Regaring 1-3: 1. There are a lot of places in the vicinity of basel that you can reach using public transport in less than 1h per way: If you look at a map you see three main "valleys" in switzerland that "end" in basel: Towards Rheinfelden, towards Liestal and towards Laufen. From almost any of those towns (that are also adjecent to any of these) you are at most abou 1h away form basel using public transport. (You'd have to check https://www.sbb.ch/ to be sure.) So there are a lot of more rural areas, that might be also less expensive. 2. Knowing english, french and a little bit of german you're not gonna have problems communicating. Pretty much everyone will speak high-german (or even switch to english) if they notice you're having trouble. Nobody expects you to speak swiss german, but you will have an advantage (when meeting people/going out) if you understand it a little bit. But I'd recommending learning german, and if you live there you'll pick up things as you go. (There are many dialects of swiss german, so when learning it as a non-native language you will sound funny to most people, so only few people actually try to learn to speak it, but that shouldn't hold you back. Even most germans living in switzerland tend not to speak swiss-german even if they could, but they have an advantage if they do understand it.) 3. I can't compare, I don't know any norwegians. Good Luck and let me know if I can answer anything else!