Since you bring this up, and since Norway is sometimes given as an example of a successful socialist society: Do Norwegians (or at least some of them) consider their country’s economic system to be “socialism”?
And how much of a negative (or positive) connotation does that term have in the general public? (I see that there’s a “Socialist Left Party” that is part of the current government coalition, but it still appears to be a rather smallish party.)
I Roald Amundsen’s home/museum worth a visit?
Most don’t. I used the term in a slightly ironic way, since I have the distinct impression that people mostly familiar with US politics haven’t understood the difference between socialism and social democracy. The Scandinavian countries are mainly social democratic, with a large private sector but still strong public sector and a mainly Keynesian economic policy. So, by European standards, we’re not socialist. We’re social democratic. Even Conservative party representatives claim to be proponents of “the welfare state” and “the Scandinavian model”, our claim to exception. Economic liberalism has a very small group of followers here.
The conservative parties - mainly the right-wing Progress Party and the Norwegian Young Conservatives (the youth organization of the Conservative party) sometimes try to use “socialist” as a derogatory term in political discussions, akin to what you see in US political discussions. Mostly, the public reaction to that is “meh”.
The Norwegian Socialist Party has a general image of not-quite-realistic idealists, popularly called “armchair socialists” and their voters have the highest average level of education of all Norwegian voter groups.
Another piece of trivia regarding education and politics: Within the candidates to the last Parliament election, the Socialist party had the highest percentage of candidates with a college education, while the Liberal party had the highest percentage of candidates with a university education. The right-wing Progress Party had the lowest percentage of candidates with a college or university education. EDIT: Cite
Can’t answer that, don’t know. Sorry.
Wait – can you explain the difference?
Here in the USA, ‘college’ and ‘university’ are pretty much the same.
Here, colleges (or, more accurately, University colleges) give mostly undergrad education and award mostly Bachelor’s degrees. Many of those degrees are oriented towards a specific craft or job, like nursing, engineering, economics, teaching, IT, police, etc.
Every county have their college(s), and they’re regarded as county-specific institutions, while there are fewer universities and they’re generally regarded as national level institutions. Some of our regional university colleges can award Master’s degrees (and a few can also award doctorates in very specific disciplines), but most students enroll with a university to get a Master’s or a PhD. Either directly after high school, or they take a Bachelor at a local college and continue for a Master’s or PhD at a university.
I guess the principal difference between our universities and our colleges is that our colleges have a limited research activity and have to apply to the Government to be allowed to create new Master’s and PhD programs. ETA: And that a university has to have a broader scientific and academic curriculum than a college has to have.
I guess I should have made the distinction between Bachelor level/undergrad education and higher academic (i.e. Master’s and PhD)/graduate level education rather than between college and university. :smack: But we usually think college=undergrad and university=graduate here. Even though it’s not unusual to enroll at a university, then quit and get a job after you’ve gotten your Bachelor’s degree
IIRC Norway, like the rest of Scandinavia, is considerably less densely populated than the more southerly countries in Europe. When traveling within the country, do Horwegians tend to rely comparatively more on personal cars rather than trains or intercity buses? How about typical workday commuting?
Dumb question I know, but how massive were a-ha in Norway? I’m always going on about how they were not in fact a one-hit wonder in the U.S. (their second single, “The Sun Always Shines on TV,” was a Top 20 hit) and they played to one of the biggest concert crowds ever (over 220,000) in South America. All of these modern popular bands like Coldplay consider them massive influences. So are Norwegians a-ha crazy, or it something for Brits, Germans, and the occasional Yank to get over-excited about?
No statistics or data, but we tend to use cars quite a lot. Still, there’s a lot of flying, and trains are used quite a bit. ETA: And the express intercity buses are doing pretty well. So it’s possible and quite common to get around the country without a car.
In non-urban areas, it’s mostly by car. Children and young people under 18 still generally walk or ride a bicycle. The larger cities have fairly decent (but far from perfect) public transportation, but the prices aren’t really low enough to encourage people to commute by public transport instead of cars. Most of the larger cities have toll booths for any car entering the city, to discourage car use. The revenues of those are used for roadbuilding, public transportation systems and bicycle lanes. If I’d hazard a guess I’d estimate that overall somewhere around/somewhat below 50% of the urban commutes are by public transportation. But I have no stats and no data for that estimate.
And, a little late, but anyway:
Have you considered a cruise on the coastal express Hurtigruten. You’ll get to see the coast from Bergen all the way to Kirkenes. While sitting comfortably on your butt all the time 
Last year the Norwegian public broadcasting company made a week-long series covering every minute of the route. It’s on WebTV here. Since the show is is shared with a Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike License, you can even find torrent links for download on that webpage. You can also consider the train from Oslo to Bergen, preferably with a sidetrack along the Flåm Railroad
(missed the edit window)
On second thoughts: Damn, that sounds like a great tour of Norway! Fly into Oslo, muck around Oslo for a couple of days, train to Bergen, Flåmsbanen, muck around Bergen for a day or two, and take the Coastal Express all along the coast. At least up to Tromsø, preferably all the way to Kirkenes. Return by the same route (the north- and southbound schedule are staggered so that the places you pass during daytime northbound are passed during nighttime southbound and vice versa) or just fly back to Oslo.
It’ll cost you an arm and a leg, though… :mad:
Do you knit?
No, few Norwegian males knit. Here, that’s generally considered a women’s hobby although some males do, and boys are expected to knit something in arts classes in elementary school. Just as girls are expected to do some woodwork.
My wife does, though. Quite a lot 
How is Ringnes beer now?
Is there anything to do in North Cape?
How many Norwegians believe in trolls,hidden folk, etc.?
Do you have soft shell clams in your coastal waters?
nm
Just like it has been the last thirty years: A fairly decent industrial lager, a little low in hops for my taste.
What is there to do on a cliff by the sea? Watch the scenery, take your photographs, buy some souvenirs and go home to boast that you’ve visited it. Incidentally, North Cape is located on an island, so the northernmost point of mainland Europe is actually Kinnarodden (Cape Nordkinn). And on the island Magerøya, where North Cape is located, Knivskjellodden is farther north than North Cape. But neither of those are as photogenic (or as well marketed) as North Cape, with its cliff falling abruptly into the North Atlantic
For real? Only the occasional woo-er. But the trolls etc. are embedded in our culture and fairly often referred to. In the latter sense, I’ve seen them myself when I’ve been hiking 
Yes.
Or just Hungarians that lost their way?
Finland seems culturally quite different from Norway, Sweden, Denmark.
Are they close or distant?
The Estonian language is much closer to Finnish than Hungarian, but they are all in the same family.
Close or distant culturally?
Closer than Dutch or Germans, more distant than Swedes or Danes.