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. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Weekend activities

Image
The Rollercoaster The Rollercoaster is a restaurant in the south of Hamburg, southern of the Elbe. The really good and exquisite food comes to your table by rail, after you ordered by tablet. Sometimes even with a sparkler. We went there with 10 persons. Exept from another branch in Dresden, this restaurant is unique. The "Schokofondue" On sunday afternoon, we went to Pauline's to eat the so-called "Schokofontäne". It's a fondue of melted chocolate in form of a fountain, where you dip fruit in. It exploded twice. That was the second time. The first time, we took the tablecloth away, expecting it not to happen again, but... The "Tropenaquarium" Monday, we were at the "Hagenbeck's Tropenaquarium". It's part of the zoo here in Hamburg.  That's Steve. He's a manta ray.
Read more

A sunny day in Hamburg Downtown :-D

Image
Hi! We´re Alexandra, Annika, Julia and Natalia. On monday we spent a lovely day in the City Center of Hamburg. First we all went to the International Maritime Museum of Hamburg which was really interesting! We learned a lot of facts about the history of the harbour. After that we walked to the Underground Station "Überseequartier" which is near the museum in the Hafencity. We had lunch at a burger Restaurant named "Jim Block" next to the Gänsemarkt. Everyone ate a huge burger and it was sooo delicious. In the afternoon we were relaxing next to the river Alster and had a Virgin Colada. Afterwords we took a lot of nice pictures in front of the council in the evening light. We went by train to "St.Pauli" and had a short view at the Dom which is an amusemant park in Hamburg. Sadly it first opens on friday the 23rd March. :( Because of that we just walked along the famous street Reeperbahn and saw a outdoor stage where for example the announcement of Germany&#
Read more

German chocolate and candy tasting.

On Monday, we tried some different kinds of chocolates and German candy. We went to "Edeka", a German supermarket, to buy them. Tara showed me all the kinds of candy that she likes and are not available in Spain. She told me that her favourite one works as if it was some kind of "drug": the first time it's good, but it doesn't make you addicted. However, the second time you try it, nobody can stop you from eating it all up. Tara was right. Both of us are vegetarian, and it turns out that Germany is "The Vegetarian Paradise" for gummy bear lovers. We had already tried the ones that Tara's parents gave us the previous night, so we bought a different kind. Just after that, we went home and had a nice talk while we were eating all the candy. We did not even realise that we were almost finishing them all; then, Tara's mum called us for dinner, and we were already full (of candy :)). One of Tara's favourite candy is "Knusperflocken&q
Read more