Problem with wow server (realm) selection?

hey, when i go the select server option in world of warcraft, there are tabs that say: english, french, spanish, german, russian, and tournament, i know that other people have other tabs such as oceanic.. because of this i am unable to play on any of the servers my friends are on.. my friend said he was on the area 52 server, but the only one i could see called area 52 was german, long story short i got to level 20 to eventually find out that my friend was on the american area 52, which i cannot locate anywhere. sombody please help it would be greatly appreciated.