I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it’s pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that’d be rather time consuming.

Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can’t ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.

edit: the high number of replies mentioning “swimming” made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.

  • sndrtj@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    105
    ·
    1 year ago

    Knowing how to swim. Basic life skill in a water-rich country, but many expats can’t.

      • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        1 year ago

        Never been to Ireland so apologies if this is stupid and wrong and dumb - I was under the impression that a large amount of the seaside was mountainous / cliff faces? If someone learned to swim under those conditions I’d say they’d likely be adopted by Poseidon himself.

          • Silentrizz@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            Can confirm. Went swimming in Ireland in the summer once, my friend who lived there gave me a wetsuit to wear. Some other locals wore them, others didnt.

            • Vashti@feddit.uk
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              So are Irish conditions different from conditions over the sea in Wales, or…?

            • PhiAU@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              I stayed dry and fully clothed while building a sandcastle and watched the locals go swimming in wetsuits. Can’t remember where, somewhere on the coast of Claire or Galway.

              I was staying in Doolan, so it must have been Bishops quater beach. It was in 2004, so I could be wrong.

            • BigNote@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              It’s not that cold. It’s the Gulf Stream, which flows south-north from a tropical origin so it’s warmer than the water on the US west coast, for example, which flows north-south from the Bering Sea on the Alaska Current.

              The Gulf Stream is also why northwestern Europe is as temperate as it is while being at the same latitudes as southeastern Alaska and northern British Columbia which have heavily glaciated coastlines.

              If the Norwegian fjotds were in Alaska, for example, they would be the mouths of giant glaciers, but they aren’t, again because of the warming influence of the Gulf Stream.

              Not sure if that makes sense, but anyway.

        • Khrux@ttrpg.network
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          There are plenty of beaches and people often travel to thembfor the sake of enjoying the beach. The main issue is that for 11-12 months of the year, the water is fucking freezing. If people learn to swim, it’s often in heated swimming pools as kids.