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<\/a><\/p>\nHaving never seen Kansas City in a photograph or heard about it from anyone, I admit that I thought it would be a bumbling, dusty little Midwestern city, perhaps with a lone McDonald\u2019s in the city square, and tractor crossing signs everywhere.<\/p>\n
I could not have been more wrong. Kansas City, Missouri, as I described in a text to Emily (hi, Em!), was \u201ca sprawling and exorbitantly priced metropolis, complete with Tiffany & Co, Rolex, the publishers of Dilbert and Peanuts, a gigantic luxury department store, Hall\u2019s, founded by the wife of the Hallmark founder, and the fourth largest concentration of graphic designers in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n It was beautiful. It looked like New York\u2019s Fifth Avenue, minus the horde of foot traffic. In fact, we hardly saw anyone on the street at all. This, we later learned, was because of the myriad of aboveground, all-glass tunnels that connect the industrial buildings in the city.<\/p>\n There were also gorgeous fountains tucked in every corner of the city\u2014evidently, Rome is the only city in the world that has more fountains than Kansas City does.<\/p>\n We went to Hall\u2019s, the aforementioned luxury department store, where they sell vintage Chanel (!) as well as Hallmark cards. We then toured the Hallmark factory, where we watched commercials that made me tear up (see \u201cRequired Reading\u201d and \u201cTaxi\u201d). It was lovely, especially the Christmas trees that the Hallmark employees used to make, every year, for Mr. Hall.<\/p>\n The Link, which is a wonderful invention, is a steel-and-glass-walkway that took us from the Hallmark factory to the Union Station Science City.<\/p>\n If you haven’t already noticed, we\u00a0really<\/em> like science museums.<\/p>\n Ben had some fun in the Crayola store.<\/p>\n The Kansas City Performing Arts Center!<\/p>\n The same bridge, above and below, from different perspectives.<\/p>\n CHIPOTLE IS EVERYWHERE.<\/p>\n After that, it was dinner at a tiny Vietnamese restaurant, then back to the hotel for more of the Olympics!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n