F**K IT MILES, GIVE ME SOME PRIVACY

Finland is celebrating its 100 years of independence this year. I recently moved back to this country, my native land, after spending nearly 11 years living in the Netherlands. Since I've also spent a year in Italy as an exchange student, I've been educated and have experienced a reverse culture shock before. This said, getting back to being a citizen of Finland had a very short honeymoon this time. It all started when I went to apply for a SIM-card for my phone. Because I haven't lived in Finland for the last two years, they had no way of checking my credentials, so they treated me like someone who was unreliable, a criminal. I couldn't walk out of the store with the SIM-card, but I had to have it delivered through mail (and as an unreliable customer I had to pay the expanses of this transaction). If I don't pay a 100 euros to my provider, I'm not allowed to make any calls to abroad nor use my phone account for any sort of extra payments, such as donating mon...

Before I start talking about moving from one European country to another, with a passport that opens more doors than most other passports in the world, let me say one thing: I am privileged. I have a friend who once stepped on a shaky raft in Turkey in the hopes of rescuing herself and her two children from war torn Syria. Her hometown was heavily bombed. She was a wealthy woman once, and now she had to leave her house, belongings and cars behind. The raft that she took, broke, and she found herself in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. To her luck she and her daughters were rescued and in the end they were granted an official status in one European country. When I was moving to Finland, she asked me if we were taking all of our belongings with us. I felt guilty talking to her about our move, because I knew her story and just a day before I had been complaining about moving stress. I realized I had been the biggest ass, complaining about something that many people don't even ...