Hitler was born in Oceania
Vladimir Putin once said, rather badly, that it was very difficult for him to dialogue “with people who confuse Austria and Australia.” He was referring to the US president at that time, George W. Bush, who on some occasion mentioned the Central European country wanting to refer to that of Oceania. But the confused Bush is far from the only one, because the misunderstanding between Austria and Australia has already become an almost traditional tradition, to the point that Austrians sell a lot of souvenirs with the yellow sign that warns of the presence of kangaroos. At the 2010 G20 summit, Korean hosts had the idea of reproducing world leaders in dolls in traditional clothing and the Australian president, Julia Gillard, looked like she had just come out of a Tyrolean cabin. The postal services of both countries are very used to receiving packages that should have gone to the other side of the world (On one occasion, a shipment to Australia was sent to Austria … five times in a row!), there are students who claim on exams that Hitler was born in Australia, and television signs insert the wrong name relatively frequently. One of the best was the one on CNN reporting that Australia was erecting a fence on its border with Slovenia.
– The Minister of Slovakia
Of course, since chance has pushed us to Slovenia, we should stay there and think a bit about Slovakia. Both countries became independent more or less at the same time (from Yugoslavia in 1991 and from Czechoslovakia in 1993, respectively) and, to top it all, they have almost identical flags, with white, blue and red stripes. It’s easy to get lost and end by saying that Melania Trump was born in Slovakia (it was in Slovenia) or playing the wrong anthem in a sports competition (it has happened several times, for example at the 2017 Hockey World Cup). George W. Bush, of course, commented on an interview with a Slovak minister when in fact he had had it with a Slovenian, while Silvio Berlusconi directly introduced the Slovenian prime minister as Slovak head of state. Obviously, his has much more crime, because Slovenia and Italy are neighboring nations. It is not clear if this is a myth, but It is said that, in some places, the embassies of both countries hold regular meetings to exchange mail that has arrived by mistake. As Croatia’s Slavonia region one day becomes independent, things may get even more entertaining.
– Hello Budapest, we love you!
Many of us have to stop for a moment before mentioning the capitals of Hungary and Romania, because Budapest and Bucharest dance dangerously in our memory. The truth is that Romanians are a bit fed up with confusions and collect them mentally with a certain resentment: Artists such as Michael Jackson, Iron Maiden, Lenny Kravitz or Metallica have greeted Budapest very happily at the start of their concerts in Bucharest. There has also been a politician who has traveled to the wrong city, although at that point there is no choice but to cite the urban legend of the 400 Athletic Bilbao fans who in 2012, according to a lot of media, bought the wrong tickets to go. to the final of the Europa League and ended up in the Hungarian capital. Either it never happened, or the protagonists of that were so discreet that no countryman could identify them when they returned. The mess between the two capitals is so common that a Romanian chocolate brand organized a campaign dubbed ‘Bucharest, not Budapest’, in which they referred with disdain to ‘geographically disabled people’ who are unable to distinguish between them.
– Looking for the Alhambra in the Caribbean
The particular mistakes when buying airline tickets are countless: the one who wanted to go to Guyana and ended up in Goiânia (Brazil), the one who traveled to Dakar (Senegal) and landed in Dacca (Bangladesh), those who are involved with the San José de California and Costa Rica … In 1985, student Michael Lewis He was heading from Los Angeles to Oakland, at a distance of about 600 kilometers without even leaving California, and managed to board a plane to Auckland, New Zealand. That is, ten thousand kilometers in twelve hours of travel. And, seven years ago, an American dentist who went to congresses in Europe He wanted to fulfill his dream of visiting the Alhambra, but he caught a flight from London to the Caribbean island of Granada. They say that the Spanish explorers baptized it that way because its mountainous profile reminded them of the Sierra Nevada, but the dentist, “who has long been interested in Islamic art”, was not satisfied with the change of destination.
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