Over the past few years, I’ve uncovered a hidden passion in my life – TRAVEL (hence, the travel blog). I love seeing new places, experiencing cultures, adding stamps to my passport and continuously topping the previous trips excitement with the next. However, I also love coming home. Ernest Hemingway said, “There’s something about coming home that reminds you of what you have.” Agree.

Websters defines home as “a place where one lives” which might be one of the most the most limiting and disappointing definitions I’ve ever read. This would mean my response to someone asking me, “Where is your home?” would be “Smryna, Tennessee”. While Fabien & I are here together, this place hardly feels like “home” to either of us, but let me tell you a little bit about this town where we are living.

• Smyrna is home to approximately 40,000 residents and a 5.2 million square
  

  Our neighborhood with Nissan in the distance. Looks like we might be the only household without a big truck.

  foot Nissan plant, which produces over 500,000 vehicles per year.

• On the town corners you will find just about every American chain and because of the large community of foreigners, there are also many independently owned mexican and asian restaurants.

• Our local watering hole is called (blush) “Willie’s Wet Spot” and, like all small towns, has a super friendly bartender who already knows most of my life story.

• We are a 5 minute walk to the Stone’s River, which is quite beautiful and dumps
  

  Stone's River Dam

  into Piercy Priest Lake in Nashville.

• Downtown Nashville is 30 minutes north and provides anything and everything in the way of entertainment (but nearly no bookstores….grrr).

• It’s approximately once a day that I get a “Where y’all from?”, which only makes Fabien smile since it’s normally a question he has to answer by himself.

• Just outside our subdivision are some beautiful country roads. We were really looking forward to biking them, that is until Fabien and his friend were recently chased by 4 dogs.

•  The downtown is almost cute and consists of establishments called “Country Bride”, “Pop’s Bar” and “Breakin’ Bread-Home Cookin'”.

• Smyrna’s most famous resident is a confederate war hero named, Sam Davis.
  

  The cotton fields at the Sam Davis home.

  His home, along with the Stone’s River National Battlefield are local relics. I know it’s a more a matter of southern pride than celebrating the civil war, but I’m not a fan of what this celebration represents. And this Yankee would like to remind y’all who won that war and I think it’s time y’all move on…

All this sounds just great, doesn’t it? I’m sure some of you are cringing and maybe 3 of you are jealous. Honestly, I haven’t determined my feelings yet. I might really love small town, country life, but I also might demand to be taken within walking distance of civilisation at some point. Fortunately, with another adventure just around the corner, I don’t have too much time to stop and smell Smyrna’s roses. My “home” will soon convert into a little village in central France called St. Cyr en Val come January 1st.