Can someone who lives in Norway give me a non-biased account of how it's like there? C:?

[Ethan]

Like, overall living conditions, and with how things work economically, politically, socially, and how it's just like to live there.

[Chloe]

Norway is a beautiful country to live in even though the weather is cold pretty much all year round. I don't really know Politics in Norway and all that but prices are very expensive.

[Richyboy]

Well, things are going well, living conditions are good, with most houses a little larger than usual in Europe, and a lot more TVs and other electronics (there are often several television sets and computers in the household). If you ignore the high taxes (it is evened out by the pay the unions get me), the economy is doing great, they are profiting from the Euro Crisis (weak Euro means more investors), the constant crises of the US (private persons can make a good lump of money from selling their golden family heirlooms to panicking Americans), and the Arab Spring (oil prices rise). It is quite interesting at the moment in politics. After the terrible events in July, his heartfelt speeches made the current PM immensely popular, something which have knocked the feet away under the Conservative Party and the Progress Party (further aided by a series of scandals, usually involving men, daughters, children and the occasional animal), and brought the previously so successful (and anti-American) Socialist Party to its knees. This has created a massive change in the political landscape. Socially; well, it is easy to get friends as long as you try to act like everybody else, but it takes a little time. On a more general basis, there are little racism (although a little resentment against increased immigration with some of the population) and virtually no discrimination based on gender or sexuality. I'm also willing to take more risks with the job market now, because I know I have a good safety net to catch me up. Something which sometimes annoy me is the fact that so many food products are not available here, it is only about half the variation we had back home. They tell me it is usually either because the producer simply haven't bothered expanding sales to Scandinavia, or because the products are simply banned (selling food containing genetically modified ingredients is not legal, out of fear for serious health damage from side effects).

In general, I think it is nice. It's like most Western European countries, just slightly better, in a way. The temperature is not that bad, either. Of course there is more snow in the winter, but the summers are warm, and the mountains to the west and north gives the part of the country I live in a lot of sun and blue skies. You should avoid Oslo, though, grey and crime-infested (I read somewhere that 40% of all armed robberies in Norway happened in central Oslo), unlike the rest of Norway, where the police have little to do and rarely have firearms at them. Another interesting ting is that ALMOST EVERYBODY UNDER 55 are on Facebook (I think someone once told me that one in every ten Facebook profiles are Norwegian. You can really see it when it says "like us on Facebook" in television commercials.