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Before I moved here from Boston, a friend (a French professor at Harvard) told me, "Oh I know a couple in Albuquerque. They hardly leave the house anymore because of all the bears and snakes."
And this one was an outlier: "I heard they don't have regular water there, they have 'swamp water'". I had to explain that they must have heard wrong, that we have "swamp coolers" but the water is pretty "regular".
And as others have already mentioned, there are a lot of people who think we're not part of the US. When my parents moved here a friend of theirs in Maine said "I don't understand why you want to leave the country. Do you speak Spanish?" No amount of explaining could convince her that this was not Mexico.
Before I moved here from Boston, a friend (a French professor at Harvard) told me, "Oh I know a couple in Albuquerque. They hardly leave the house anymore because of all the bears and snakes."
And this one was an outlier: "I heard they don't have regular water there, they have 'swamp water'". I had to explain that they must have heard wrong, that we have "swamp coolers" but the water is pretty "regular".
And as others have already mentioned, there are a lot of people who think we're not part of the US. When my parents moved here a friend of theirs in Maine said "I don't understand why you want to leave the country. Do you speak Spanish?" No amount of explaining could convince her that this was not Mexico.
Have these people even looked at a map since it was a territory. I guess if our president can think there are 60 states, it really doesn't surprise me.
It depends. It depends on the allergies. Really... Some people get better, some people get worse. It depends on what you are allergic to. My son was allergic to orange juice and some orange trees... Not a problem in New Mexico...
Hmmm. If you come from somewhere that is truly green, mild, and moist, then Albuquerque is certainly brown, hot and dusty most of the time. OK, maybe not hot except for a third of the year, but...
The thing I run into a lot is not so much people thinking that I live in Mexico, but people who after being told that I live in New Mexico cannot bring themselves to remember anything but Arizona.
"So how is Arizona?"
"What's the weather in Arizona?"
"You went skiing in Arizona?"
This is from three different, completely unrelated people, two of whom are from not very far from New Mexico, either.
Hmmm. If you come from somewhere that is truly green, mild, and moist, then Albuquerque is certainly brown, hot and dusty most of the time. OK, maybe not hot except for a third of the year, but...
The thing I run into a lot is not so much people thinking that I live in Mexico, but people who after being told that I live in New Mexico cannot bring themselves to remember anything but Arizona.
"So how is Arizona?"
"What's the weather in Arizona?"
"You went skiing in Arizona?"
This is from three different, completely unrelated people, two of whom are from not very far from New Mexico, either.
ABQConvict
I've had the same experience everywhere I've lived. I say that I'm from Albuquerque and the next thing you know when I'm being introduced to other people I'm from Arizona.
I set the record straight right away by saying "No - I'm from Albuquerque, near Santa Fe, in New Mexico - it's between Texas and Arizona."
I was once giving a speech at a small liberal arts college in South Carolina, where I was introduced as an international speaker who specialized in American Law. I laughed it off, and said, "I hope this doens't reflect the educational standards of this nice college. It would be a darn shame to not know anything about the 47th state in the Union, the Manhattan Project, the Navajo Code talkers, Las Alamos Natinal Labs,and many other huge national contributions made by the great STATE of New Mexico. But of course, I know that you were joking. " Needless to say, I was never invited back.
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