Re: the size of the US: when I was in Korea, our "auntie" thought she'd visit us Americans when she visited her cousin in Chicago. We were from California, Arizona and Washington. Her plan was to just jump on a cross-country bus, as she would when travelling from Seoul to Pusan. We could not convince her of the distances involved; she clearly thought we were having fun with her when we explained how many days of travel by bus all of that would entail.

Anyway, as the saying goes, "A Brit thinks a hundred miles is a long way. A Yank thinks a hundred years is a long time."