places

I was born in New York. We were one of the few Anglo families in our neighborhood; most of our neighbors were from Puerto Rico. We left and moved to the Midwest when I was 4. Until I was in my teens, I kept my misunderstanding of what my parents had told me about the location of Puerto Rico; I thought it was right off the coast of New York City.

Confused Guy.

I used to believe that Arkansas was pronounced "Ar-CAN-sas," not "AR-can-saw."

Ex: "Mommy, if this state is Kansas, why isn't this state Ar-kansas? It doesn't make sense."
"It just is sweetie."
"Maps are hard."

Jonathan

Growing up in the South, I used to believe there was a black dotted line dividing America. North of it was a vast wasteland of dirt and concrete, and South of it was paradise.
I got this from an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. The first time we drove through Pennsylvania I was pleasantly surprised. I was 21.

Rinson Drei

Growing up I had a hard time with the state of Arkansas. I always heard people say the state of Arkansas and I always read about the place "Ar..Kansas" (the second part sounding like the state of Kansas). So I thought there were two different states...the state of Arkansas and the state of "Ar....Kansas". Geez...this one actually threw me off until I was in my late teens (i'm not american so it took me awhile to get that straighten out ).

Elisha

i used to believe that ''Melbourne'' in Australia, was in the state of ''New South Wales'', instead of ''Victoria'', MELBOURNE IS IN THE STATE VITCORIA!. I believed this until I was 16!! haha

brie

i used to believe that Chicago was the capital of Illinois because that where Oprah lived....i found this not to be true in fourth grade after i had raised my hand proudly and said...."Chicago is the capital of Illinois because Oprah lives there."

el

I used to believe that the country was still full of wild Indians and Cowboys in my state ok. and in tx.

I AM ME

I believe (because of the Walt Disney Logo) that Disney Land was on pink clouds way up in the sky and there was a giant escalator leading up to it.

Kelly

Thanks to old Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons they used to air on TV all the time, I used to think that Hollywood was just like it was in the 1930s, all the old movie stars like Groucho Marx, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Greta Garbo and Mae West were still alive and Shirley Temple was still 6!

LongLiveRock

When I was in elementary school I had no idea that Great Britain and Enlgand were the same county or even in the same general area. Imagine my confusement when I heard about the UK, too.

Anon

I used to think that New York was pronounced "Yew Nork"

Anon

When I was a kid, my mom and I were out driving, and she looked at a guy's license plate and said, "Guess that guy's from Alabama."
I wasn't too familiar with Southern states, growing up in California, and was rather amazed with my mom's ability to deduce the origin of a fellow driver without even talking to him.
I thought for a moment, and then in a rush of inspiration, I asked, "How do you know? Is it because he has a banjo on his knee?"

ChildMusician

One of my ex-boyfriends told me that when he was 5 years old he was under the impression that all Jews came from a country called Jew-Land. Seriously.

Anon

Until I was about 9 or 10, I truly believed Mount Rushmore was a natural phenomenon. Nobody told me it was. I just assumed the tourist attraction was a really big coincidence somehow involving the process of "erosion." (My dad was a geologist.) At some point in elementary school my teacher set me straight, but only after a lengthy and highly emotional discussion between us, during which I INSISTED in front of all the other kids that those presidential faces had randomly appeared over thousands of years of wind and rain pounding against the mountainside. I slinked home in humiliation afterwards. And I've never liked science since.

Ellen

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.

Anon

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!!

Owen Elicate

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.

Danielle

I thought the Ukraine = the U.K.

and nowhere but the U.S. had t.v.

gina

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

Rickerus