t get to do any shopping in Chattanooga, but my friend had a pair of shoes from this shoe company that was fantastic - so I looked it up and hope you get to go shopping here for me!
Walnut Street Bridge
Pedestrian walking bridge that’s part of the Seven Bridges marathon (October), goes across the Tennessee River. There’s events like Wine over Water and Riverbend Festival too.
WHERE TO STAY
We stayed with Jenny’s high school friends Emma and Alex at the base of Lookout mountain, which is the old money mountain. The other mountain a lot of people live on is Signal mountain, which is more new money. There’s a ride to the top of Lookout, which was the site of an important win for the Union in 1863.
CHOO CHOO
It was registered as a historic site in 1974 after being saved from demolition by local businessmen. The train became famous after the Glenn Miller Orchestra performed this song that was featured in the movie ‘Sun Valley Serenade’. There’s also a Songbirds guitar museum that has two stages attached with lots of live shows.
EDWIN HOTEL
Still under construction, but will hopefully be built up by the time you go. Also on the river, it has a rooftop bar and very cute restaurant (Whitebird) on the first level featuring seasonal dishes that source locally.
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Southern Iceland
Iceland is undeniably magical. Austere landscapes, alien vegetations, and crisp, silent air. Every breath sweeps debris from your alveoli, every horizon wipes the images of your phone burned into your retina.
I visited with two friends in the fall of 2015. One motivated by its promise of thought provoking terrain, the other by the temptation of an insurmountable hike across the Western Fjords and the Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Together we were the self proclaimed cast of Homeward Bound, designations still up for debate.
The black sand beaches of Vik are at the southernmost tip of Iceland. The monochromatic waves come thrashing up to your feet, or your waist if you’re not paying attention, and around you are the mossy, gothic bluffs that cut away at the pastel fog above. The two cliffs represent a husband and wife who were ultimately taken by the stormy trolls of the sea.
Raufarholshellir is a lava tunnel not too far from Reykjavik that is definitely worth a trip. We went on the recommendation of our friend Daniel Lam, without whom we would have never found it. The tunnel is just randomly on the side of the road but is eery and intermittently space-like enough to hear your silent thoughts to echoed back at you
The DC-3 plane wreckage was kind of touristy, not a super necessary trip (it’s a bit of a trek, otherwise you’ll need some kind of all terrain vehicle to reach it from the ring road) to take unless you're very interested in seeing a plane wreck with graffiti on it.
Jokulsarlon is a glacier lagoon on the southeastern coast on the edge of Vatnajokull National Park. Unfortunately, it’s been growing due to the rate of the glaciers melting. It’s a formidable sight, with crystal blue chunks of glaciers marbled by soil floating out toward sea when they become small enough. There are seals out and about as well.
Eyjafjallajökull is a volcano in the eastern volcanic zone of southern Iceland and erupted in 2010 - the ice caps on it are melting quickly and I'm not sure how much snow you'll be able to see in the next few years. When we were there, it was significantly less snowfallen than we had seen on google maps. We had an incredible time hiking in Skaftafellsjokull.
The waterfalls of Iceland are legendary - Godafoss, Seljalandsfoss, Skogafoss. You can’t go wrong making a trip to any one of them.
The food in Iceland was not particularly exciting. That being said, the cheese at their grocery store (Bonus, whose logo is a pig and I hope you develop the same obsession with it that we did) is amazing (we ate pounds of it in the course of a few short weeks), as is their yogurt and muesli.
We paid for almost everything with credit cards and did not have any issues - very few krona were involved.
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