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LilMissAnonyMOUSE Language was problem but not in the way I expected. As you say English is widely spoken. It wasn't quite as common in 1986 as it is now but it was still possible to go into a supermarket and ask where to find something and be told in useable English where it was. But the department I worked for had no Norwegian customers. It was all export and it was clearly more valuable for my colleagues to improve their English than it was for me to learn Norwegian. That couple with me being one of the world's worst language students meant that it took me five years to learn it despite the state offering a couple of hundred hours of free tuition (they don't do that now, you have to pay).
The health system is very similar in some ways to the UK (if that helps). The principle difference is that we have to pay a contribution when we visit a doctor, get an X-ray, etc. For a single unmarried person it costs about 20 EUR to visit your GP. But there is a limit of about 300 EUR a year that is automatically applied. After that everything is free for the rest of the year and if you paid more before the system caught up then it gets automatically reimbursed via the tax system.. Actual hospital stays and inpatient procedures are of course totally free. I had a mole removed some years ago and because it was both an outpatient procedure and regarded as cosmetic I had to pay, I think it was about 30 EUR. It was on my arm and it annoyed me that some clothes got caught on it :-) Dentistry is not included but seems to be reasonably priced compared to some other countries such as the US.
Medication here seems to be at market rates except that it is included in the 300 EUR annual limit I mentioned.
I think the general principles of health, social security, and education are similar to Spain although I'm sure lots of details differ. All education in Norway is free and there is a state loan company that will loan money for living expenses. If you graduate I think they convert half of it into a grant so you don't have to pay it all back which is supposed to give people an incentive to study hard! they will even pay a grant to study abroad but only for approved courses at approved institutions.
I've been a permanent resident for over thirty years now and have no intention of returning to the UK. I don't know what Spain is like but one of the reasons I prefer Norway over my birth country is that almost everything is simpler here. Things just work and when something does go wrong you can usually speak directly to someone who can make it right.
As an example when No. 3 son was about six months old a letter arrived addressed to him from the fylkeskommune (equivalent to a county in the UK, an administrative region). It was quite formal and directed him to leave the country within a month as he did not have a residence permit! He was actually born in the UK and when my wife flew back here with him when he was three weeks old we forgot to register him with the population register. But of course his name ended up in the health system as my wife took him for check ups and such. Why we forgot to register him is a mystery, we did it for the other two in exactly the same circumstances.
The letter was signed by the director of whatever department it was and there was a telephone number. So I called fully expecting to speak to some under-assistant. But the motherly voice that answered the telephone was the director. I was still unsure what the actual problem was having completely forgotten we needed to register him. I explained that we had received this letter and pointed out the No. 3 son was unable to deal with the problem himself because he we still at the thumb-sucking goo goo stage. She immediately said something along the lines of "Oh, we didn't know that." and pointed out that we should have registered him. I apologized for forgetting and asked what i should do next. She just said don't worry, I'll fix it, you don't need to do anything.
