My first trip abroad was to Switzerland on business in 1999. Loved it.

My second trip abroad was to Miami, also on business, a few weeks later. I called my mother the evening before to say that I'd be away for a few weeks in Miami. She was in a panic, as she was sure I'd be gunned down in the streets. She begged me not to go as it was dangerous. Now this is the strange part - I was calling from England, and she was in Londonderry in Northern Ireland, where she had lived most of her life and where I had grown up. Just shows you how people's perceptions of other places is shaped by the news rather than reality...