5.15.2011

how to have fun in kansas city


last weekend, kirk and i had a mini-getaway to kansas city (ok, not really a getaway, considering i work in the metro area every day and it's really only 40 minutes from home, but still "away") for our anniversary. we stayed downtown and tried to participate in as many local fun activities as we possibly could in less than 24 hours. here's some shots to tell the story...

on friday we went to the west bottoms to check out the antique shops and flea market area that occupy the first floors of several old warehouse buildings. not only is this a perfect use of old buildings and a fun area to explore, but the shops had a lot of great finds and they seemed to be reasonably priced. we bought an old pull-down map of kansas that we plan to hang in our living room. i'll post pictures of it once i have it up.
friday night we went out to the "K" to watch the Royals. here's alex gordon running the bases after his home run. it was also "fireworks friday." good times.
so, after the game we were hungry and the only places open near our hotel were QUITE expensive...not exactly in our plan for the weekend, but what were we to do?? so, we splurged on a very tasty dinner of mahi tuna, potato gnocci, and fried zucchini. as fate would have it, we also managed to get a hotel room with a view of a brick wall, located directly below the massively loud air conditioning unit for the entire hotel, and directly between the rooms reserved for a wedding party (bachelor party on the left and bachelorette party on the right). after being awoken several times in the night and early morning with the plethora of sounds, we decided we would not be paying full price for this room. at check out, we politely mentioned the variety of issues and the very nice lady at the desk sympathetically discounted our room and took off the parking charge. she wondered why we were not given a better room considering we had made our reservations over a month before...i wondered the same, but appreciated that the discounted hotel room helped me to feel better about the very expensive mahi tuna.

after this, we walked down to the city market for breakfast. we enjoyed the scents of the spice market, the pastries from Bloom Bakery, the view of the city, and coffee before we headed for home.

1 comment:

Erika said...

That sounds like so much fun! (minus the hotel room). Maybe when Aliza is able to take a bottle, we'll do something like that. I want to see that map of Kansas...sounds cool.
Way to go on your masters, by the way. You made it seem incredibly easy.