Which Floor Am I On?

by Amalia

I was invited to a close friend’s housewarming party in the evening. We’re a group of international and Dutch students who happened to take the same courses. There were Chinese, Taiwanese, Romanians, Columbian, Turkish, Indonesian (only me), and of course Dutch. All of the sudden, we were talking about floor buildings and we started to have some arguments for few minutes!

The Chinese and Columbian argued that the ground-level floor of the building is called the first floor, while the floor above it is called the second floor. However, the Romanians argued that the ground-level floor IS called the ground floor. The floor above it is called the first floor. While the Dutch seemed to agree with the Chinese and Columbian.

And me? To be honest, when it comes to floor numbering, I always get confused. Maybe because I’ve lived in different countries, so I get confused with their respective conventional ways on how to name their floors. When somebody say which floor I have to go to, I need to ask him/her again that we refer to the same floor. I just have to do it somehow.

Then the Dutch compared this floor numbering with centuries. You don’t call zero century, do you? You’d call it first century instead.

Hehehe. It was a loooong discussion and a friend of mine had to stop it by explaining in a Petri net way *geek mode on* LOL. Ah, what a day.