Everybody’s got something to say about all the other folks in the world. Sometimes it’s openly envious. For example, everybody seems to think that the people in other parts of the country tend to be more open and friendly, but maybe a bit shallow. And that’s in any country. I’ve heard it in Germany, New Zealand, England, America, you name it. Bavarians always say that Bavarians are hard to get to know, but once you get to know them, they’ll open up to you once and for all; unlike those superficial Rhinelanders. Rhinelanders say the exact same thing, but tend to throw in a bunch of insults about Bavarians being rednecks.

One place there’s near-total agreement, however, is on the subject of geography. For some reason, everybody, including Americans, think that the rest of the world spends all their time studying political maps in dog-eared old atlases, committing world capitols and currencies to memory for some mysterious, global Jeopardy match we never get invited to. There’s an accepted common knowledge that Americans have no idea where anything is, and are ignorant, arrogant boors.

What utter bullshit. I’ve lived in Europe for over 5 years now, and in thousands of conversations involving the States, there has never been a single occurence of a European knowing where Atlanta is. They all know Atlanta’s in Georgia, somehow, probably from flying through Hartsfield, but not a single one of them has a clue as to where Georgia is. Usually, they think it’s on the West Coast. That’s America, right? Palm trees and bikini girls? Once they find out it’s in the Southeast, they figure it’s on the same latitude as, say, Munich. Or maybe Athens? Try Casablanca. Germany doesn’t share any latitudes with the United States; except maybe Alaska. I guess

Europeans have absolutely no concept of geography. They plan 1-week road trips in the States, starting in New York, ending in San Francisco. They visit Chicago, and plan on hopping over to Dallas for a day-trip. The U.S., in their minds, seems about as big as Disney World, with a tram between all the major attractions. Of course, when I was 10 I went to Epcot Center and thought I’d just walked through Europe in about a day. But that’s different; Epcot actually looks a little bit like Europe, minus the dogshit on the sidewalks.