the world: places

Leading up to my first visit to a seashore, I envisioned that the beach would be a narrow strip of sand, only about three feet wide. To the landward side of that narrow strip, I thought, soil and vegetation would turn abruptly to pretty much the same as they were at home, a few hundred miles inland. On the seaward edge of the beach, I supposed, there was an abrupt vertical drop into deep sea waters.

I remember asking my mom once," Mom,is the statue of Liberty upside down?". She looked at me with loving incredulity. as only a mother can, and said," No, why would you ask that?",to which I answered.." Well,I always hear people saying that they went up to the feet."

She explained that the statue stands on a base,and when people speak of going up to the feet,they mean from the ground to the top of the base.

When I was 6 or 7, my sister showed me a map of the world made of cardboard. When she pointed to Egypt, and she said, "That's Egypt. That's where all the mummies are." For the next few weeks I believed that mummies in Egypt would rise and come and kill everyone.

When my uncle got married, he married a lady from Thailand, and for the longest time i thought it was called "Toyland" and me being 5 i bugged my dad to go there.

My little brother thought that if you flew up into the sky and looked down on the earth you'd see the names of states and cities, etc. written like on a map.

when I ws about 5 I believed that every place in the world was in the united states. And I also beleived that translvannia and pennslvannia were the in the same place. Then my dad got me a globe for Christmas.

I usd to think that Plymouth, where I lived as a child, was bigger than London. I also thought that England was bigger than Britain. England was male and Britain was female, so it made sense, since men are generally taller than women.

I grew up near a place named Antioch, and when we visited there and my parents would say,"We're going to Antioch.", I'd say," I didn't know I had an Aunty Ock!". That was when I was four and my dad still teases me about it!

i used to believe that all the countries in the world were in my city and i was like dad can we got to china thinking to myself that it was across the street

I used to think that the world was only the state of virginia. And I had a very distorted view of it in my head and thought that "virginia" was about 100 miles big.

i was lead to believe that i used to live in texas. When my babysiter told me that i used to live there i was shocked. then i started talking to my mom about it. she told me that we had never even been there let alone lived there! i was so embarrased even tho i was about 6 or 7. :-!

So, my little cousin, who is 4 years old, knows all the words to the song "Take me home country roads" by John Denver, and she sings it like all the time. Once, when grandma was visiting some relatives in West Virginia, my cousin told everyone she knew that Grandma was in heaven...they all thought she died....really my cousin was just referring to the opening line of the song- "Almost heaven, West Virginia..."

She thought West Virginia was really heaven!!

I used to think that Canada was only a 5 minutes drive away (I lived in New Jersey). But years later I learned it is more like an 8 hour dirve. And I must say, I was rather dissapointed

When my sister was little she thought that down town was New York. Whenever she was there she would sing New york New york.

Until I was about 12, I used to beleive that something "norweigian" was from a country called "Norwegia". I defended this almost violently, until my teacher showed me a map and proved Norweiga was not real.

I still dont totally beleive her.

I always saw the cartoons about digging a hole to straight through the Earth, and I wanted to try it. I never did, however, because of one fear. I was afraid that when I came out of the whole, with everything being upside down at that point, I would fall out and into the sky. It never struck me that coming out of a hole in China would be just like one in the US.