If you’re like me, the metric system provided some challenges the first time you visited Europe. That’s because us dunderhead Americans haven’t gotten around to embracing it yet.
As a result, nearly every American traveling abroad for the first time pauses just a little bit longer when looking at things like road signs, for example. 16 kilometers? Can I walk that or do I need to take a plane?
And then you cross the Channel and discover a land just as backwards as your homeland. And oh man does it feel good!
Britain, like America, has stubbornly refused to go totally metric. While America can get away with this for the time being, Britain is part of the European Union where the metric system is basically law. And yet, merry olde England has continued measuring distances and weights the same inefficient way they’ve done so for centuries. This has not pleased the EU who likes to have all things uniform and standard. And so the EU battled Britain over their archaic system and planned to force the country to give up their old-fashioned ways by 2009.
Well, that was the plan at least. The EU has just announced that they are throwing in the towel and calling it quits; Britain can go ahead and continue measuring in their pig-headed way despite the rest of the EU doing otherwise.
While I don’t necessarily think this is the right move, it sure will come as a relief to traveling Americans.