I used to think that the UK was short for Ukraine.

Mia

I used to believe that if a town or city were 'twinned', they would be identical, ie if I went to the French town twinned with my home town it would have the same layout - streets, shops, etc!!!!

Anon

having learned that the world is a huge globe with millions of people on it, i used to believe that every single thing existed at least twice. my best example for this, and i think that's also where i got the idea from, was our washing machine:
i was told that we were not the only family that had this particular washing machine, and so i concluded that there was also at least one family who had the same clothes in it, at the same time, washing it at the same degree...

anna asisa

I used to belive Road Island was really an island and Hawaii and Alaska were next to each other becuase in school thats how they are on the map. I could never understand why it didnt snow in Hawaii. I didnt find out I was wrong until I was 21.

Jennee

After we moved to San Jose when I was little, I used to believe my grandmother was just on the other side of the mountains. So I would stand in the front yard of our suburban West Valley house and scream "Grandma!" at the mountains, over and over.

Of course she didn't hear me, but it didn't help that I was yelling at the mountains between me and the Pacific Ocean, and my grandmother was in Ohio.

A. Foster, Naples, Florida

Digging in the dirt was one of my favorite activities when I was little and I thought I could dig to China if I tried hard enough, until one day my parents told me that it was impossible to dig to China. I then decided I'd make my digging goal more realistic by trying to dig to Canada instead.

Serenity

When I found out that Alaska was part of the US, I was a little freaked out. I thought that it was part of the continental US, so like, there was this frozen ice area in the middle of warm climate of the rest of the states. I thought it was some sort of strange phenomenon.

Brr...

I used to think that the United Kingdom was the world's biggest amusement park--a whole island! I figured that since the *Magic* Kingdom had the same word in the name, they must be the same thing.

J.

I thought Oklahoma was named after my Uncle Homer. (Pre-Simpsons)

Anon

I used to believe that the ground in each state was the same color as it appeared on the map of the U.S.(pink, green, blue, etc..)

sauerkraut

In my younger days, I used to believe that the equator was a big, long, barren hole in the ground that circled the entire world. The water even would dip for the equator!

In order to get to the lower hemisphere of the world, I thought people had to jump down into this ditch and run through the equator. If they stayed there too long, they would overheat!

I got this idea from stufying globes too intensely

Caeci

I thought that in Hawaii, the water fountains dispensed pineapple juice. For free!!! I wanted to go there just to get all the free pineapple juice I could drink. (Wasn't there an episode of the Brady Bunch or some other TV show where this happened?)

Diggerz

I used to think that people who live on the Tropic of Cancer were more likely to get the disease cancer. Because of this, I assumed that there was also a disease called "capricorn" because of the Tropic of Capricorn

Troy

You know when your little most kids have this idea that you can dig to China. Well, not me! I was probably five or six when I learned about heaven and hell and I would get terrified when my little brother was in the back yard digging in the sand box or just anywhere really because I was convinced we were going to make the devil angry and he was going to take us away forever.

Anon

My dad put a thumbtack on one of the stairs to the basement and told us kids that it marked the center of the world - we believed him and all 7 of us thought we lived at the center of the world. My sister told about the thumbtack during show and tell one day and suddenly her world was shattered:(

Beanbo

I used to think the Empire State Building was called the "Ten-past-eight building".

Alex

When I was about 8 we were watching TV and there was a picture of the Arch of
Triumph in Paris. My mother said, "Oh, that's in Paris, they make perfume there."
For longer than I'd like to admit I thought the arch was a perfume factory.

Dan

When I was a child and we used to visit family in Italy in the summer, I used to think that Italy floated in the sky somewhere and thats why we had to go on an aeroplane to get there.

Anon

I used to believe that Finland was in the end of the world. Fin-land.

Francesco Delvecchio, Roma/Italia

having grown up in western germany, i was told the strangest things about the eastern part of germany: socialism is very bad, you have to help harvesting during your summer holidays and socialism means that everybody has the same, that is close to nothing.
i was really terrified to get kidnapped by east german police. that changed when my gran got a letter from some distant relatives in east germany. thea had sent a photo, showing them all on a swing hammock - my idea of glamour and success, which i never got from my parents. naturally i thought that if everybody has the same i will recieve such a swinging hammock immedeately after entering GDR. i didn't move after all because i hated to help my mother in the garden and thought it even worse to harvest grain and hay...

jankai