Norge Øbserved

The Norwegian consulate in Los Angeles is a $350-a-month conference room inside the Global Business Centers rental suites in Beverly Hills. When someone needs a visa or to replace a passport, Consul General Richard Fine just hangs the flag. For a few minutes it's like a little piece of Norway on Camden Drive, legally speaking. "I feel like one of the smartest guys in the diplomatic corps,” Fine told the L.A. Business Journal. The consulate's annual cost is only $4,000 instead of $83,000 for a full-time office. Plus Oslo's man in L.A. gets a 90210 address and the use of receptionists who service all 800 businesses that rent phone numbers at the suites. "There are more people answering the phone here than at any other consulate that Norway has in the U.S. Even if you go to our embassy in Washington, there’s only one person answering the phone,” Fine said. OK, is that some kind of Norwegian inferiority complex—not having enough receptionists?