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.

  • MJBrune@beehaw.orgEnglish
    153·
    2 years ago

    How to order coffee, get what you want and keep the line moving without any needless human interaction.

    I’m from Seattle and so many tourists want to chat up the barista. Go to the stripe and sip coffee stand for that. If you are ordering something that requires more than 10 words, use the app or be prepared to get something left off and move on. For the love of choice don’t try to chat with some stranger in the line.

    • Manucode@infosec.pub
      201·
      2 years ago

      Humans generally don’t want to interact with needles while waiting to get their coffee. Needles are pointy and can poke you.

    • SeaJ@lemm.ee
      3·
      2 years ago

      Feel free to chat up the baristas if there is no line. Otherwise they just want to power through the rush of people and don’t give a shit about meaningless small talk.

      • MJBrune@beehaw.orgEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        Also the barista may not want to talk to you but they are forced to nicely interact because they’d lose their job if they told you to go away.

    • mattiasdrp@discuss.tchncs.de
      3·
      2 years ago

      And that’s one of the reasons why a big part of the rest of the world think that the people living in the USA are rude. It’s not just about needless interactions, you don’t interact at all. No hi, no please, no thanks, no goodbye, no have a nice day, no sorry, no time. I’m glad I never learnt how to be rude and that’s not a skill I’ll try to teach my kids.

      • akulium@feddit.de
        1·
        2 years ago

        Based on the Americans I met, I don’t believe that is generally true. It varies a lot by region and social environment.

      • MJBrune@beehaw.orgEnglish
        11·
        2 years ago

        I don’t think it’s rude. I’ve been in many places where people just don’t make needless conversation. We interact just fine overall. Specially if you go to some place like southern California. Just Seattle in particular is a lot like the UK not only in weather but in social grouping. People in the UK also don’t needlessly interact.