royksopp, kings of convenience...sure there is good music coming out of norway. :-) after reading per's post, i'm surprised it breeds any.
all the norweigans i know or have worked with are warm, intelligent, outgoing, and crass (and i mean that affectionately).. must be something in the geography :-)
Oh ! And don't forget that Scandinavians were the ones with the fattest Lines when it came to Internet Connectivity back in the day. Filthy Low Ping Bastards ! >_>
@Per: Pretty much sounds like Germany, except for the fact that job security&payment, unemployed payment and healthcare are a lot worse (lately).
Not to talk about our horribly outdated education system.
But you know what? That didn't change the attitude of people in the slightest (one could say it got worse).
So be careful what you wish for.
And besides...it is partly a screwed perception anyways, as you are automatically more sceptical of the country & the people if its your own since you are more sensitive to the "small" things.
Well im inclined to say how you view somewhere is going to be affected by where you come from and what youve experienced. I grew up in New Orleans and Houston. New Orleans had character but it also had a ton of poverty,inequality and crime. It was a fun place to live in but you constantly had to watch your back because in NO when they reported murders on the nightly news they didnt report if anyone was murdered,they reported how many were on that particular night.Not to to mention the disparity most evident by this goverments reponse to Katrina. If something like Katrina occurred in Norway i wonder what the reponse would be like.
Then theres Houston Texas,home of big oil and excess. Where i grew up people only concerned themselves with work,work,work and buying stuff. My high school was full of rich,overprivelaged/sense of entitlement and egotistical brats. But all that doesnt buy people happiness.
Not to mention what a health hazard it was living there,the whole city was a concrete jungle full of Homogeanous shopping malls,it was dirty and polluted with a ton and i mean a ton of traffic. And if the pollution didnt kill you the food will since the city was rated fattest city in the US.
So thats what i was used to when i left America and moved to Holland first then Denmark. I really like not having to worry about what part of town im or worry about getting shot. Amsterdam had the reputation of drugs,vice and whatever but in terms of compareable cities in the US Amsterdam was tame compared to NO or even Las Vegas.
Demark where im at now is said to have the happiest people, and sure you cant make a blanket statement on a society,but on the whole i see some truth to it. People in Denmark at least seem to value life over work on the whole more than Americans.On the whole i find Danes really friendly.Having healthcare again is good,havent had any again since i was 21. 5 weeks paid vacation is nice also and what i like most is not having to deal with traffic.
So compared to the life i was used to where i grew up Denmark is a welcome change,not to mention im at an age where people get married and at number 2
My idea is that every city sucks. I grew up on a small village on the north of Portugal with about 1000 inhabitants. It is small, good people, we have everything we need, cable tv, 24mb internet, a small health center, gyms, swimming polls (both indoor and outdoor), a training center built for Euro 2004 championship and so on... i love it. While in the city i study, i think it's one of the worst places ever. It is ugly, bad organized, full of crap people , drug addicts, and stupid people in general.
We got a very good health system down here too. My brother just got a surgery on the leg (he foll (sp?) on is KTM bike) and we just payed 10 euros for it, and for the time he spent on the hospital and the nursing work after (this without any secure or something), we had to pay the drugs and so on but most of those are payed by the government.
you guys know you can simply hit the back button and hit refresh, and all of your text will still be there, your form will be valid once again. at the worst, hit back, copy everything, refresh and paste. I see a lot of people complaining but i thought that this would have been a known issue by now.
Honestly, I believe Per is very accurate in his description. I spent the first quarter of this year in Oslo, Norway. I enjoyed my time there, but always felt an awkwardness with the locals. Many that I worked with seemed to be friendly, but only out of obligation. I was told many times that Norwegians are difficult to make friends with, as they form their groups early in life, and stick with them. In the times I spent with a mostly Norwegian group, I could feel the odd looks I was given. I didn't belong. Your best chance of connecting is after they're completely drunk, which takes time, but not as much as they let on. I was surprised how easily the Norsk can indentify which part of TOWN someone is from merely from speech alone.
