How Spanish and German people behave around strangers by Elena

One thing that kind of confused me at the beginning of the exchange is the way Spanish people treat strangers: this is an intercultural aspect that’s really different in Germany. When I first met my host mother, the first thing she did was hugging me tightly and kissing me on both cheeks. I already knew this way of greeting each other from France but i didn’t know spanish people did it the same way.
It doesn’t really matter if the person in front of you is your best friend or a person you see for the first time – in Spain you’ll treat both of them the same way which is something that I find really gentle and cute but also a bit weird at the same time.

In Germany some of our spanish exchange students were a little confused when our parents didn’t say hello to them the way they know it. Just shaking hands and saying ,,Welcome“ isn’t very polite in their opinion. But after I explained that’s what we normally do in Germany, they quickly got used to it and even tried it themselves after a few days. 

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