the world: places

When I was about 6 years old, I used to go visit my grandma in Pennsylvania and we had to go through the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. and they are 2 tunnels right next to each other and they go under a big mountian and they were really long.. well i always thought that when you went under them you would somehow end up on the other side of the mountian and go out the other way bak to where u came from. and u just "somehow" ended up where you were going. I believed that untill i waz about 12!! and then i finially relized that there were 2 sepret tunnels and you dont somehow turn around and go the other way! HAHA

i live in canada and i live like by a big hill and i used to think that on the other side of the hill was the united states but back then i thought it was the united stakes.

I used to believe that when you go to Disney land you would see the cartoon characters running around like on the Rodger Rabbit movie! I finally found out that it was people dressed up when i went to Florida when i was 10! lol

When I was little I used to think the autobahn was a stock.

when i was 3 or 4 i moved from russia to the United states. I did understand what countries were, and what the earth was n stuff. So i looked on a globe for russia. Of course i could not read yet, and i thought Austrailia was Russia!but in the second grade i finally found out it was in europe and asia.

when I was little i looked at a map of the United States alot without the other countries., soooo whenever i looked at a globe, I thought canada and mexico were there just to make it look cool

i used to believe that the united states was the whole world and that there was no other place but the united states.

when i was about 5, I lived in Brazil and my family visited Iguazu Falls. my mom explained to me that down there (bottom of waterfall or something) was Paraguay, and over there (across the river or something) was Argentina, and where we are standing is Brazil. Somehow I concluded this means that Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil were parallel plains/landscapes of separate altitudes. The three countries were stacked like floors in a building, overlapping. So most of Paraguay was uderground. So when someone said "Paraguay is below Brazil", meaning south, I would think "oh yeah, I've been there, I know what's going on".

When I was little I always heard about this city called "Pittsburg" and I always wondered why there wasn't a town called "Armpits-burg." Finally one day I asked my parents why there was no Armpitsburg, and they just laughed, and didn't ever tell my why they thought it was so funny. I was so confused, because I was totally serious.

I used to believe that Chicago was a state. No matter how many times people tried to tell me that it was a city in the state of Illinois, I refused to believe them.

My grandmother lived in Boise, Idaho. We visited her one summer and while there, we rode innertubes on the Payette River. I lost one of my shoes in the river and my dad remarked it was "on its way to China". From this, I believed the Payette River went through China and China and Idaho were neighbors! I was about 5 at the time.

I used to think I could go to a country like Australia, see what the winning lottery numbers were, then fly back to Ireland in time to play those numbers anf become a millionaire. It didn't help that my aunt encouraged this belief.

i used to believe that we could dig a hole through the sand which went to australia and wed see all the people walking around upside down!

I used to belive Road Island was really an island and Hawaii and Alaska were next to each other becuase in school thats how they are on the map. I could never understand why it didnt snow in Hawaii. I didnt find out I was wrong until I was 21.

I remember being in the first grade and hearing the phrase "Red China." I translated this as to mean that everything in China was red, the sky, the grass, the people. I felt bad for the kids there because they didn't get to see the pretty colors I got to see. It wasn't until I was in college that I found out what "Red China" really was.

I was about 6 years old at the time the Berlin wall fell and Germany became reunited. We used to get those Weekly Reader newsletters in school, and the story about Germany being unified was accompanied by a story about a kid who found out that his hometown wasn't on a map and had it changed. For some reason, I thought these two things were the same story, and for at least three years I thought that Germany had been divided into East and West because someone had made a mistake on a map.