The service you receive anywhere on average is poor. Moreso if you're obviously a foreigner. They don't care. They're not pushing to meet any standards. Many times it seemed the person behind the counter would rather spit on me. I wasn't welcomed.
I felt safe walking the city streets, even late at night. Many times I would walk from work, to my apartment, and into town. This was a shock and took time to adjust, as I spent the first couple weeks hidden in my apartment in an unknown land. I don't feel safe walking from my home, to the TacoBell on the corner. Soon, I found it safer to walk their "red light district" at night, than it is to walk some US city streets during the day. No one bothers you. I never noticed an overwhelming police presence, like I do at any event here in the US. I hardly noticed them at all. Never heard the word prison the whole time I was there. No traffic. No stop lights. But they do have an insane princess.
I took a train trip to Bergen during a national holiday. It's a beautiful city on the opposite side of the country. I would say it looks friendly. I tried talking with many people there, and was quickly turned away. No one talks to you unless they're paid to. The exception being children. I was lucky enough to catch a communist parade. The friendliest people I met on my trip to Bergen was an old couple from Seattle.
Even tho anyone under 40 speaks perfect English, it's fun to learn some Norsk. But you're not going to pronounce it correctly, and they make sure you know that. Jeg vil har en grillpølse i brød med ost og alt på, være så snill.
But it really isn't bad at all. I tell friends it's a great place, but I wouldn't live there. If you spend a lot of time in Norway, you'll see some amazing bands, make some really cool friends, and meet fun girls...all of which are from SWEDEN.
My grandpa is from Norway.
My grandma is from Sweden.
They Moved to America and became citizens.
From what he told us it was a great place to live but he never wanted to move back. They had gone back to visit a few times. My grandpa said that with each trip the anti foreigner sentiment grew. He laughed it off and said his American accent was growing too noticeable and he had forgotten some of the lang. On their last trip he had a hard time explaining to someone why he liked to visit but didn't want to move back they didn't understand why someone would leave and only like to visit.
well its partly a cultural issue i guess. When i visit norway i dont really have any problems chatting to girls etc.
altough the few times i been in america most girls think im a weirdo (its called irony bitches, look it up! )
i do agree about scandinavian people not beeing very keen on striking up conversations with random people on the street. I complain about it aswell. Still when someone approaches me on say, the subway, and want to talk i think they are weirdos
shhh because per is working on something important... It's a shame there where so many defective models, and after the pilot program worked so well in Sweden. But we should all thank him for his diligence. Utopia is right around the corner.
Replies
I wonder what the leeches of their society are like.
If I were poor i'd just travel there and commit a crime and get locked up on that wonderful island.
So it's like the States, only you have good healthcare, and the tubby bitch per capita is lower
They're competitive, lazy, jealous, backstabbing whiners.
[/ QUOTE ]
Speak for yourself man, I'm not competitive at all.
although i rarely whine, and beat people when they do.
--from norway.
:i thought our max sentence was 24 years.
EDIT: nevermind, I was thinking of Sweden.
(dont think america or other countries are too much better though. You wouldnt believe the amount of crazy fucked up people that exist EVERYWHERE)
all the norweigans i know or have worked with are warm, intelligent, outgoing, and crass (and i mean that affectionately).. must be something in the geography :-)
Not to talk about our horribly outdated education system.
But you know what? That didn't change the attitude of people in the slightest (one could say it got worse).
So be careful what you wish for.
And besides...it is partly a screwed perception anyways, as you are automatically more sceptical of the country & the people if its your own since you are more sensitive to the "small" things.
Then theres Houston Texas,home of big oil and excess. Where i grew up people only concerned themselves with work,work,work and buying stuff. My high school was full of rich,overprivelaged/sense of entitlement and egotistical brats. But all that doesnt buy people happiness.
Not to mention what a health hazard it was living there,the whole city was a concrete jungle full of Homogeanous shopping malls,it was dirty and polluted with a ton and i mean a ton of traffic. And if the pollution didnt kill you the food will since the city was rated fattest city in the US.
