YOU KNOW YOU'VE BEEN IN FINLAND TOO LONG, WHEN ... 1.) A friend asks about your holiday plans and you answer "Oh, I'm going to Europe!" meaning any other Western European country outside Scandinavia. 2.) 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. 3.) You accept that 80 degrees C in a sauna is chilly, but 20 degrees C outside is freaking hot and you seriously consider visiting the sauna more than three times a week. 4.) Natural part of the business negotiations is to be naked with strange people in the hot room. 5.) Your coffee consumption exceeds 6 cups a day and coffee is too weak if there is less than 10 scoops per pot. 6.) You pass the point of spending more than 50% of your salary on phone calls and alcohol. 7.) You don't think twice about putting the wet dishes away in the cupboard to dry. 8.) You no longer scrunch up or fold your paper money. You always put your money in your wallet. 9.) You stand in a bus if you can't find a vacant pair of seats. 10.) When a stranger on the street smiles at you, you assume that: a. he is drunk b. he is insane c. he is tourist d. he is all of the above 11.) You are immediately suspicious when somebody starts talking to you in the street. 12.) Your bad mood becomes your good mood. 13.) Silence is fun!!! 14.) The only couple talking in a tram or a bus always seems to annoy you. 15.) "No comment" becomes a conversation strategy. 16.) Hugging is reserved for sexual foreplay. 17.) The reason you take the ferry to Stockholm is: a. duty free vodka b. duty free beer c. to party...no need to get off the boat in Stockholm; just turn around and do it again on the way back. d. all of the above 18.) At bank, post or drug store you first start looking for a queue number. 19.) Your native language has seriously deteriorated; you begin to "eat medicine", "open the television", "close the lights off", and tell someone "you needn't to!" Expressions like "Don't panic" creep into your everyday language. 20.) You refuse to cross a totally empty street until there is a green light. 21.) Your notion of streetlife is reduced to the few teenagers hanging out in front of Helsinki railway station on Friday nights. 22.) The fact that all of the "v's" and the "w's" are together in the phone directory seems right. 23.) Your old habit of being "fashionably late" is no longer acceptable. You are always on time. 24.) You know how to fix herring in 105 different ways. 25.) You eat herring in 105 ways. 26.) You no longer look at sports pants as casual wear, but recognize them as semi-formal wear. 27.) You can now reconstruct the missing letters on a building. For example MERI.........LIITTO OY. 28.) You have undergone a transformation: a. you accept mustamakkara (Black-blood sausage) as food b. you accept alcohol as food c. you accept. 29.) You understand why the Finnish language has no future tense. 30.) You know that "I got a new boyfriend." means "I got laid last night." 31.) The next day when they say "We broke up." you know it means "He didn't call." 32.) You know that "men’s public bathroom" is another phrase for sidewalk. 33.) You enjoy salmiakki. 34.) You just love Jaffa. 35.) You know that more than three channels means cable. 36.) You get all the Swedish jokes. 37.) You have been engaged four year without planning to get married. 38.) Frozen snow surface is not an obstacle for riding bicycle. 39.) You get nervous if the bus/train is 2 minutes late. 40.) Finland winning a medal at the world hockey championships is less important than beating Tre Kronor (Swedish team). 41.) You think 10 euros for coffee and cake is an OK price. 42.) You know the rules of Pesapallo. 43.) You are genuinely interested in who’s the present girlfriend/wife of Matti Nykanen. 44. As you walk past the Parliament Buildings in Helsinki, and see the statue that is titled "Svinhuivud" you no longer read it as "Swinehead" and instead you think "What a good Swedish name!" 45. You see a student taking a front row seat and wonder "Who does he think he is!!??" 46. You pass a grocery store and think "Wow, it's actually open. I had better go in and buy something!" 47. You associate raindeer (stew) with Wednesday, pea soup with Thursday and salmon with garlic potatoes with Friday. 48. Your idea of unforgiveable behaviour now includes walking across the street when the light is red even though there are no cars in site. 49. Your notion of streetlife is reduced to the few teenagers hanging out in front of the railway station on Friday nights. 50. Sundays no longer seem dull with all the stores closed, so you begin to feel restful instead. (Glückwunsch...du bist am ende angelangt...)