Topic: Culture

Agreed. Very uptight.

The sad fact is that I'm really one of the more relaxed Brits!

We know it Nettle..U have given our younger members some food for imagination...

anythng other u knw strych?

Is it still "hip" to post in this thread?

I live in Norway, and unlike 90% of the countries in the whole world, we have free heath care (not sure how accurate this number is now though). I don't even if we do same sex marriage.

Norway, demographically and culturally speaking, is divided in four parts, logically enough being northerners, southerners, easterners and westerners.
I'm from the west part.

Edit:We have to forms of Norwegian, both official, these two being bokmål and nynorsk.
Bokmål is what they mostly speak in the east of Norway, and since that's where the capitol is, most of the TV broadcasts, politicians and formal stuff are written/spoken in bokmål. It's really just a basterdized version of Danish.
Nynorsk directly translated means "New Norwegian", which is somewhat contradictory because it sounds more norse/old than anything. If you want to be a badass, you speak Nynorsk, at least IMO. Bokmål is easy to learn because most things are in bokmål, so if you want to learn Norwegian in an institution, you'll most likely learn bokmål.
Most people in Norway think Nynorsk is something that just old people use. and find it kind of odd/lame.
HUMP. NO. Says I.

Culturally, westerners are known for being loudmouth, rain-hating (because it rains here most of the time, thanks to wind/wave currents from The UK) idiots. This is mainly because the biggest city here, and 2nd biggest (next to the capitol, Oslo), in all of Norway, is Bergen.
"Bergensere", what we call someone from Bergen, has a very annoying, loud dialect that nobody really likes except for themselves, and are commonly called "crocodiles" due to their big mouths. I guess.

I live about two hours from Bergen, to the east, in a majestic valley that is prone to humploads of German tourists in the summer. They humping love our old churches for some reason, I don't even...

In general, we pay quite a bit of tax, around 40% was the last number I heard (though it may very well be lower), but in return we get free education on all levels, including college and university. We have a massive welfare plan, where you can get support for almost anything. This, of course, means it gets misused. Also, takes a humpload of time to process a request for aid if you're not REALLY struggling. This has lead to Norway being in 1st place on the HDI list since 2001 (except for the two times Iceland won, but they went bankrupt so LOL on them).
Just had to promote Norway a bit there in the end.

What else...
Well, people here, at least the younger generations are very welcoming to foreigners. The older generations not that much, although that really depends where in the country you are. There are quite a few who don't care much for Polish people, because they, supposedly, TURK UR JERBBBS!!
(For Ogbus who can't watch youtube clips, this was a clip of the South Park sketch where rednecks complain about aliens from the future coming and "taking their jobs", or as they say, "TURK UR JERBS".)

I don't even what more...
It's typically Norwegian to ski, never brag (or we brag all the humping time for every occasion, just more subtle) and other doodie like that. CBA to write more ATM.
Plus, I'm at work now. Should really go outside and feed some fish and fix some machines... SUPPORT NORWEGIAN ECONOMY AND MOTHERLAND!

Oh, and they don't show commercials for alcohol or political campaigns on TV.
I'm really glad they don't.

Edit:
Oyeah. Forgot to say that where I live we don't speak the Bergen dialect. What we speak is some really cool, deformed archaic version of Norse Norwegian, bastardly mixed with Danish.
Example: A short piece of rope is normally called "taustump" in Norway. Where I live, the cool people true to the oldschool dialect (like me) say "togjatàse".
Meh. Guess you have to live here to see how cool that really is.

Also, if you want to find the really oldschool, hardcore viking descendant Norwegians, it's the northerners you're looking for.
They mostly fish on big ships, drink, curse, and they have the most badass Norwegian dialect.
They are some tough sons of mothers!
Edited by NadeMcNade on 7/16/11 at 5:58:25 am