You are always anxious to hear what foreigners think about your country. And, although you should know better, you are disappointed when they don't even know that Finland exists. !! :D

You assume that a stranger on the street who smiles at or greets you is: a) drunk. b) insane. c) an American. d) All of the above. This was on the Norwegian part, but I've heard the same thing about Finns, with some variation.

I think it's sad that not enough people have heard much about Finland :(. I remember when I told my mum I was meeting Antti - my bf - for the first time, she was like 'oh, Finland .. where's that?'. It's worth noting that my mum has a master's degree and is by no stretch of the imagination stupid. I presume she had obviously heard of Finland but she couldn't have pinpointed it on a map at the time and, unfortunately, before I met Antti neither could I :(. I didn't even realise Finnish was a separate language; if asked, I would have guessed that Finns spoke Swedish.

If you are old and rural, you eat rye bread and potatoes every day (I´m not old or rural and consume both almost every day...) You don't have to give tips to taxi drivers, waiters or barbers (but I do, at least to taxi drivers and waiters in a restaurant) Firing somebody is not always possible. It has to be justified. If it can't be justified, the company may be condemned to pay damages. This could be one of the reasons why young people often only find temporary jobs (Firing people now a days seems easy, says the girl with hubby who was given furlough and herself being cut off from her work in June) If you consider yourself an intellectual, you have seen some French and Italian films, maybe even German ones! (I have yet to see a good French film, but I´ve seen couple: do German TV-series count? Spanish movies are great!) If you're a pedestrian, you cross streets on the appropriate walkways when there is a green light for pedestrians. (oops, :oops: )) If you live in Helsinki, there are some parts of the city you maybe want to avoid at night, if you are a female walking alone. ("If you live in a town/city in F." in general) You think of opera and ballet as rather elite entertainments. (No I don´t) Taxi drivers usually remain silent if the client doesn't start a conversation. (You wish!) ...the so-called "European drinking habits" (which are understood as sipping wine or beer all the time). (So if not that, what are they then?) I disagreed with 8 points out of the what seemed like 8 million. How did I do?

Didn't count, but I felt quite at home with the general view. No surprise.

You're Swedish aren't you Lugu? :)

those things are mostly true from my expreience. My family was lutheran but they were pretty religious. My host father is runnnig for parliment, He funny and very strict. The family didn't express alot of opinions they liked skiing and football(european) and the woman were plump and the men were all very athletic. They were eager to teach me about finland, but when they did the opinions seemed to be left out. they also spoke english and we strugled between trying to teach me finnish and trying to function as a family.

I tried to get them to tell me about finnish politics but though they were ready and willing to explain everyother subject in deatail there were somethings i guess they didn't think I needed to know. (The Swedes, in return, think of us as primitive creatures who work hard, drink too much and fight with knives.) Arggghhhhhhhhhh though i don't think it's entirely true is is?(In terms of what sweedish people think, finland is awsome! no doubt) no one talked much about sweeden to me but few people taked at all unless pressed. Most hosts or hosstesses I delt with were apoligizing for finnish shyness. So though I was trying not to be if I wanted to learn anything about the language I was forced to be a loud and semi oushi american(I Didn't want to :( ) I will have to go to sweened though before I can stop feeling defenisve for my finnish friends.

Heh my Finnish boyfriend tells me that Finns don't say all that much generally :). He is fairly talkative but there are some obvious differences between him and English people.

I didn't score 100% but many of the descriptions sound familiar except for one thing. Do Finns believe in everything they read?? Not me. No way! And I don't like sports (except horse race). And we have no summer cottage... We're weird that way. ;)