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.
I had an Uber driver in Florida last time I was there (business) and when he found out I was from Canada he told me he went to Boulder in the winter for a vacation and thought it would be cool to rent a car and drive up a mountain. Yeah, he was pretty freaked out by that driving experience. :)
Good call on the Subaru. My wife had a couple and they were great in the snow. First car we ever had with heated seats, too!
When I first moved here I thought to myself,”Damn there are a lot of Subarus here.”. The reason became abundantly clear during my first winter here lol.
I used to (sometimes skipping class) drive in the mountains almost every day when I was living in Boulder attending CU. I loved it and miss it dearly.
I’ve never been there but I lived in Banff, Alberta for a while when I was 19 (which was a while ago). I was cooking at a hotel there and living in residence. Sometimes I thought I’d stay there forever but I love the ocean, too. Jokes on me, I live in a city hours from the mountains and a day from the ocean now. :)
Something about a mountain town after a snow storm… Pretty cool.
Maybe I’m old but I love John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High. Takes me back.
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