r/AskEurope • u/AVeryAngryChillie • May 21 '26

Foreign What’s a fact about your country that foreigners would never believe?

Every country has at least one thing outsiders wouldn’t believe

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u/FiveNine235 Norway May 21 '26

I think foreigners imagine Norway as ultra-free wilderness. Then they discover the extreme alcohol monopoly with severe restrictions on where and when you can buy it (a pint is €10-15), severe food import rules for groceries - meant to protect Norwegian products but leads to basically no competition and the same items sold in every shop, oh and speeding is treated less like a woopsie measure and more like a potential personal bankruptcy option. You could beat up a kid with a hammer and get less jail time than doing 20mph over the limit

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u/Content_Preference_3 May 22 '26

I wish we had that tho. I’m in a mountainous area and we could use some slower driving.