the world: places

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

Whenever I saw pictures of the Tower of London, it was featured with Tower Bridge. Because my attention was drawn to the bridge, I thought Tower Bridge was the Tower of London. I figured the prisoners were kept in one tower and the Crown Jewels in the other. At age 36, my wife and I went to London to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. When hopped in a cab to go on the tour of the Tower of London, the driver drove over Tower Bridge, right past both towers. I'm like, "Where's this guy going?" My wife, who had been to London several times before was kind enough to enlighten me.

I don't remember much about when I was a kid. But the one thing I do remember is; that I could walk from my house to anywhere I had ever been in relatively a short time. I tried to prove this and got lost.

When i was about 2-10 (i know its a long time!) i used to think that the world was one big head and that everything on "the head" was lice. when i found out in 5th grade my friends started making fun of me but now if you think about it its kind of funny!

A few years ago my grandparents drove to Alaska for a vacation. When my mom told me, I asked if she meant they had their car put on a boat so they would have it in Alaska... We both figured out eventually that I had no clue Alaska is attached to Cananda since throughout my early education Alaska is in the corner of the map with Hawaii, floating around in the Pacific. I almost died when I found out, and my mom nearly died when she found out I had just found out!!! I was in my early twenties and in college. Scary, huh?!?!

For years, I was convinced that the Taj Mahal was the Tajma Hall - which, from my point of view, made perfect sense. City hall. Radio City Music Hall. Baseball Hall of Fame. I've known better for decades, but it will still always be the Tajma Hall in my head.

I used to think that Berkeley (California, that is; my home town) and America were the same place. When we went to see relatives in Minnesota, I asked my parents, "When are we going back to America?"

when I was about 3, I had just learned to read and I found an ashtray that said "Costa Rica" on it. I told everyone that "Costa Rica" was Spanish for "Puerto Rico". Dunno how I made that connection...

My home town in New Zealand was right at the base of 8260ft Mt Egmont; we looked straight out our window at it, and in a straight line the summit was probably only about 15 miles away. I remember always thinking that the whole world was just over the other side of the mountain.

As a child we lived only a short distance from a beach on the Queensland coast, Australia. When I was about 4 I used stand on the beach and gaze out over the sea to the horizon and imagine I could see tiny buildings and people, and thought it was America!

I used to believe that California was my house, not the state I lived in.

When I was younger we went on a road trip to Chicago and on the way we passed a town called joilet (i think). I read the sign and thought it an advertisement for a girl's toilet so on my wish list that christmas I asked Santa for a joliet because I was convinced I was using the wrong toilet. I ended up getting a map of Joliet and cried. I was a really weird child....

Having seen a few Diseny films, I concluded yhat America used to be a fantasy land full of beatiful princesses and magic mirrors, and states like Disenyland were still kept like they used to be. I couldn't work out why they gave it all up to become a nation of skater cowboys

When I was a kid, I always though (correctly) that I lived in America. One day I saw a commercial for something that was being held in "The U.S.A." I always thought USA sounded cool and always wanted to live there. Then, in the first grade, I found out I always did.

I used to believe that if cities had streets with the same names, those were continuous roadways, so if we we kept driving on Oak Street, we would eventually end up on Oak Street in the next town.

When my sister was in college (I was a great deal younger), she talked frequently of wanting to go to Nassau. I later learned that the place she meant was the capital of the Bahamas, a city I was then unfamiliar with. At the time, I thought she was saying "NASA", meaning she wished to visit the space flight center in Houston. Since she took far less interest in space flight than I did, I wondered why she seemed so keen on visiting the space flight center.