places

When I was in my college class somebody held up a picture of the Empire State Building. I was so shocked! "Who moved the Statue of Liberty?" I asked. Nobody knew what I was talking about. "Who moved it off of the top of the building?" Of course everyone laughed their heads off. I visited the Empire State Building when I was little and when we were going to the top my Dad said we had to hurry so we could see the Statue of Liberty. I somehow inferred that we were hurrying up there to see the Statue of Liberty up there. I believed my whole life that Lady Liberty was atop the Empire State Building.

Merrie Lee

When I was little, my sister had a globe on which the states of the U.S. and those of Australia were shown in different colors, although elsewhere on that globe, different colors indicated different countries. I had already learned at the time that the U.S. was all one country. But for a long time thereafter, I thought that the states of Australia were all separate countries.

Deirdre

I used to believe that if you poked a city on a map you would destroy that city, so at school I would poke Houston to see if I could see a giant finger in the sky.

Catracho

When I was small I used to believe ( and really had the fear ) that if I continued going I would fall off the edge of the earth.
then when I was growing up and learned that the earth was rotating on its axis and revolving in its orbit,I still harboured the fear that its axis and orbit might fail it and that the earth would plunge into an abysmal dive.I still have this fear , believe me!

epimeno01

When I was a kid I believed that there were two parts to the world, existing side by side - Eden and the part that God created, and the rest of the world, which came about by evolution. Only in a child's mind could those beliefs exist together! (I no longer believe in evolution.)

Sheri Torgrimson

I used to believe that a "gentlemens club" was a building where a bunch of men gathered together in tuxedos and top hats to smoke cigars. I was quite embarassed when I learned the truth!

Anon

I believed that they had polar bears in poland until I went there and asked "Wher's the polar bears?"

Mike

I used to think the American states were all different countries and didn't realize it was all one country together!

Anon

When I was little, I used to think that whatever direction I was facing was north.

Anon

I used to live in Hawaii while my extended family lived in Utah. We would find ourselves visiting them often, so I thought the entire continental United States was called "Utah."

John

When I was a kid i belived that that the country i lived in, Norway, covered the entire world, and that all the other countries like England, USA, China and so on was a planet of there own (usa=mars, England=Jupiter and so on)

TPC

we lived in a small town. whenever we would go shopping or go see a movie we would drive to a bigger town, lexington. when i was little i used to think that every state had a lexington and that this place was the hub of all cool things. like lexington was a mall or something that spanned miles and miles with restaurants and shoe stores.

shasta, ky

I was born and raised in Hawaii. Since we were taught that Columbus discovered America, and I knew that Hawaii was part of America, I wondered which beach he landed on, and if it was very close to my house.

geoclueless

I remember believing that when you were flying that the borders of states and the states names would be visible from the air - just like it looks on a map.

Swoop74

Until last year when I was 13 I never bothered to think out how a map worked, in relation to the round earth. I thought that if you went north from here (Canada) and you went past the Arctic you would be in Antarctica!

tina

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 believed that the coliseum where basketball games were played was full of water and it was where people would go to fish from up in the rafters. I was kinda disappointed to find out what it really was.

Anon

There was a kid in 4th grade that believed the size of some foriegn country's map was its actual size! "Ms. Teacher" he said "how can people walk on such a tiny country?"

Anon

When I was seven tears old, my family flew from Alabama to Denver. When we we over the plains, I saw the lines dividing farmers fields. I Assumed they were borders separating states and could not understand why there were so many since there are only 50.

Anon

I used to think that people from different states(I live in the USA) spoke different languages. When my parents told me we were leaving going to Colorado for a vacation one year, I became terrified that I would have to learn Spanish! Thankfully, however, I understood everyone there. In fact, my younger self might be surprised to learn from my older self that, living in Arizona, most people seem to a speak a different language from me IN state!

Ally