Street Etiquette in Spain

By: Enely Hiciano

A social practice that I encountered while traveling in Spain was the mannerisms of people walking on the street and how their body language would communicate with you while they’re walking by you. We frequently talked about this in the beginning of the trip because it was a culture shock for most of us. I realized that most Spaniards would much rather slightly shove you out the way rather than saying, “excuse me”. I encountered this more frequently when we walked together as a large group and there were either one or two individuals that were trying to get by us because they could clearly tell we were tourists and they just wanted to get to their destination rather than pacing behind slow tourists stopping for pictures. I noticed that Spaniards tend to walk much faster and I personally am not a fast walker so many times people would cut me off and walk in front of me, clearly annoyed. However, if they didn’t cut you off because there were too many people around and they couldn’t squeeze by, they would tailgate you in hopes that you would walk faster or you’d get annoyed and pull over to the side so that they could cross over you. I thought this was rude at first because I don’t see this behavior much here in Connecticut and I especially thought it was impolite to not say “excuse me” or “I’m sorry I pushed you.” However, after a couple days into my trip, I picked up my pace and tried to blend in and I believe it worked because the mean mugging and tailgating nearly stopped. In Connecticut specifically most people drive so walking everywhere was different compared to Spain. In crowded settings, I never heard a single “excuse me” which validates my point of view on social practices in Spain regarding walking etiquette and mannerisms.