But after saying I was from Kansas City, instead of being confused over whether I was a farm girl or not, the first question was always automatically, "Kansas City, Missouri or Kansas City, Kansas?" This is a crucial point of misunderstanding--even a Harvard website had trouble with the distinction. The president of the Kansas City Harvard/Radcliffe Club has an office in Johnson County, but the site listed it as being in Missouri.

It's easy to make this mistake because all the major buildings and landmarks that make up what is commonly known as Kansas City are in Missouri. On our newspaper tour, we pass the Royals' baseball stadium, the City Market and the 18th and Vine Jazz District, home of Count Basie--all on the Missouri side.

This area was named Kansas City, after the Kansas River, before Kansas became a state. Kansas City, Kan., lies directly to the west of the downtown area and is mostly made up of residential areas and some industrial buildings.

I live in Kansas, but not Kansas City in Kansas. The suburbs in my area are mainly associated with Kansas City, Mo., and lie to the south on both sides of the state line. Johnson County is the Kansas side of suburbia and it looks like every other sprawling suburb in America--houses, malls, schools and parks. When we drive through it on our tour, one intern says it looks like suburban Chicago. Another says it looks like Plano, Texas.

After our tour we head back to the newspaper office. By now, the interns are all Missouri/Kansas savvy. Since it's the end of the day, I hop in my car and begin the drive home. After navigating the city area (Missouri), I get onto State Line Road and cross over into Prairie Village (Kansas, but not a farm).

And still no cows in sight.

Heather B. Long '03, a Crimson editor, is a history and literature concentrator in Mather House.