You Know You Have Been In Finland Too Long, When . .

1. You rummage through your plastic bag collection to see which ones you should keep to take to the store and which can be sacrificed to garbage. (plastic bags - formerly free, now costing - supplied by Finnish shopkeepers are vastly superior to those in other countries. Something to do with the weight of bottles they need to be able to withstand?)
   
2. When a stranger on the street smiles at you: a. you assume he is drunk; b. he is insane; c. he's an American.
   
3. You don't think twice about putting the wet dishes away in the cupboard to dry. (Finnish houses and apartments have excellent draining cupboards over the sink-unit, where the plates can dry off.)
   
4. A friend asks about your holiday plans and you answer: "Oh, I'm going to Europe!" meaning any other Western European country outside Scandinavia.
   
5. You see a student taking a front row seat and wonder "Who does he think he is!!??" (Is it only Finnish university students that do not volunteer information for discussion at lectures?
   
6. Silence is fun.
   
7. Your coffee consumption exceeds 6 cups a day and coffee is too weak if there is less than two spoonfuls per person.
   
8. You associate pea soup with Thursday. (Several hundred years ago, when Finland was still a part of Sweden and taxes were levied for the King, money was scarce and peas were used for payment. However, since peas had hitherto mostly been used as pig food, something had to be done to raise their status. The population was thus encouraged to eat pea soup. Soldiers got a weekly portion of pea soup, sometimes strengthened with pig's trotters and the fatty parts of pork. After the meal the bones were used for magic. Thursday became pea soup day, since the Catholic religion proscribed meat on Fridays and people needed a solid dinner the day before. Over the centuries pea soup has acquired at least nine different names in Finnish; moreover it has also become a traditional Shrovetide food, before Lent. Today pea soup is also inseparably connected with the Finnish oven-baked dessert pancake.)
   
9. Hugging is reserved for sexual foreplay.
   
10. You refuse to wear a hat, even in -30°C weather.
    
11. You hear loud-talking passengers on the train. You immediately assume: a. they are drunk; b. they are Swedish-speaking; c. they are Americans; d. all of the above.
    
12. You enjoy salmiakki. ("chloride of ammonia" is found as a white encrustation around volcanoes. It is used in chemical analysis, in medicine, in dry batteries, as a soldering flux, and in textile printing. Salmiakki is the name given to a salty licorice candy containing this strange stuff, and is immensely popular among Finns, particularly when they are not in the country and therefore cannot get it. It even became a drinks fad almost as threatening to the nation as absinthe was to France, when mixed with vodka to make "salmiakkikossu". Along with hard rye crispbreads and other delicacies, it is a staple of web-sites advertising Finnish goods for the poor souls who are no longer resident here.)
    
13. You accept that 80°C in a sauna is chilly, but 20°C outside is freaking hot.
    
14. You know how to fix herring in 105 different ways.
    
15. You eat herring in 105 ways.
    
16. "No comment" becomes a conversation strategy.
    
17. You can't understand why people live anywhere but in Finland.