Cups to kilos

It's all their fault for not teaching me metrics, but although it's taken me nearly 5 years, I've now learned all I need to know.

So I'm sharing it with you.

Temperature:

- Hopefully you already know this, but zero Celsius is freezing (32F)

- Anything below 10C is COLD. That's 50F

- Anything over 25C is PERFECT.  That's 77F

- A millimeter of rain means it's going to drizzle all day

Voila.

Weight:

- If you're too short like me, between 50 and 60 kg is good. That's 110 lbs to 132 lbs

- If you're at 200 lbs, that's 90 kg and that is not good

Driving:

- Interstate speed is 120 kmph. That's 75 mph. Unless it's Germany and it's whatever you want it to be

- 1 gallon of gas is about 4 liters and will cost you $8 to $9 per gallon. AKA highway robbery.

- 100 meters is more or less a football field.  So when the GPS says to turn in 300 meters and I say "Here?!!" . . . Ross says "Remember, Mom, that's 3 football fields." and I say "Oh yeah, I remember." again.

Cooking:

- A pound of ground beef is 500 grams

- A quart of milk is a liter

- Everything else - eyeball it

Paper:

- A standard piece of paper is not 8 1/2" by 11" because they don't use inches.  It's called an A4 and it's 210 x 297 mm.  That's 8.3 x 11.7 inches

- All you need to know is that it's too long, but not wide enough, so anything you copy from the States will be cut off on the side with room to spare at the bottom

Bob's your uncle.

And having nothing at all to do with metrics, but everything to do with Europe . . .

Money:

- One Euro is worth ~$1.35 so when you buy something for 25 Euro, you just paid $35 for it

- If you earn up to 8,000 Euro a year, you will pay 25% (2,000 Euro) in income tax.  Everybody pays at least 25%.

- If you earn that much in the States, you pay zero, nada, nil in income tax

- If you earn 36,000 Euro or more, you pay 50% in income tax. Yes. Half. Half!

- If you earn that much in the States, you pay 25% in income tax and no matter how much you earn, you will never pay 50% in income tax

And lastly . . .

Comparisons:

- 750 ml is a bottle of wine and should yield 5 glasses - or less depending on your definition of "glass"

- 33 cl is a beer at the pub unless you're really thirsty and order the 50 cl and that's about a pint

- A meter is a yardstick so if you're 6 feet tall, you're nearly 2 meters

- And a kilo of cocaine is . . . still illegal

There you have it . . . all you need to know.