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First thing you might want to know about Finland is it's location. It's not a town somewhere in Russia and it certainly isn't another name for Poland. In fact, Finland is a land in northern Europe right between Sweden and Russia. Finland is also a part of Scandinavia although many foreigners might say it isn't (what the heck do they know about Finland anyway). People who live in this northern country are called Finns. Finns are very silent and dull people unless they are drunk (which is mostly the case). Unlike people in most of the other countries in Europe, Finns have a very special way of drinking. Finns drink too fast and usually also too much (basically until they pass out), although nowadays there has been some evil gossips that claim that the Finnish way of drinking has been changing towards a more European and more civilized way. Most Finns think that this is bad and don't want to believe it to be true. Fortunately it's probably just some Finnish government's trick to make Finns drink a little less. Finland's two official languages are Finnish and Swedish. Most people in Finland speak Finnish and the few who don't we don't count to be Finnish. All Finns have to study Swedish in school. This has traumatized generations of Finnish people. So if you want to speak Swedish to a Finn think twice and if you are tired of your life just go ahead. The Finnish language has also been claimed to be a very hard language to learn. I personally don't think this to be true because I've met several little children that speak it quite well. But another thing about Finnish that is true is that it has absolutely nothing to do with English or Swedish or any other known language on this side of the universe. Most Finns are sport maniacs. They can sit in front of a TV-set for hours watching any kind of sports which have finns in it. Of course a Finnish sport enthusiast has a bottle of beer in his hand and a lot of loud advice to give. And nothing is more bitter to a Finn than to lose to some 'weaker' sport-country like USA or Russia (or in fact to any other known country... especially Sweden). When this terrible loss happens (it isn't as rare an occasion as one might think) you can hear hearth aching crying and cursing just about in every Finnish house from South to North. And all just because of these soft and weak youngsters of TV-generation. These damn modern athletics who don't even drink like the real Finns used to. No wonder they aren't any good in sports... If you meet some older Finnish people they will probably talk to you about the war between Finland and Russia (1941-44 or something like that). And this is their right because it's their achievement that Finland is independent and not just another state of Russia. Although it seems when you listen to these old war stories that the Russia was lucky that it isn't just another state of Finland. One thing that no finn can live without is Finnish sauna. Almost every building in Finland has at least one sauna. For those of you who haven't the slightest idea what the heck a sauna is, I can tell that it is a quite warm place (from 60 to over 100 degrees of celsius) where Finns go to relax every now and then. The ritual goes like this: First you get rid of all your clothes. Then you sit in sauna completely naked, hit yourself with a birch bath whisk (which is called 'vasta'), and every now and then throw a little water into a thing called 'kiuas' (which is basically a pile of hot stones). When you are feeling hot you go outside and jump into an icy lake (or just into something cold that is available, like snow or neighbor's pool). And when you are feeling cold you go back into the sauna and start all over again. If you have a little time to drink a couple of beers somewhere between the icy lake and hot sauna, the evening will be perfect. If you are for some strange reason going to visit Finland (which is something that I think everybody should do) you must be aware that probably some crazy Finn will make you drink too much booze after making you half dead from running between sauna and icy lake. But please go ahead. 5 million Finns can't be wrong...