An English aquaintance used to looking at the pull down maps of the UK and the USA in her schoolroom, and having little other geographical reference, thought that the size/distance of the two maps was the same. She proposed to land in Chicago and drive down to Oklahoma City in the afternoon.
An English friend in San Francisco had a hard time with his mother when she was to visit his sister in Boston. "But you can take the bus right over" was Ma's attitude. It was only when it was pointed out that it was a distance about like Moscow to London that she began to get the idea.
The stories Canadians have about this 'compression effect' are many.