I learned Lisp after cracking open Paul Graham's ''On Lisp.'' Not sure what image I had of it before that, but I do recall turning my nose up when a friend suggested I learn it.
As I got started, my opinion was "this isn't a real language" because there's so little syntax. Just parentheses and symbols? How the hell is that supposed to work? Then you grok the ambiguity and it starts to feel more like playing with lego.