Although commonly believed, Finland is not part of Scandinavia, which consists of Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

Saunas are a religion here; beer, sauna, lake, sausage is its mantra and represents the circle of life. There are more saunas than cars in Finland.

As the glaciers receded at the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, the Baltic Sea was formed, flooding what was a large freshwater lake. To this day, it is one of the least saline of the major seas. That means it is brackish.

Finland is number two in the world in tango, right after Argentina. According to our chatty tour guide, it is because Finnish men are so quiet they prefer to dance rather than talk.

Helsinki was chosen to host the 1940 Olympic Games which was postponed until 1952 due to World War II.

Finnish athletes have won more Summer Olympic medals per capita than any other nation. Finland is only second to Norway for the number of Winter Olympic medals per capita. It will be interesting to see what happens in Rio.

Drivers from Finland have won more World Rally championships than any other country and more Formula One championships compared to their country’s population (4 titles for 5 million inhabitants).

The Finns are the world’s biggest coffee drinkers, gulping down no less than 12 kg (around 26 pounds) of it annually, twice more than the Italians, three times more than Americans and four times more than the British. I can drink to that.

Santa Claus officially resides in a house built right on top of the Arctic Circle, in the northern province of Lapland in Finland. The Santa Claus post office (address is Santa Claus Village, FIN-96930 Arctic Circle) receives some 700,000 letters a year from children from 200 countries.

At the Wife Carrying World Championships in Finland, first prize is the wife’s weight in beer. Other esoteric sports that host their annual world championships in Finland include Mosquito Hunting, Mobile Phone Throwing, Swamp Football, Rubber Boot Throwing and the Air Guitar World Championship.

There is a golf club on the border of Sweden and Finland, half the holes are in one country and half in the other.

Finns count their number of lakes while Swedes count their number of islands. Both countries have some of the world’s greatest number of each.

There are four sets of traffic lights: for streetcars, for automobiles, for bicycles and for pedestrians. The amount you get fined for speeding in Finland depends on the amount you earn.

People love to ride bikes and do not lock them. Finnish police are the smallest in per capita terms in Europe, has a corruption-free reputation and solves 90 percent of its serious crimes.

Finnish history can be divided into three chapters: the Swedish period prior to 1809; the Russian period from 1809 to 1917 and the independent period from 1917 to the present day.

During their independence, in 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact, which included a secret protocol relegating Finland to the Soviets. When Finland refused to allow the Soviet Union to build military bases, they revoked the pact and attacked Finland. The “Winter War” ended in a peace treaty drawn up in Moscow on March 13, 1940 (exactly 20 years before I was born) with Finland giving up the southeastern part of their land.

In the following months, the Soviet Union pressured Finland for more territory. Isolated from Western allies, Finland turned to Germany for help and allowed the transit of German troops. When hostilities broke out between Germany and the Soviets in 1941, German troops were already on Finnish soil and thus, the Continuation War between Finland and the Red Army began. When the Soviet forces staged a huge comeback in 1944, Finland negotiated an armistice with the Russians and ordered the evacuation of German troops.

Finland remained independent, but at a price: it was forced to cede two territories by the Arctic Circle and pay heavy war reparations to the Soviet Union. Finland’s reparations were mainly paid in machinery and ships. Thus, reparations paid a central role in laying the foundation for the heavy engineering and shipping industries in Finland. Today Finland builds 60% of the world’s ice breakers and luxury cruise ships and is home to Nokia, once the world’s dominant mobile phone manufacturer.

Finnish women were the first in Europe to gain the right to vote in parliamentary elections. In 2000, the first woman president of Finland was elected.

Finland is proud of its education system and with good right to be. It is one of the most modeled in the world along with Singapore and Hong Kong. One of the basic principles is all people must have equal access to high-quality education and training. Education is free at all levels from pre-primary to higher education. Schooling begins at age 7, giving children time to be children. Children spend far more time playing outside, even in the depths of winter. Teachers spend fewer hours in the classroom than Americans and use the extra time to build curriculums and assess their students. There are no mandated standardized tests, apart from one exam at the end of senior year in high school. “We prepare children to how to learn, not how to take a test.” Teaching is an attractive career choice and teachers are recognized as keys to quality in education.

As the author of Finnish Lessons, Pasi Sahlberg has pointed out, “If you come to Finland, you’ll see how great American schools could be.”