Two kisses, dinner at ten, and the sobremesa

The Spanish customs that catch visitors out, and what to say

Most of what goes wrong on a first trip to Spain has nothing to do with your Spanish. You can conjugate perfectly and still turn up two hours early for dinner, stand up from the table at the wrong moment, or put out a hand when the other person was already leaning in. None of it is rude on purpose, and all of it is noticed.

Two kisses, and who gives them

The standard greeting between women, and between a woman and a man, is dos besos: right cheek first, then left, cheek to cheek rather than lip to skin. Two men usually shake hands unless they are family or old friends. Nobody will mind a half second of hesitation, and the way to get through it is simply to hold still and follow what the other person starts.

The words that go with it are encantado if you are a man and encantada if you are a woman, both meaning pleased to meet you. After that, ¿qué tal? does most of the work. It is softer than ¿cómo estás? and people use it with strangers all day long.

The day runs late, and it runs on its own logic

Lunch, la comida, is the main meal and it happens between about two and four. Dinner is late and lighter: cenamos sobre las diez is an ordinary sentence, not an exaggeration. Between them sits la merienda, the afternoon snack, which is mostly for children but not only.

A restaurant that looks closed at seven in the evening is not closed. It is early.

The meal does not end when the food does

La sobremesa is the time spent at the table after everyone has finished eating, and there is no English word for it. It can run longer than the meal. It is also where the actual conversation happens, so standing up as the plates are cleared is the single most common way a visitor comes across as cold.

If you genuinely have to leave, say tengo que irme, lo siento and give it another minute. The apology is doing real work there.

Saints' days, and the Three Kings

Plenty of people celebrate su santo, the feast day of the saint they are named after, as well as a birthday. And in Spain the presents arrive on 6 January with los Reyes Magos, the Three Kings, rather than on the 25th. If you are there over Christmas, the big night is the 5th.

None of this is uniformly Spanish

Almost everything above varies across Latin America, and some of it barely exists there. The sobremesa travels; the Reyes Magos and the Semana Santa processions are much more particular. The useful habit is to ask rather than assume, and ¿aquí cómo se hace?, how is it done here, is a question people enjoy answering.