Where in the world is carmen Sandiego....

So it's no secret to most, I'm very horrible at geography. I hate it, especially in the job I'm in, that I can't tell you where a country is when we get a product in. Or when I hear about something on the news. Or even worse when I'm actually in a place and really have no idea where I am. For example a few years ago I flew to Pennsylvania for a work orientation. I had no idea where I was. I knew that I was somewhere on the eastern part of the United States. However if you showed me a map of the US, I could not point and say I'm here. It's really quite pathetic I know.

So I've been trying to come up with little ways to teach myself just where exactly places are in the world. I clearly absorbed nothing in geography from my school years. However I'm okay with Canadian provinces....phewf....I think it helps that I've been to most of them though. At work I've printed off a map of Africa. I try to look at it often to memorize where some of the countries are. It was also my mission to do this with the states in America. Last June my sister I travelled from Florida back to New Brunswick with my dad. I loved it because I was getting to learn just what state connected with what (and we went through Pennsylvania...how exciting). However this was probably the 10th time that I had done this drive in my life. I clearly didn't care before. I've also drove from Florida to Texas and back and have no recollection of the order of the states. However when we travelled to Arizona last year and did the loop through California, Nevada and back I got that. I seem to understand shapes perhaps? Ha ha ha.

Anyways, all this to say with embarrassment that perhaps some of you may enjoy a link that was emailed to me by a friend earlier this week. Try it out and see how well you can do. You simply click and drag the states to where you think they should go. At the end they'll give you a score. I got a whopping 54% the first time I tried. I'm up to 74% now so I'm getting a bit better. It's different every time you play.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/states_experiment_drag-drop_Intermed_State15s_500.html

I'm curious to know how the rest of you do. Am I the only one out there who knows nothing about our neighbour's geography? I think I remember learning this in elementary but that's it. Anybody have any good tips for remembering where all these places are located on a map? Hopefully someday I'll move past Africa and America. Sheesh I have a feeling that Europe and Asia will be my biggest challenges.