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

aard@kyu.de to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 570 points –

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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I'm Danish. Opening beer with a lighter or other things that aren't technically a bottle opener.

Everything's a bottle opener.

When I built my house I made a bet with myself that I'd never open an end-of-the-day-beer with the same thing twice. I managed. I included the chainsaw, the backhoe and the crane (although I cheated that one and asked the operator for help).

Opening bottles with your phone used to be a thing too. Most used Nokias from the 32/3310 era in Denmark have scratches at the bottom from people not doing I properly. I've seen some people open beer with iPhones, but I wouldn't recommend it.

I once opened a glass bottle of soda with my teeth, having nothing else around. It worked but it wasn't worth it.

So how do you open one without a bottle opener?

A few methods that come to mind

  • put the side of the cap on the edge of a table and hit the top with your palm
  • get a fork (or anything else), grab the bottle's neck a bit under the cap, put the end of the fork just under it, the middle part on your fingers, push the other part down to open
  • find a door, put the bottle cap inside the metal rimmed hole in the door frame that the latch sinks into (sorry, don't know the word in English) and use it as a normal opener. Be quick as your beer might spill.
  • get a screwdriver and a hammer, put the screwdriver to the middle of the cap and gently hit it with the hammer. The cap will slightly sink into the bottle and the sides will release their grip

(sorry, don’t know the word in English)

You got me thinking for a moment there but that thing's called a mortise.

Aren't they talking about the strike? I thought the mortise was where the lock goes.

I've never heard "strike" so I assume you know more about doors than I do.

I don't know which one of us is right but rather than looking it up I'm hoping someone that actually knows swings by.

Perhaps the easiest (and most flashy) is a wooden table top. Wedge the cap onto the edge, and the smack it with your palm. This method is widely discouraged, especially on your host's dining room table, as it usually takes a small chunk of wood off the edge and damages the table.

Like the Dutch, Germans have an impressive lexicon of commonly-known ways to open beer bottles without a bottle-opener.

Just do the same move on the 20 bottle plastic case you bough the beer in. The cases are sturdy and the breweries dont care for the scratches

Good idea! I've never seen those used here in the US (our beer tends to come in cardboard cases or kegs - we call those plastic created "milk crates"), but if we did, the trick would probably be better known.

Everything here is cans or twist-tops, anyway.

From a logistics point of view we need to keep the population density and shorter ways in mind. In Germany we have a deposit system for the crates and bottles and because of the short ways and high deposit most of them find their way back. But with a thousand miles between brewery and customer that system becomes tricky to implement. Also cans only weigh a fraction of a glass bottle.

So for a local brewery that is only distributing locally glass bottles in crates are a good system, but not so much for longer ranges. Also a reuse system needs a critical minimum size to be viable.

It was interesting to see how much locality there was in the beer consumption. I wouldn't call them monopolies, but with a few exceptions, it seemed to me that people tended to drink beer from local breweries. I was living in Munich, and I don't know if the close proximity of the breweries had a greater impact than in the countryside. I noticed it most when I first visited Dresden, and all of the beer was suddenly different brands.

Basically anything that can be used as a lever while using your finger as the fulcrum. A lighter is real easy, but you can do it with anything vaguely stick-shaped and somewhat sturdy. A nice, thick twig will do the trick.

You grab the neck of the bottle tightly with your dominant hand so your finger a thumb is holding the cap tightly. Then you take the lighter in the other hand and wedge it in between the dominant hand and cap. Squeeze tightly and use the lighter as a lever.

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The entire reason behind the unending popularity of these

Nah. BiC lighters are where it's at. Clipper lighters always run out of flint before fluid. I have a Zippo, and still carry a BiC for specific situations like opening beer bottles, or hitting a bowl.

I thought these were popular for pulling out the little stick to pack a joint with. Never seen anyone open a beer with them.

I've seen people open beers in a lot of different ways though. I had an alcoholic friend in my early 20s who could do it with anything. Even his teeth. He chipped his tooth once and stopped doing it with his teeth though, lol.

A bottle of beer or a can of beer?

Bottles. It's similar in The Netherlands, it's a bit of a sport to open beer bottles with anything and everything, except dedicated bottle openers. Quite popular are Bic lighters, other beer bottles and the edges of tables.

Beer cans usually have pull tabs, they're just soda cans with a different brand on it.

I’m American and this is how it was when I was in college and went to parties. I rarely, if ever opened a beer bottle with a bottle opener. My bic lighter was the most common tool, but as you said, learning how to improvise with whatever was on hand was key. It was a proud day when I found that the trucks on my longboard had a sweet spot for cracking beers open

A bottle. As some Dutch person said in another comment, cigarette lighters, edges of tables and another bottle are popular options. Please don't use your teeth. I have a nice, rounded tooth that I used to use for opening beers when I was younger - I was lucky I didn't damage it more.

What if you do it wrong and you make the lighter explode, taking a finger with it

Cigarette lighters don't explode that violently if they're punctured. The greatest hazard would probably be getting plastic in your eye. If you do it wrong the lighter usually just gets scratched.

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