You Look Beautiful, But Back Up Off of my Grill

It's been a week since I wrote a proper update and in that measly little time frame I have managed to start two movements soon to take Norway by storm.  That takes skill...or pushiness, but I prefer the former.
Movement #1: Fo' Shizzel
Ok, I never said they were necessarily good movements.  This story starts at our ecology and evolutionary biologists weekly happy hour on Friday.  Yes, college students back home, feel free to weep with jealousy.  Anyways, I was sitting with a few friends looking down at my beer and I hear one of the Norwegian friends refer to another as "homie."  It was so out of nowhere that I just about died laughing.  This paved the way for a conversation with my research group at a farewell dinner for one of our members.  They explained to me that they at times don't understand American slang.  I had to think about it a bit but we do use a ton of slang without even being aware of it.  Somewhere along the line I started giving them examples of phrases like "homie" that are really not cool anymore like "fo' shizzel" and we started using them jokingly.  I promised them I would make a list of slang, which I did (with the help of a skype session with Jiro) and categorized in "Commonly Used," "Ghetto" and "Ancient" phrase sections, so they would be completely up to date.  This list was complete with all of our favorites including cupcaking, grenades and buttafaces.  For some reason, despite my efforts, the ghetto phrases seem to have stuck better, particularly fo' shizzel.  So now when I talk to Maria on line she will throw in a fo' shizzel or my group members will drop it in conversations.  It is still a joke at this point, but I think it is only a matter of time before it morphs into just normal conversation.  Pretty soon greetings in Norway will consist of "What up beezy?"  "Dude, there are landmines everywhere today, feel me?"  "Fo' shizzel, man."  So if you hear back home how Norway has gone hood, you will know who to blame.
Movement 2: You Look Beautiful Tonight
So Maria and I have taken to complimenting each other quite a bit.  Why you ask?  Because Norwegians don't compliment each other, particularly men to women.  We are both used to casual compliments here and there from people that aren't hitting on us.  In Norway, if I guy compliments a woman, apparently it comes off that they are hitting on them.  This is good to know because Maria and I were starting to feel like chopped liver.  Anyways, after a couple glasses of wine at dinner in our biology conference, we started jokingly bagging on Norwegian men.  Maria said they don't compliment women and that we should go to Sweden because she thinks it is much better there.  Ouch.  This got everyone at the table's attention (seeing how they were all Norwegian) and Maria conveniently slipped away to leave me defending our theory.  Surprisingly, they agreed with me and admitted that it is weird that they don't feel comfortable complimenting someone.  My favorite though, was when one confused Norwegian then looked at me and said, "well what would I compliment?"  Dramatically, I dropped my jaw and everyone started laughing as he scrambled to explain that is not what he meant (which I knew).  I explained to them, for instance, you can tell someone "You look beautiful tonight." So then of course all the men told the women this.  I think it will take some time before they learn how to properly place the compliments, but babysteps.  This also stuck a bit and the next morning despite feeling like death from far too little sleep Maria and I were told we looked nice.  It was really amusing  though when someone not aware of the new movement was complimented, and immediately got stiff and looked down awkwardly and my friend had to quickly explain he wasn't hitting on her.  She was clearly in shock and didn't know what to do with the compliment.  Thus, I think there will probably be an adjustment period, but they will come around.  After all, a well placed, sincere compliment can make someone's day.  In my eyes, this movement makes up for fo' shizzel, though I'll admit it's debatable. 
So, it appears I am not the only one affected by my new life in Norway, but I'm leaving little bits of my influence with Norwegians as well.  I wish that I was responsible for more valuable or significant movements than archaic words like fo' shizzel, but I've only been here a few months.  Imagine what I can get myself into in 2+ years.