| I just love it when tiny Norway/Scandinavia gets some attention. Baldur is a part of norse mythology. :-) I was surfing when I stumbled across an English language page about Norway. Here's something that feels weird for me as a Norwegian to read: "There are no really big cities in Norway. Even it's capitol, Oslo, has only 507 000 citizens." It's so weird. Oslo is the London/New York of Norway and then you find out the rest of the world calls that a small city? There are many cities in other countries that have more citizens than all of Norway together (about 5 million). When a Norwegian says "village" (landsby/tettsted/bygd) he means 1000-5000 people. A village in Bosnia is 50 000 or something. Norwegians would put that in the category of "significant city".
Most of us have a "minority complex", especially towards the US. The first thing the press asks international celebrities who come to Norway is: "What do you think about Norway?" Of course, the answer is rarely satisfying. Usually something about the person not having had the time to look around yet, or that the capitol looks okay. A celebrity from the UK once said that "You don't know how superior you are to America."
My mindset changed after that. Norway is great. It's just that nobody knows yet. :-)
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