places

I used to think that the huge clock tower of the local university was the London Tower with the Big Ben! I used to believe this until I was like 8 or 9. My mother enlightened me when I asked how could we see Big Ben from the other side of the Atlantic!

Scandia

When I was little, I thought that Mississippi was a real person. Ithought she was called Ms. Issippi and she was the queen of her country. I thought that she had to go to war with Norway and I called it The Battle of Mississippi. I thought that Norway was a desert like Arizona and that there were big floaty monsters in the caves. You don't want to know the dreams I had on the topic.

Mr. Issippi

I used to believe that only old, retired people like my grandparents lived in Florida. I was very surprised to find out they had schools there.

me again

I used to think that Holland was an island near Australia. But when in an anime a girl traveled by train from France to Holland, I was enlightened. Not to mention sort of surprised. Holland was portrayed as so cute, it seemed too exotic to be located other than in Oceania.

Scandia

As I loved geography and maps as a small kid, I would look through the pre-Interstate System maps of the United States (1950s). For many years I would examine Washington, D. C. metro maps. At the same time, I looked all over Washington State trying to figure out where Washington, D. C. was. It HAD to be near Seattle?
Washington, D. C. had U.S. 50 running near it but couldn't for the life of me find U.S.50 on the Washington State maps or in the Tacoma-Seattle area. There
was New York, New York, so there had to be a Washington, D. C., Washington . . . right?

Anon

i used 2 belive that when u went 2 mexio u will go 2 a different planet.

frankie

When I was young, my aunt lived in a small northern Canadian town called Cassiar. Having learned a bit of world geography by looking at a globe with my dad, I thought she lived in Madagascar.

Marlo

I once had a friend who, presumably because there are so many American movies on TV, seemed convinced that everything he saw on TV was in America. There was a rugby match on one day, and he said "That rugby's coming from Scotland. Scotland's in America". To which his Dad answered "Everything's in America as far as he's concerned".

Alan, Sheffield, UK

When I was 5 years old and living in Texas, my mom and I flew to Michigan to visit family on a regular basis. I had trouble with the terms "north" and "up there".
At the time I thought that to get to Michigan, the airplane had to fly straight up, like a super elevator taking us to a floor way up on a high rise. I spent some time trying to figure out how far away Michigan really was if each state had it's own layer. I'm now a social studies teacher and have to giggle when I think about my early impressions of US geography.

Christi

i used to believe that spain was on a different planet

shannon cannan

I used to believe the world map was only one half of the planet. One day i said to my brother "when i grow up, im gonna discover the other half! ^_^'

S.O.

I used to think that the third world was a different planet. I imagined what it would be like to travel between the earth and the third world. I could never figure out where the second world was.

the renus

For some strange reason I alays thought Quebec was in Saudi Arabia !!! (I guess I must have mixed it up with Quatar) and I genuinely beliieved this until one day in a French lesson when we were watching a video based in Canada all about food. When they went to Quebec I asked why they were speaing French because they speak Arabic in Quebec ! Everyone looked at me like I was insane and I have never lived it down to this day !!

Sam B

I never knew that people actually lived in Las Vegas. I always thought everybody would just go there on vacation, LOL!
Now I'm married to a Las Vegas native and we contemplate moving there.

Kelly

For a long time I puzzled over why Michigan City, Indiana is so named, being in Indiana and not Michigan. Then one day, looking at a map, I felt kind of stupid, noticing the obvious answer, namely that it is on the shore of Lake Michigan. Soon afterwards I began to discover that there are other cities named for the great lake on whose shore they are located, like Erie, Pennsylvania and Superior, Wisconsin. Then one day, I was perplexed, discovering Huron, South Dakota on a map, quite far from Lake Huron. I asked my sister why it was named that, so far from the great lake by the same name. My sister told me that Lake Huron was once much bigger than it is now and that back then it extended all the way to Huron, South Dakota. As far fetched as that seemed, I believed it for a long time. The day I fanally began to doubt such an explanation was the day I discovered Ontario, California on a map.

Lucy

i used to belive that spain was on a different planet

charley east

that each country was a different planet

Anon