places

When I was little my grandpa would always call me "Joshy-Washy from Megatoshi." In high school I remember going through my Freshman year Geography text looking in the Mediterranean Sea for the island of Megatoshi.

Josh

Once, when my we were driving across the country, my parents were talking about visiting Wisconsin. I thought they were talking about visiting a woman named Miss Consin. And I wondered if she was a friend of Mrs. Sippi.

Kdees

My home town in New Zealand was right at the base of 8260ft Mt Egmont; we looked straight out our window at it, and in a straight line the summit was probably only about 15 miles away. I remember always thinking that the whole world was just over the other side of the mountain.

Dave Mellow

My Dad was a traveling salesman and as a boy he would take me on business trips during summer vacation. In the 1950's freeway system was expanding throughout California and they had markings for the roads that ran along side the freeways. They were marked as "Frontage Rd.". I remember getting on the interstate in L.A. and seeing "Frontage Rd." and then all the way to San Franciso seeing "Frontage Rd.". I thouht "Frontage Rd." was the longest street in California.

Rod

When I was nine we travelled to Germany from California. I knew that Germany was on the other side of the world. Somehow I imagined that everything would be upside down, and that we'd be hanging upside down. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed when we landed in Germany and everything was right-side-up!!

Ellen

When I was 9 we moved from Utah to California. I truly thought we were moving to a foreign country. Our first weekend there we went to San Francisco and saw all the "flower children" on the street corners and I knew for sure it was another country.

LaughNSing

When I was younger I belived that Kansas was in black and white because of the movie The Wizard of OZ!!!!

Becky

I grew up in Hawaii, and was pretty sure that our country, the United States, was the fiftieth state

Anon

When I was four years old, my parents took a vacation to the Grand Canyon. From their description, I invisioned it to be an inky black hole in the middle of a motel parking lot. A few years later when I was old enough, we traveled there. Imagine my surprise when I saw that big hole in the ground for myself.

Geography Girl

When I was 5, we drove from California to Pennsylvania to visit my grandparents. My parents must've shown me where we were going on a map, and I saw that the land ended near there, because I assumed that when we got there, the land would just drop off right after their house. I remember looking down the street to see where the end was when we got there.

Laurel

When I was very young, I'd heard of Hong Kong, either in a movie or on the news. I logically believed that this must be the place that King Kong was from.

Jim

when I was about 3, I had just learned to read and I found an ashtray that said "Costa Rica" on it. I told everyone that "Costa Rica" was Spanish for "Puerto Rico". Dunno how I made that connection...

Zoe

When I was really young I used to think that when someone said "the winner will be chosen at random" that Random was a place!

Paul

When I first learned about George Washington crossing the Delaware, I thought that "delaware" was a word for a body of water somewhat bigger than a stream, but smaller than a river.

C.C.

In Hong Kong there's a Catholic secondary school called Mary Knoll College which has lovely red-brick neo-classical buildings, and to my young eyes that style of architecture exemplify the American landscape that I sometimes saw on travel programmes on TV.

So when one day my family drove by that college in a car and I saw those majestic red brick buildings whizzing by (there was also a white steepled church as well) I couldn't believe it and asked out loud, 'Have we driven to America already?'

Mandy

I grew up in Nova Scotia, Canada where a lot of places are named in Native Canadian (ie, tatamagouche, etc) and we used to drive by a place called Musquodobit Harbour on our way to Clam Harbour beach. I always thought it was called Mosquito Bite Harbour and thought I would never like to go there!!

Jude Horrocks

My father took me on a bus past Blackwall Tunnel - a Victorian road tunnel under the river Thames with an imposing building above the entrance. "See that" he said "that takes people all the way under the river" For a long time I thought that the windows and doors were closed and the whole building slid down under the river, like some kind of submarine ferryboat.

Mike B. London

I used to believe that Illinois was a kingdom and that America was made of fifty kingdoms that had agreed not to have wars with each other.

Anon