A childhood belief about nationalities

I had beliefs about The Netherlands, even though I never had Dutch friends as a child. They stemmed from a traditional song that you might have sung yourself about a mouse wearing clogs in a windmill and from cartoons. I believed that all Dutch people wore clogs, lived in windmills, made cheese and grew tulips. I didn't think many of them had bikes nor horses and walked everywhere-It was flat so it didn't matter. I also thought when I was a bit older that hamsters came from Amsterdam and I imagined them around the streets (I knew that Dutch people didn't all live in windmills etc. by then :-). I thought they dropped the "h" to make the Amster- part sound a bit less like the cute critters. Oh and the age-old belief that all Egyptians “walked like an Egyptian” and still dressed as they did in the days of the Pharaohs. :)