it might actually not be that unusual to know foreign places better than ones own surrundings-I was born in Germany where trips to near by countries like Austria,Netherlands,Spain,France,Italy,Greece and so forth are only brief car rides-30 years ago I emigrated to America.Till today I have way more geographical sense and memory of Italy than my own home country-I guess one takes ones close proximity for granted and less interesting than striving for afar-Emilie Dickinson puts this nicely in her poems of how we always think of someplace else rather than being in the presence...