I'm not Canadian!!!

I wonder how much me being an American really is a novelty some times.  I clearly stand out the second I begin speaking and while Brits are very astute at sizing up other Brits by their accent and figuring out very quickly what area someone is from based on small differences in the way they talk, they have no clue when it comes to American accents. We spent an entire night in the pub once with them trying to teach me the subtle differences in British accents depending on where someone grew up but I have to admit it never really sank in.  It could be due in part to the large amounts of lager that I had consumed but I digress... I can't even really tell the difference between a Welsh accent which is a ghastly mistake by their standards!

In much the same way, they have no idea the differences between American accents.  While I could pretty quickly delve out what region another American is from, I sometimes think that they only associate Americans with either very thick east coast or southern accents.  The rest of us are apparently Canadian.  I have now been mistook for being Canadian on four different occasions because my accent is so 'flat'.  I guess the Colorado accent doesn't really have anything distinctive to make it stand out and it's not as if I could pick out another Coloradan here if they were to walk up to me out of the blue - but Canadian? 

I actually find that most of them don't even know where Colorado is geographically within the US.  Most of them know the big coastal cities like NYC, Orlando and San Francisco but then kind of look at me confused when I try to explain where Colorado is relative to the coasts.  But really that makes perfect since, doesn't it?  It's not like I could have told you where Sussex was as compared to Yorkshire before moving here and the US is geographically far more spread out then the UK is really.  Why would they care where Denver, Colorado is?  It's not really a vacation spot for most Brits :)

So now I guess all I have to decide is do I continue to correct people or should I just go with being Canadian when I meet new people.  It could be fun, eh?