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What's a skill that's taken for granted where you live, but is often missing in people moving there from abroad? (kyu.de)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] grabyourmotherskeys 148 points 10 months ago (26 children)

Winter driving and shoulder season driving. Snow, ice, black ice, freezing rain, slush, hydroplaning, driveway clearing, walkway maintenance, windshield scraping, and keeping an emergency kit for breakdowns. Stuff like that.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (10 children)

Or driving in general. As an American who didn't get a driver's license until I was 21 (gasp! so old) due to some reasons, I can attest that many, many people here simply can't comprehend the idea of someone over 17 or so not having one. I got turned away from a hotel once because they didn't know how to use a passport as an ID.

The only other people I've met with this problem were immigrants. And we were always able to bond over lamentations of how difficult it is to solve this problem... the entire system to get a license here is built around the assumption that everyone does it in high school, so every step of the way is some roadblock like "simply drive to your driving test appointment"...

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (8 children)

As an American who didn't get a driver's license until I was 21 (gasp! so old)

I'm now 41, never made a license - there wasn't really much of a need until now. I can get anywhere I want with a combination of bicycle and public transport.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Which is also better for the environment and a perfectly fine way to live. I think more people should be like that

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