the world: places

Child me thought that Los Angeles was a mythical city like Atlantis or El Dorado. Because I misheard how it was named and thought it was called "Lost Angeles"...as in "the lost city of Angeles."

I used to think Monserrat sounded like monster rat.

I used to think a yeoman meant Yemen and Oman.

When I was a child I used to believe that when air balloons were in the sky they made a route going through all the cities. When I was four years old I had a balloon and it escaped from my hands, and I called my uncle to see if he saw the balloon in the sky from Barcelona

When i was a kid i thought New York was in London

I used to believe that everyone who lived in the city lived in an apartment.

I used to believe that Eurostar trains actually went through the water, rather than being built in a tunnel, and thought there must be a station underwater for when people went diving!

I used to think Downs Syndrome was caused by living on the downs in the countryside, so when we stayed at this place called Downs Cottage in Devon, I said to the landowners 'how can you be in charge of this place if you both have Downs Syndrome?' Needless to say, we never stayed with them again.

When I was very little, I used to think that there were two New Zealands because how it split on the map!

I used to believe that Ireland was called that because it really is an island!

I used to believe that people were talking about Kenton in Greater London when they were talking about the county Kent, and wondered how people could have beach holidays there when it is inland and not coastal.

When I was young, after having discovered the planisphere, I used to believe that the world was flat. And when we studied the discovery of America, I didn't understand why all the class said that the world was round. I was and I still very obstinate. Finally, my mother succeeded in making me listen to reason, after 2 days of negociations.

When I was a little girl, I used to believe that if I dug a hole in the floor I could cross the planet and arrive in China to travel all around the country and after, dig some other holes to go to all countries of the world.
So to check if it was true or not, I tried it in my garden but it wasn't a great success and besides my parents thought that there was a mole !!

I have often had strange associations with country names, like Kosov sounding like cassava, and macadamia sounding like Macedonia. There are many other Slavic or Balkan country names like this, such as Turkey and Hungary, that certainly does it for me.

My cousin and I both thought Narnia was a real place when I was about eleven and she was about ten. I looked for it in my closet, and she thought a painting on my parents' bedroom wall actually came from Narnia.

When I was young I thought the world was flat