places

I used to think that Spain was in the sky. Just because everyone who went there went on a plane- and it was pretty much the only place anybody seemed to go to in our neigbourhood!

Ellie

My older brother and I played a trick on our little brother when he was about 8. We told him that America had adopted Puero Rico as the 51st state. We didn't think he'd fall for it so completely. He believed that for like a month.

Anon

I thought suicide was a place near Liverpool, England

Scotty Carp

i used to think that bethleham was in australia, like just out in the desert somewhere

joanna

I live in Australia and my cousin who is the same age as me lives in Poland. From a very young age i grasped the concept that when it was day here it was night in Poland and vice-versa. In my mind however i believed that our lives worked in perfect unison but in reverse. For example, as i got out of bed, she got into bed. when i ate breakfast, she ate dinner. when i went to school she came home from school etc. The whole idea overwhelmed me but at the same time I remember it gave me a strong feeling of connection to my cousin.

Joanna

When I was very young our family drove from Texas to Oklahoma to visit my grandmother who lived in a small community, Rufe. I thought Rufe was the only town in Oklahoma.

Anon

i used to believe that behind the trees across the railway line (about 15 metres away)was sheffield, it's actually about half a country away, and that the end of my road led to nowhere. naturally, i don't do so great in geography these days.

pandy m

my aunt from germany came to our state (ohio) and we went to a museum with her which was only about 1 hour away and I thought she took us to germaNY CUZ THE STREet signs were blue!!! (instead of green)
so i was olways saying ''can you take us to germany again!?'' XD

fgdaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

A few years ago my grandparents drove to Alaska for a vacation. When my mom told me, I asked if she meant they had their car put on a boat so they would have it in Alaska... We both figured out eventually that I had no clue Alaska is attached to Cananda since throughout my early education Alaska is in the corner of the map with Hawaii, floating around in the Pacific. I almost died when I found out, and my mom nearly died when she found out I had just found out!!! I was in my early twenties and in college. Scary, huh?!?!

miss geography

I used to think "foreign" was a country, since I heard people saying "foreign country" a lot. And I also use to think America's president (at the time Bill Clinton) is also president for every single country in the whole world.

annie

when i was about 8, my brother (who was 10) told me that if there were no trees, buildings, or houses in sight from our house all the way to Washington DC, we would be able to see the Washington Monument in clear view, without a telescope. I believed this until i was 15..

Too bad it's not true..

I used to believe that Texas was all black and white, people rode on horses, and everybody carried a gun like in the old western movies. When our airplane had a layover in Texas, I was extremely dissapointed, on the verge of tears, to realize it was really in color, and I only saw one person with a cowboy hat.

Chris

As a child I had VHS tape with many cartoons. One of them was about H.Barbera's characters (Yogi Bear etc.) as they had to do something in some India-like town (lot of funny-dome palaces and all that other stuff), and before they arrived there, they had said sth like "We have to fly to New Jersey". I thought New Jersey was that place in the India they visited later, and because of in Polish many nouns in genitive have "a" on the end changed into "i" or "y" (i.e. to Ruda -> do Rudy), for many years I believed they were talking about city in India called Nyujersia. I realised they were talking about USA late in elementary school, as I noticed that every time that US state N-E-W J-E-R-S-E-Y was spelled just as that mysterious place in India!

Wojtek Karkoszka, Poland

i used to believe alaska was an island because of the way they put it on our books

Anon

I was a small child during the twilight of the Soviet Union, and once the country Georgia (then a part of it) was mentioned on the nightly news. I started freaking out, thinking the Communists had invaded Atlanta. I was really worried that the Soviet Union would expand to Florida and the Carolinas and eventually to my house. My mother had to explain the difference between Georgia the country in Europe and Georgia the state by Florida.

Mg

When I was very young, I watched an after school show about polar bears, and the narrator referred to their habitat as "the top of the world: the Arctic." I saw all the ice and thought it was clouds, and since clouds were on top of the world, that must be where they'd gone to film the polar bears. It took my mother a while to explain that we couldn't go up to the clouds to meet the Eskimos and watch the polar bears.

Anon

My dad used to always tell me that all roads lead to Vernon. So in 12th when my I had a test in my italian class I the question "it is typically said in italy that all roads lead to what?" i answered vernon. I obviously go the answer wrong.

headed towards Vernon PA

When I was a kid, we would sometimes drive through a tunnel in town. Near the access lane was a big street light, consisting of many lights on a kind of upside down flying saucer. I had no real idea how far or how big this object was, but I thought it was actually a small town in the clouds. Obviously, there had to be a way to get there. So everytime we'd drive past this street light, I saw a small road nearby which I thought was the way to this mysterious city. So I'd always ask my dad if we could drive this road, and he'd tell me 'maybe one day'. I was puzzled by the fact I could not see the other end of the road entering into the city up in the air. But I accepted that fact: after all, I knew I was only a kid, and thus there had to be a few things I could not understand nor explain!

Denis (France)

When I was little I used to think that Hollywood was in Ohio. Growing up in Michigan, I always used to bug my mom to take me to Hollywood and I couldn't understand why she kept saying no.

jeska