when i was younger when my parents were going out and if i wasnt coming they would say they were going to a place called uppanickinrussia(pronouced up-an-nick-in-rush-a) for years i believed there was such a place untill one day when i was in the car with mum and she said we were headed there.! was soo excited untill we pulled up at a bathroom tile shop.Disappiontment plus

alanah

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

I was convinced that Indians had dug the Grand Canyon.

Tom Sackett

When I was a child there was this certain filed where we would always go for a picnic on Easter. So I got the idea that that place WAS Easter, rather than Easter being a day.

Bobby

I ued to believe that Random - as in 'names were picked at random' - was a place. I thought there was one place where all competion entries went to be picked.

chris

I grew up in southern long island, New York, and went to the beach a lot. The horizon of one particular beach I went to a lot had a bit of land in the far distance. I knew that England was across the ocean, and I assumed that land in the distance was england. When i was 4, i almost drowned trying to swim there ( i wanted to meet the Queen so badly!). My brother saved me and crushed my beliefs by telling me the land was not england; it was staten island and queens. go figure.

JC

When I was 6 or 7, my dad was temporarily relocated to Austin, Texas. (We lived in Dallas at the time.) He would commute back and forth on weekends, but one day, my mom, brother and I actually drove down to with him to spend the week. I was so excited to be going--I had never been "out of town" in my memory--so I was repeatedly asking my dad, "Daddy, what's Austin like?" He couldn't communicate to me that it was just another city, and I was relentless in my asking. So, to give me a ridiculous answer that I would laugh at and maybe give up on asking him, he told me, "In Austin, there are lots of wild animals. And everyone eats nothing but breakfast cereal." I was shocked. "Really?" I asked. He thought it was so funny that I actually believed him that he told me all about it, and how everyone's favorite meal is a really cool breakfast cereal thing called fruit soup. When we passed a deer crossing sign, I knew that had to mean that it was true: there WERE wild animals in Austin. I was so disappointed when we got there and there were no wild animals and we ate plain old hamburgers!

Kootie

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 used to (up until the age of about 10) believe that there was a place called Random. I thought that it was a place in London, used to pick winners of competitions!

Anon

Untill i got to high school I beleived that spain was a planet but people were allowed to live there, i never realised that was why i had failed every school science project up untill then.......such a shock when i found out spain was a country not a planet.

Sarah

I used to wonder why they didn't fix the Leaning Tower Of Pisa. Weren't they embarrassed that it was crooked?

Bootlebat

That if there was an Antarctica, there had to be and Arctica somewhere on the other end of the earth.

tammy

My sister told me that if it wasn't for the bridges, Manhatten Island would sink. This made sense to me considering the weight of all of those buildings.

Monica

I used to belive that Switzerland was at the centre of the world, (because it had the highest moutains, of course!), that all the countries were packed around it, with England on the edge, which of course led to the Atlantic Ocean - the biggest ocean in the world!

Jon

when i was younger i used to believe that space was near spain! so i imagined spain to be just a bull ring! and that if you looked up into the sky you could see space!

caroline

when i was 9 i somehow got the idea that mexico was a city in spain.

my 4 year old sister would always say how she knew that mexico and spain were 2 different places and i would strongly disagree.

imagine the embarrassment when i was at a party for my soccer team and i told them, 'get this! my sister thinks that spain and mexico are 2 different places! she doesnt even kno that mexico is in spain!'

i got shown up by my lil sis. god i hate that.

kay

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

Anon

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 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