Kansas City

Home sweet home... The Missouri side, that is. It wasn't until I traveled outside of Missouri that I realized people don't go to the mid-west much. I've been asked so many seemingly-rhetorical questions about it.

Caution! Real and stupid questions ahead... "Why don't you have an accent?" "Where's your cowboy hat?" "Is your back yard made of hay?" "How many cows do you have?" "How do you like it down there in Kansas?"

I don't live in Kansas. I've never had a cowboy hat (personally they make my head look funny). Mizzou is the top school in the nation for journalism due partially to the fact that we don't have accents here. No, I don't own hay, but my cow Betsy's doin' just fine, thank ye very much.

It wasn't until I decided to look at my own perceptions about the world that I found where they were coming from. Egypt isn't just sand dunes and pyramids. Hawaii has more than small-town shops and pretty beaches. And Disney World isn't really the happiest place on Earth.

But even though there are bigger (and possibly better) cities out there, I wouldn't trade this biggest "small town" for all the world. I like that the greater city area is larger than St. Louis and I love that you can carry on a conversation about carrots with a stranger in the grocery store checkout line. Try that where you came from... Yeah, that's what I thought.