places

I had just discovered the vast world of online...and my dad let me IM someone for the first time. I asked them where they were from and they said "Portland". Me being about 7 I thought Poland not Portland, Oregon. So I was like "That is so awesome!" Later my dad told me that Portland was NOT a foreign country.

Anon

I grew up in a suburb of Walsall, but the local accent pronounces it a lot like Warsaw - so when on the news there was talk of tanks moving on Red Square, I got really scared there was gonna be a riot outside my front foor

Sarah

As a child I had VHS tape with many cartoons. One of them was about H.Barbera's characters (Yogi Bear etc.) as they had to do something in some India-like town (lot of funny-dome palaces and all that other stuff), and before they arrived there, they had said sth like "We have to fly to New Jersey". I thought New Jersey was that place in the India they visited later, and because of in Polish many nouns in genitive have "a" on the end changed into "i" or "y" (i.e. to Ruda -> do Rudy), for many years I believed they were talking about city in India called Nyujersia. I realised they were talking about USA late in elementary school, as I noticed that every time that US state N-E-W J-E-R-S-E-Y was spelled just as that mysterious place in India!

Wojtek Karkoszka, Poland

I used to think that the black market was a real place.

Patrick

I got confused as a kid about Neverland. I knew Peter Pan came from there, and therefore it didnt exist, but then I was shown a spot-the-mistake map, with Netherlands on it, and I was convinced they'd just made a typo and that was the mistake ...

Gemz

I believed that Washington D.C. was in the state of Washington until I was about 17!! I skipped school alot:(

MeMe

I believed that when I was grown up I would go to the 'poor' countries with one cart full of oranges so the poor children could ALL get some vitamines.

Yvonne Welling

When I was very little my parents travelled all around Canada with me (we visited every province and territory that existed at the time, except for the Yukon and Prince Edward Island).

We went to Halifax just after the first really warm snap of the spring had melted all the snow, and everything that had been in the snow all winter was now on the sidewalk. My mother commented on the mess, and asked me if I knew why there were poops all over the place.

Maybe she expected me to say "dogs left them and people didn't clean up", or "they were frozen in the snow all winter". But with my head full of new knowledge about Canada's east coast, I theorized that "the lobsters must have done it!"

Brenda

The first time I was on a plane I looked out the window and saw the seperate plots of farmland. I thought I was looking at the state borders and I got really confused when I couldn't recognize any of the states!

CJ

I used to think that no body lived in the others countries besides the US because they all came to America. I thought other courtries just were apart of "history" but no body lived there.

Shannon

When I was five I had a little children's book about the world. On the cover was little children in thier native dress holding hands circling around the whole world (read: the eskimo child was the size of freaking Europe!)

I was convinced the world was super tiny and Africa was a mere two houses away from our place. I would stand on our back patio listening to pigeons "coo-cooing" thinking I was in fact hearing tribal singing.

Danielle

When I was a kid, my mom and I were out driving, and she looked at a guy's license plate and said, "Guess that guy's from Alabama."
I wasn't too familiar with Southern states, growing up in California, and was rather amazed with my mom's ability to deduce the origin of a fellow driver without even talking to him.
I thought for a moment, and then in a rush of inspiration, I asked, "How do you know? Is it because he has a banjo on his knee?"

ChildMusician

My friend and I used to think we could dig to China when we were about 5 years old. We'd meet at the yard in between our houses, with sticks, and start digging in a hole.

Krista

I used to believe that china REALLY was underground and my dad always told me to watch out for the china man cuz if I dug to deep he would pull me down. I was scared to death to pull carrots, rubarb or dig potatoes when my mom or dad would ask me for fear that the china man would get me!

Tamara Brunelle

When I was young I used to believe that California was in the sky. I thought this because ever since I was a baby my family and traveled to California a couple times a year to visit my realatives and I thought we had to take a plane because there was simply no other way to get there. hahah.

Anon

Being from the state of KY, I used to believe that when we crossed the border into another state, lets say, Ohio, that when we stopped to eat somewhere, we would see "Ohio Fried Chicken" or maybe "Tennessee Fried Chicken" restaurant chains. They had their own Colonel too.

Melvin

Up until the 6th grade or so, I assumed that Washington D.C. was in Washington State. (Naturally!) It was a weird perception shift to realize the White House and the President weren?t just north of me, they were clear across the country.

SillyMe

When my 5 year old daughter visited New York City she saw the Empire State building and also the one that resembles it but is a bit smaller, the "Christ-The-Lord building". (Chrysler building)

Glenn Rueger

When I was ver young, growing up in Philadelphia, the sugar packets at area restaraunts often featured Independence Hall on them. Visiting Independence Hall on a school field trip, I was surprised to find out that they DIDN'T make sugar there!

JC from Philly

When I was nine we travelled to Germany from California. I knew that Germany was on the other side of the world. Somehow I imagined that everything would be upside down, and that we'd be hanging upside down. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed when we landed in Germany and everything was right-side-up!!

Ellen