Activating an unlocked iPhone 5

I recently purchased an iPhone 5 for someone in another country to use, so I purchased it unlocked. Maybe I'm just worrying too much, but I'm reluctant to send it to them in case anything goes wrong and they can't activate it. Even for an unlocked phone, the activation screen is seen? Will any SIM work to activate it? Also, I can't really see if it's actually unlocked or not, because I can't restore it in itunes to check if I get the message. I'm not really sure what to do, and am a little upset that there's all these blockades for using my phone... Why can't I use it with just wifi while it's not activated? Why can't I check to see if it's unlocked somewhere?

In summary:

1) My phone is bought from amazon, shipped from them, as an unlocked phone. I can't however check if it really is unlocked.

2) I'm presented with an activation screen when trying to use the phone to set things up (I wanted to add in security apps in case it's lost). Will any SIM work to activate this phone if it is truly unlocked?

3) Apple seems to have many roadblocks along the way to using this phone, and it's quite upsetting that I can't just use this as an ipod while I'm not activating it.

4) Can I use a SIM card of my friend on a network to activate it? What about when he goes back to activating it in his iphone? I'm assuming he should be able to activate it, but I don't know if that puts any locks on my iphone or links his information to my iphone. I assume it will deactivate my iphone when he puts his sim back in his. However, I should be able to restore my phone and see if I get the "unlocked" message, right?

Also, this is the model A1428