the world

After I saw it being played at the Sony Style store in New York, I became convinced that Grand Theft Auto III took place in Portland, Oregon. This no doubt stemmed from the fact that there is a section of Liberty City called Portland View. I was then somewhat scared of Portland.

When I was 5 we rented a Cabana at the beach and I made a bunch of girlfriends. I went to play with them one day and noticed a huge hole had been dug in front of their Cabana. When I asked their father where they had gone he said, "they dug a hole to China, and said they'd be back tomorrow." I must have sat there for two hours trying to re open the collapsed sand hole to China which had caved in on the sides, to no avail. I was really excited to see they had returned the next day and had plenty of questions for them about China. They just shrugged it off as me being weird, I don't even think they knew what I was talking about!!! What a mean Parent to let me dig for so long in front of his Cabana and not even tell his daughters I was looking for them!!

When I was five I had a little children's book about the world. On the cover was little children in thier native dress holding hands circling around the whole world (read: the eskimo child was the size of freaking Europe!)

I was convinced the world was super tiny and Africa was a mere two houses away from our place. I would stand on our back patio listening to pigeons "coo-cooing" thinking I was in fact hearing tribal singing.

Whenever I heard my dad telling my mum that he was going to 'withdraw' some money, I used to think that he was going to an art competition to 'draw' a picture of money and if he won he would get the real money. I alway used to ask him if he wanted to borrow my water colors.

When I was young, I was driving in the car with my father, and they were talking about politics on the radio. The words "Democrat" and "Republicans" kept coming up, and I asked my dad what the difference was. His response was, "Well, last year they elected a Democrat. In a few years they'll get sick of him and elect a Republican. Then the same thing will happen and they'll elect a Democrat again." This was my understanding of the U.S. political system until around my senior year in high school, when I discovered that it was a bit more complex than that. As my knowledge of politics grew, however, I came to realize that my dad had pretty much summed things up pretty accurately.

I grew up in West-Berlin, when is still was in the middle of Communist territory. Passing the border by car to transit through East-Germany (for a holiday, typically) took hours and the controls were harsh, with dogs and seaches and lots of paperwork and lots of questions.
I thought the reason was fighting highway robbery and always felt uneasy when we were visiting countries like Denmark of Switzerland where you wouldn't be harrassed for hours when entering. I thought they were irresponsible and dangerous places!

I used to believe the world ended at Florida and that beyond that was just a really thick wall of sand...

When I watched my parents withdraw money from the bank, I literally believed that the physical bills they had deposited earlier were returned to them (like a storage locker). One day I saw the cashier reach into the drawer and hand a seemingly random stack of money to my parents and I asked , "How do you know they gave you your money back and not someone else's?"

When I was younger, my sister and I would accompany my mother to the bank quite often. We believed money was hidden all over the bank lobby, we just needed to find it. We were especially certain money would be placed in the garbage bin in the island where deposit slips are filled out. We checked there every time.

When I was younger, I used to believe that America was the only country that existed besides my own (India), and that it was called "foreign"!!

I used to think that no body lived in the others countries besides the US because they all came to America. I thought other courtries just were apart of "history" but no body lived there.

I used to think if I looked at a globe or map under a really strong magnifying glass, I could see the tiny people and animals covering Earth. I thought if I looked really close at Powell, Wyoming (my childhood home), I could see myself at the time the "picture" of the Earth was taken.

I used to belive that when people gave you change at a store, they were making the difference bettween what you paid and what the thing you bought cost, weather you paid less or more.

I had this kick-ass plan where I would buy a diamond with 5cents and become rich.

I always thought that the president was the richest man in the world.

i used to think that spanish people were black

I used to believe walt disney was buried in disneyland because of that statue were he is next to mickey mouse. so i thought it was his tombstone.
yeah i thought that 4 a long time.