What's life like in Norway?

Well, er... people are friendly, they just don't talk to strangers, and social interaction with people you don't know well is considered slightly awkward and something that should be avoided. They can be kind of hard to get through, but are actually some of the friendliest people in Scandinavia once you get to know them. -Expensive? Hell yeah. Prices usually range from 130% to 200% of US prices. The reasons are: 1. Everyone are entitled to a decent wage, adding to the price of the product. 2. Many products must be paid great import tariffs for, due to political lobby groups advocating autarky (the idea that a country should be as self-sufficient as possible). 3. Unhealthy things, like cigarettes and alcohol, are taxed exorbitantly. This is because the government wants to promote healthy living (read: wants to save money from the public health care sector). Good education? Pretty good, at least better than the US, and the university/college level is good (and free, paid for part grant/part loan by the Norwegian government). However, as the individual counties manages how they will do education in their county, high schools can range from cutting-edge institutions where every student gets a laptop for free in counties where the education budget is high, to schools with airconditioning problems, overcrowded classrooms and maps showing the Soviet Union, in counties with low education spending. Yes to both on the last question. They learn basic English in elementary school, and has a little every year until they are 17, usually giving them a decent grasp of English, although often with a strong accent. However, in the mid-1980's the first American television series showed on Norwegian television, and the number of American shows have increased every year, and now about 80% of all programming is American-produced and texted to Norwegian. This gives many younger Norwegians a better grasp of English, and some even start speaking in American accent while speaking English. Norwegian is also fairly easy to learn in itself, but the pronounciation can take years to manage fully. There was actually an 80-year old woman on the radio once who had survived the Nazi concentration camps, and despite having lived in Norway for 60 years, you could still detect a tiny, tiny trace of accent in her voice. I've also heard that before the EU thightened regulations in the 70's, the Norwegian customs officials would often not bother looking at your passport if you stated your name and hometown without an accent, because that would basically guarantee that you were native. PS: Many teens focus a lot on sport, including girls. Cheerleading is nearly non-existent, and boxing is illegal (it was illegalized in '81). I think that should be all you need to know. EDIT: Almost forgot. Norwegian classes in Norwegian high schools are often disliked because you have to learn two forms of Norwegian. "Nynorsk" is one Norwegian written language, "Bokmål" is the other (larger) one. There are over 300 dialects, but you don't have to learn those. East Coast Oslo-area dialect usually works all around the country. Depending on where people are from, they find one of the languages easy and informal (the one that sounds the most like their own dialect), while the other seems unnatural and strange. Luckily, they are both of the same language, so it is fairly easy to understand the other if you know one.