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.

  • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
    10·
    10 months 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.

    • Khrux@ttrpg.networkEnglish
      2·
      10 months 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.