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

Anon

When I was little, I had an aunt who lived on Long Island. All I knew about Long Island is that it was "far away" (according to my parents!) from Boston and that being an island it must be across the water somewhere.

With this information in hand, I looked at the map in my Charlie Brown Encyclopedia and determined that Long Island was located in the U.S.S.R. When my friends came over I would whip out the trusty Peanuts atlas and regal them with tales of Aunt Nina in "Long Island, United States S.R."

When I was 9 we went to New York to visit her and I finally realized that Long Island and the U.S.S.R. were not one and the same. But only because we took a bus to get there and didn't go over the ocean.

Lisa in New England, United States S.R.

I always thought that Hawaii and Alaska were next to each other, just a little bit below, Texas because on Maps they always put them next to each other! I couldn't figure out how two states so close to each other could have such drastically different climates!

Carlee

I used to believe lepers came from Ireland. Like leprechauns, only with less body parts.

Anon

I used to believe that it was Nelson Mandela on the top of Nelson's column in London (It's Horatio Nelson the famous admiral)

Jake

that Uttoxeter was a huge and important place, cause all roads in Stafforshire point towards it

rosy

when I was about 10 I used to sit in Benhill Rec, a park in Sutton, surrey. In the distance I could see what I believed to be the eiffel tower. It wasn't till a few years later I realised it was a electricity pylon in Croydon

linda hurst

I was about 6 years old at the time the Berlin wall fell and Germany became reunited. We used to get those Weekly Reader newsletters in school, and the story about Germany being unified was accompanied by a story about a kid who found out that his hometown wasn't on a map and had it changed. For some reason, I thought these two things were the same story, and for at least three years I thought that Germany had been divided into East and West because someone had made a mistake on a map.

Those darn cartographers are messing with world politics again...

When I was little I always heard about this city called "Pittsburg" and I always wondered why there wasn't a town called "Armpits-burg." Finally one day I asked my parents why there was no Armpitsburg, and they just laughed, and didn't ever tell my why they thought it was so funny. I was so confused, because I was totally serious.

Lindsay

My brother once told me that the world would become so polluted that one day it would explode.
Shortly afterwards I overheard a news report on the television about NASA revealing more "evidence in support of the Big Bang Theory".
For several days I was absolutely terrified.

Richard Green

When my dad would drive us around in the car, we would continuously yell out from the back seat "Where are we going? Where are we going?" My dad would say "Berserk". I was a teenager before I realized that "berserk" was a state of mind and not a destination.

Still Waiting to Get There....

These beliefs aren't mine, but of my friends. They are TERRIBLE at geography. They believe that New England is in Europe. They believe that South Africa is just a general region and not a country. Worst of all, they think there are 52 states in the US. Whenever I tell them that there are only 50, they tell me that I forgot Alaska and Hawaii. Their lack of knowledge of the states became apparent when one of my friends made a project which involved "taking a bridge from Florida to California." For the uninitiated: they're on different ends of the country. He didn't do so well on that project.

Mr. Globetrotter

I used to think Germany had a lot of germs...thats why they built a wall...to stop all the germs from comin' in.

GERMany

As a child I was told that America was "below" Canada. I believed that If I looked down the sewers, I would see America

Emdee

I used to believe what ever color the state was on the map was what color the grass and everything was in that state.

Anon

I used to think that Scotland Yard was just a yard in Scotland and couldn't work out why it was on the news all the time.....

Louise

when I was 6 my Dad went to visit India and when he came back he told me about the people living in mud houses.

Our house in NZ was near the water and when we drove over the bridge and the tide was out my parents would point out the mudflats to me. They were certain that they were there but I always looked for the little mud houses and the poor people that must have lived in them and I could never see them...I felt sorry for them for a long long time...

Frosty

When I(from India) was in USA for an assignement(Software), I found that my Manager believed, everybody in India had Elephants just like people in US had Cars.She couldn't understand why we laughed for a looong time before we could explain her.

4-legged-sedan

My parents are from China, but my sister and I were born in the United States. Whenever my parents talked about wanting to take us to China for vacation, I'd be TERRIFIED because I had heard about their one child policy (to reduce the population growth rate), and I thought they would kill me for being the younger daughter!

Samantha from California

up until i was about seven, i could not grasp the concept that their really werent physical dividers between the states, like their were on most maps of the US used for weather.

when i was seven, my family went on the first road trip, and i was severely dissapointed when i found out "crossing the state border" only amounted to viewing a "welcome to" sign

Gertrude Williams