the world: places

When the Soviet Union broke up, I was six years old and thought that an earthquake had cracked the earth at the new international borders and the people there had decided to form new countries because of these new natural boundaries.

I grew up near Worcester, MA, USA. I knew of that city as Wuster, because I heard people say it that way. When I saw Worcester on highway signs, I thought it was a different city, pronounced the way it's spelt. I was shocked to learn they were one and the same.

When I was about four or five, I thought that Washington was a place full of soapy water, and people were just used to swimming around in it with furniture floating around in it. I grew up in Australia, but that's no excuse.

The world was really much smaller than I was being led to believe. In fact my suspicion was that my dad would drive us to my Grandad's house by the most circuitous route possible to give me the impression that it was much further away than it really was. I believed that Britain was probably only about 20 square miles. Worst of all I believed that my dad had told everyone else what he was up to. All just to make me suffer on long boring car journeys - it was so cruel. I was an only child.

I used to believe that Niagara Falls was in Nevada. It made perfect sense -- after all, since lots of people went to Las Vegas to get married and Niagara Falls was a big honeymoon spot it stood to reason they were nearby. I think I was confusing NF with the Hoover Dam. Geography was never my strong suit.

The maps where they put all of the continents out flat really threw me off. I thought that all of the continents [1/4 of the globe] were on one side and the other side was all ocean [3/4 of the globe]. That's where all the desert islands were, and that's why is was so hard to get to china

When I was young I thought Canada was a city. I used to ask my mother if we could visit Canada, even though I was living in it.

After amny years of hearing you can dig a whole to China. I thought that all countries were on top of each other.
China, New Zealand, Australia, America and so on and that the planes flew straight up. And of course I thought it was all flat......

I believed for a long time that the world was the shape of Great Britain and that all the other places I'd heard about were somewhere in Great Britain. I blame the BBC weather map for this :o)

I took a little boy to Luray Caverns, Virginia, an underground cave system. It was much cooler in the caverns than it was outside, the little boy was surprised that it wasn't hotter since we were closer to the earth's molten hot core underground.

I used to believe that Illinois was a kingdom and that America was made of fifty kingdoms that had agreed not to have wars with each other.

I used to believe…

k this is really bad cos i believed this until like a week ago - I've always thought that the Falkland Islands were in england. And this is REALLY stupid of me cos a.Im from scotland which is pretty near england b. Theres the word ISLAND in it, which i obviously forgot and c. I'm 17. Enough said.

When I was young growing up in America I watched the news with my parents a lot. One day I hered the reporter saing the they are having problems "overseas" and thought that there must have been a new 51st state called "overseas". A week after that I got a US map and counted fifty, i was extremely upset that the map makers riped me off and told my parents... yea. Now i can name every contry in the world and most of there capitals :)

when i was little, i used to think that the Gulf Coast was the Golf coast and people plaed lots of golf when they went there

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.

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".