So thats what i was used to when i left America and moved to Holland first then Denmark. I really like not having to worry about what part of town im or worry about getting shot. Amsterdam had the reputation of drugs,vice and whatever but in terms of compareable cities in the US Amsterdam was tame compared to NO or even Las Vegas.
Demark where im at now is said to have the happiest people, and sure you cant make a blanket statement on a society,but on the whole i see some truth to it. People in Denmark at least seem to value life over work on the whole more than Americans.On the whole i find Danes really friendly.Having healthcare again is good,havent had any again since i was 21. 5 weeks paid vacation is nice also and what i like most is not having to deal with traffic.
So compared to the life i was used to where i grew up Denmark is a welcome change,not to mention im at an age where people get married and at number 2
http://my.mmoabc.com/article/GurlWithSkillz/1771.html?login=no
i can think of worse places to be
We got a very good health system down here too. My brother just got a surgery on the leg (he foll (sp?) on is KTM bike) and we just payed 10 euros for it, and for the time he spent on the hospital and the nursing work after (this without any secure or something), we had to pay the drugs and so on but most of those are payed by the government.
And per, you got there salted codfish... uhmmm
P
Honestly, I believe Per is very accurate in his description. I spent the first quarter of this year in Oslo, Norway. I enjoyed my time there, but always felt an awkwardness with the locals. Many that I worked with seemed to be friendly, but only out of obligation. I was told many times that Norwegians are difficult to make friends with, as they form their groups early in life, and stick with them. In the times I spent with a mostly Norwegian group, I could feel the odd looks I was given. I didn't belong. Your best chance of connecting is after they're completely drunk, which takes time, but not as much as they let on. I was surprised how easily the Norsk can indentify which part of TOWN someone is from merely from speech alone.
The service you receive anywhere on average is poor. Moreso if you're obviously a foreigner. They don't care. They're not pushing to meet any standards. Many times it seemed the person behind the counter would rather spit on me. I wasn't welcomed.
I felt safe walking the city streets, even late at night. Many times I would walk from work, to my apartment, and into town. This was a shock and took time to adjust, as I spent the first couple weeks hidden in my apartment in an unknown land. I don't feel safe walking from my home, to the TacoBell on the corner. Soon, I found it safer to walk their "red light district" at night, than it is to walk some US city streets during the day. No one bothers you. I never noticed an overwhelming police presence, like I do at any event here in the US. I hardly noticed them at all. Never heard the word prison the whole time I was there. No traffic. No stop lights. But they do have an insane princess.
I took a train trip to Bergen during a national holiday. It's a beautiful city on the opposite side of the country. I would say it looks friendly. I tried talking with many people there, and was quickly turned away. No one talks to you unless they're paid to. The exception being children. I was lucky enough to catch a communist parade. The friendliest people I met on my trip to Bergen was an old couple from Seattle.
Even tho anyone under 40 speaks perfect English, it's fun to learn some Norsk. But you're not going to pronounce it correctly, and they make sure you know that. Jeg vil har en grillpølse i brød med ost og alt på, være så snill.
But it really isn't bad at all. I tell friends it's a great place, but I wouldn't live there. If you spend a lot of time in Norway, you'll see some amazing bands, make some really cool friends, and meet fun girls...all of which are from SWEDEN.
This post created in Notepad.
My grandma is from Sweden.
They Moved to America and became citizens.
From what he told us it was a great place to live but he never wanted to move back. They had gone back to visit a few times. My grandpa said that with each trip the anti foreigner sentiment grew. He laughed it off and said his American accent was growing too noticeable and he had forgotten some of the lang. On their last trip he had a hard time explaining to someone why he liked to visit but didn't want to move back they didn't understand why someone would leave and only like to visit.
altough the few times i been in america most girls think im a weirdo (its called irony bitches, look it up!
i do agree about scandinavian people not beeing very keen on striking up conversations with random people on the street. I complain about it aswell. Still when someone approaches me on say, the subway, and want to talk i think they are weirdos
hooray for social heritage!