andamu

When I first came to the U.S. we lived in Fargo, North Dakota.
It seems everyone had seen the movie (except me - I've still only seen snippets) so they affect what they believe to be the accent and the expressions. It is a let down when they discover that first, the movie used caricature to some extent, (as all movies do, but especially those dealing with "foreign" subjects) and second, that the movie was not filmed in Fargo. In fact, the majority of it was not even shot in North Dakota, but in Minnesota.

Next we lived for a brief period in San Jose, California. In the heart of Silicon Valley right at the end of the boom and when the bubble burst. The area was almost like South Africa - no clearly defined seasons really, except that in winter it was a little colder and a little duller, less green than in summer.

Urbana, Illinois took us back to the midwest, with very definite seasons, each time of year clearly defined with storybook attributes. Hot and humid green summers, flamboyant flames of color on the autumn trees, drifts of snow and crisp clear skies in winter, and riots of blossoms and bright green shoots in spring. Of course, nobody outside of academia knew where it was, stuck in the middle of farmlands with the majority of the area's population connected in some way to the University.

Now, I live in a state where I have to add "State" to the name to avoid confusion; even so, when people hear I am in Washington state, they frequently start talking about DC. I think they stop listening after they catch something they think they know.
Then to really confuse the issue, I live in a town with a much more famous (and bigger) namesake, Vancouver. People who've known us for years, and to whom we have clearly explained the difference, still sometimes ask questions that reveal they think we live in Canada.
No, we live in Vancouver, Washington, that's Vancouver USA. And that's Washington state, not D.C. We're 300 miles south of the one, and 2,800 miles (mainly) west of the other.

But then again, who cares. Unless of course you are actually planning to visit us. In which case, let me draw you a map :-)