I left NYC at 11.30 lunchtime, and didnt get to KC till 7pm after taking two flights. One long day. My transfer bus to the airport an air hostess asked me where I was going. When I replied Kansas, she said 'really, who lives in kansas, do people actually live in kansas ?' Yep, turns out a lot of people live here in Kansas !
Kansas airport was tiny. Smaller than bournemouth, I walked up a small slope and theres Luke waiting for me with my requested can of coke. It was really good to see him again and we both just laughed for a bit...We went straight to Gates, I think I have the name right, an african american BBQ place. It wasnt what I expected, when Luke told me about this BBQ place I kind of expected BBQ'D chicken etc. We had this sliced BBQ pork burger with ghurkins, which was mega greesy and fatty and spicey.... I think I managed to eat half of it. It was cool to experience nonetheless !
Arriving at Lukes house, his housemates were so keen to speak to the english girl, asking me funny questions about what we call houses/flats/apartments and townhouses back home. Everyone was mega friendly and made me real welcome. Did I mention I love the house ? Its so cool and cosy, Id love to live here. Me and Luke got started on the beers pretty much straight away, and the main topic of conversation was ASIA ASIA ASIA. Do you remember this, do you remember that. It was great to catch up... Lukes friend Dennis came over later in the evening with us and we chatted some more about travelling, as hes going away soon. He went on to tell us about this 'speakeasy' even in the west bottoms the following night and about how we should go, so we went out for a drive to the west bottoms and he showed us where this little secret venue was. Its basically like a warehouse party, you walk in through a dodgy back door and there you are. So I was mega excited for the next evening ! We drove around having a tour for about an hour and then went to Town Topic, I think thats what its called. This tiny little burger joint that was no bigger than my kitchen, and what I thought was very american. We ordered these burgers which were cooked up in front of us, and we ate them along a small bar with stalls. I loved it, and it was crazy cheap. From here we hit the sack !
My 2nd day here in KC, we went for a late breakfast at Eggstc, I loved it. Really, we must go back there again. Its just a breakfast/lunch place and closes at 2. There was a ten minute wait for a table when we arrived bit it was definately worth it. Once we sat down at the table, I couldnt take my eyes off all this funky art on the walls. the canvas's were so big and colourful. The menu was so extensive I was lost. Pretty much everything was egg, obviously, but you could have so much with your egg. Eventually I settled with Granny smith apples, walnuts, goats cheese and caremelised red onion ommlette, raisin toast and potatos with a glass of orange juice and a cheecky side order of a big pancake with butter and syrup. Nom Nom Nom, it was great. I kept on grinning while eating, a mixture of good food, good venue and the funny waitress that loved my accent.
For the next few hours we drove down to the lower west bottoms, Im probably saying EVERYTHING wronge. It was cool, it was where we were going this evening with lots of warehouses, a train track and big empty spaces. Some cool photo oppurtunities. From the west bottoms we went on to the plaza, a very rich, kind of up market area with lots of posh shops and boutiques. We walked around before ending up at the cheescake factory, for feast number two. I have never seen a menu with so many choices of cheescakes. I think i went with the double chocolate fudge with cream and luke had tiramisu. They were so yummy, but so rich and so large we didnt managae to finish them. Writing this has just reminded me they are back at the house in the fridge, mmm...After our cheesecake we headed home and chilled out with lukes roommate dylon and his girlfriend who I keep forgetting her name. Randyn was on here way over and I was excited to finally meet her.
Meeting Randyn was great, We had emailed for so long it was fab to finally meet. Shes lovely and I really couldnt ask to meet a nicer girl here on my trip. Again she loved my accent, we all hung out and chatted at the house for a bit before heading to a vietnamese restaurant that luke raves about... Arriving at the restaurant was like being back in Vietnam. The smell, the people, everything. A massive grin spread accross my face, hello Nam ! We all ordered pho, a traditional vietnamese dish we used to eat along the road out there. It was massive, but very good. Now we were off ice skating with luke and randyns friends. There was about 8 of us I think, the ice rink was big, and I lost count of the amount of times I knocked this cute little kid over for skating too fast, he seemed to be everywhere i was... I think we skated for about half hour before going back to lukes for beers and spiced rum. I had lukes fart putty under the blanket next to Randyn, only the three of us knew about it, so while we were all drinking I kept making these fart noises and randyn kept taking the blame, saying it was the vietnemese food. We owned up after 20 minutes and everyone had a good play with the putty, thanks hawkins bazaar.
