trust in others' sense of doing right - so Norwegian

There is a generally high level of trust in Norwegian society. You can leave your child sleeping in its stroller outside stores or apartment buildings (though parents will still keep an eye on the stroller in town, or have a baby-call placed in the stroller outside their home), if you lose some item of clothing or something else passerbys will often pick it up and place it on something a little raised nearby so that it is easy to spot if you are retracing your steps looking for it (so it is important you don't have your eyes fixed on the ground only!), if you lose a more valuable item people will either take it to the police station or take it with them home and post on the local "buy/sell/give away" facebook groups to try and find the owner, etc.

This past Wednesday I experienced another perfect example. We were in a town about an hour's drive from here, and I stopped by a store that I had three gift cards for, so I could use them up in time (it's the nearest place they have this store). I bought stuff for the total amount of the gift cards plus NOK 12 more, and was going to pay the "extra" with my bank card. But they had great difficulties letting me pay with the gift cards, and made a few mistakes that they weren't sure right then and there how to reverse and fix, one of them being that I had already paid the change in cash...cash I didn't have on hand and had to pay with my bank card.

They ended up just telling me that next time I came by the store I could give them the NOK 12 (about US$ 2.50 or so). I said I live in Innvik, and they said ok, next time you come to town then. There was no writing it down or anything, nor a "don't worry about it, we'll take care of it since we jumbled it up", but rather I owe that amount so next time I go there, no matter how far in the future that may be, the assumption is I will stop by and give them NOK 12 in change, because my conscience says I must.

-----

This was also the first trip we took with the girls in their new car seats. We got Leona's in the mail on Monday, where originally I was going to try and find a used one of the same type she already had (Maxi-Cosi Mobi...rear-facing up to 25 kg, and Leona is only almost 15 kg now so weight-wise could probably use it for another two years (?)), so that Eliana could have one too, seeing as Eliana is almost too big for the 0-13kg seat she's been using, and more importantly Cedrik is going to need it pretty soon.

But then I decided against it, the main reason being she is almost kind of right on the verge of outgrowing it height-wise -- and this is the rear-facing seat with the longest back on the market. Since she is already 4, which is Norway's recommended minimum age to let kids start using front-facing seats, I decided it was way smarter to just buy the front-facing seat that I've landed on after a lot of hours researching different seats online (a Cybex Pallax 2-fix - she can use until she is around 11), since if she has a growth spurt we would have to buy it really fast anyhow. And man was she excited about it! Front facing baby!!!

As was Eliana when she realized that she got to upgrade to Leona's old seat. When I was done re-adjusting and re-installing the seats, I asked Eliana if she wanted to come give her new seat a dry-run. The excited joy that radiated from her was priceless. She climbed right in, and requested the straps be fastened snug, and then emphatically said "move". She was ready to go for a drive. So I drove her down to the garage and parked, and got a good few complaints from her that the drive was by no means long enough for her satisfaction.

.