"Do you live in Boulder?"

It seems that much of the time when we say that we are from the United States, without specifically saying that we live in Colorado, the next question is: "Oh really, do you live or have you lived in Boulder?" When we respond that "Why yes, yes we have lived in Boulder," the typical star-struck response is "oh wow [while batting eyelashes], what was it like?" We then feel like C-3PO meeting the Ewoks at the end of Return of the Jedi. When we tell people that we now live in Fort Collins, they typically say "Never heard of it. Where is that in relationship to Boulder?" It seems that the city of Boulder is synonymous with the United States for a good portion of Australians. I guess most of the Australians we knew in Melbourne before we moved here we did meet in Boulder. Aussies also seem to have a fondness for New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, but that is about the extent of it (oh yeah, and they also watch Portlandia). This is understandable. If you ask the average American what they know about Australia, they would probably say something about kangaroos, Sydney, Men at Work, the Great Barrier Reef, and that is about it.

I'm sure these guys don't know or don't care where Fort Collins is either.