The temperature? It’s 35 degrees out. No wait, I mean it's 2. Wait, how much is that?
Hey everyone! Dana here, today answering a question that I’ve actually gotten quite a lot: I’m
from the U.S. where we use Fahrenheit and feet and inches and miles, but now I’ve
lived in Europe for about 9 years, where people use Celsius, meters, liters and grams.
So what do I use and what do I think in now?
And I will start by saying…it’s complicated!!
My brain is totally confused.
It’s a big mishmash mix up in there at this point.
As far as outdoor and indoor temperature goes, I will say that by now I have basically completely
switched over to Celsius.
When I first moved to Europe, I moved here from South Florida, and in South Florida we
don't really have cold temperatures, and my first couple summers here in Europe were basically
not very warm at all, so for the first few years in Europe, I actually thought about
cold temperatures in Celsius and warm temperatures in Fahrenheit.
But over the years it has definitely balanced itself out, and now, as I said, for outdoor
and indoor temperatures, I think in and exclusively use Celsius.
But I expressly say for indoor, outdoor temperatures because I love to bake and my baking recipes
are all from the U.S., so for baking my brain is still in Fahrenheit, I still have to convert
350 and 425 degrees Fahrenheit to Celsius all the time.
And when I think about baking, the temperatures are just kind of, yeah, they're in Fahrenheit.
The temperatures that I need to know, so that things won't burn in the oven are in Fahrenheit
in my brain but not in Celsius.
But yeah, for everyday life my brain is in Celsius, but for baking my brain is still
in Fahrenheit.
And while we’re on baking, in the kitchen I would say that I’ve got, just in general,
a pretty good mix going on.
I use both measuring cups and spoons that I brought from the U.S., but I also measure
some things using a scale, which measures in grams.
And then I’ve got the oven, which I'm thinking about in Fahrenheit, but I’m keeping track
of what temperature the room itself is in Celsius.
And as far as thinking about measurements goes, if someone says to me to picture a cup
of flour or I read in a recipe that I’ll need a cup of peanut butter, I can very easily
imagine how much I’ll need. It's a cup.
But if someone says to picture 100 grams of flour if a recipe calls for 100 grams of
peanut butter, I have no idea how much of each of those ingredients that is.
So that’s the thing that I really appreciate about recipes using cups and measuring spoons
because, you know, a cup is always this much. This is always a cup of something.
And so I can very quickly skim down a recipe that’s using cups and measuring spoons and
immediately know whether or not I have enough of everything.
Whereas with grams, since grams is a weight, 100 grams of flour looks very different from
100 grams of peanut butter, so I don’t know right away if I have enough of each ingredient
just by quickly looking down a recipe if it's in grams.
And I guess if I continue using grams for many years, I'll eventually learn how much
each thing is.
But for right now I still just don't instinctually in my mind know how much 100 grams of something is.
And just for fun, by the way, I went and measured each one out.
So this is what 100 grams of peanut butter looks like, and this 100 grams of flour.
So if like me you didn’t know how much each of these things were, now you do.
But on the other hand, using grams to measure out stuff like peanut butter is really nice
because with a cup, I first have to scoop the peanut butter into the cup container,
measure out a cup, and then I have to transfer that from the cup into my bowl, which is not
only an extra step, an extra thing to wash, but I also lose a little bit of peanut butter
in the process. It gets stuck in the cup.
Whereas with a scale, I can just put the bowl on the scale and put as much peanut butter
in the bowl until it reaches 100 grams.
Of course, though, like I said, I don’t know beforehand how much peanut butter that
will actually be. It's like a surprise. Oh look! That's how much peanut butter it is!
Because, yeah, I can't picture 100 grams of peanut butter off the top of my head.
Okay, so let’s leave the kitchen now and go out into the world.
How do I think about the world around me?
Do I use miles, feet, and inches, or kilometers, meters, and centimeters?
Well, the thing is...the thing is: I’ve never really been able to imagine how long a mile is.
I really struggle with that, mentally picturing longer distances.
So basically my answer is: I don't really “think” in miles or kilometers.
My answer is neither.
But for the shorter distances my brain definitely still goes for feet and inches.
If you tell me that something is 10 feet away, I know what that means.
If you tell me that someone is 5 feet tall, I know approximately how tall that is.
If you tell me something is 10 meters away, I’m not going to be sure exactly how far
away that is.
Like, I guess I would have an approximate idea, that I think might maybe be right, but
I definitely would not be 100 percent sure.
And if you tell me how tall someone is in centimeters, yeah, I have no idea.
My brain really struggles with centimeters.
One time and I don't know, maybe this is TMI, but Mr. German Man missed shaving a hair on
his face for I guess a little while and it had gotten kind of long.
And so I tried to use centimeters and be like, oh my God, Stefan you have a super long hair
on your face.
And he's like: how long?
And I was like, I think it's, like, 10 centimeters long and he got really alarmed.
Like rushed to the mirror.
Yeah, apparently 10 centimeters is not what I thought it was. Apparently that's a bit long.
So my question for you is: Which of these do you think in and use, and what do you see
as the pros and cons for each one?
Also, do you ever mix and match them like I do?
Please let me know in the comments below.
Thanks so much for watching. I really hope that you enjoyed this video.
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Until next time, auf Wiedersehen!
But I'm keeping track of what temperature the room is...so yeah, that's a mix.
It's just a big mishmas... It's just a big mishmas mix-up in there. Mishmash?
Just a big mishmasch...
But I've lived in Europe...Europe.
Yeah, that's confusing.