My New Personal Bubble

I come from a family who loves to travel, my father is always looking into the next place he wants to visit or plot where he’s going to retire. I am not the type of person who dreams of living in another country but I knew that if I didn’t take the opportunity to study abroad I would regret I applied with my fingers crossed and was approved. As the flight date got closer and I became more nervous than excited. I had travelled to Europe before but living there for four months and visiting for a week at a time are very different. As the butterflies in my stomach got worse I turned to my father, I was hoping he could settle my nerves as he usually can. He did calm me down but he gave me some advice that I couldn’t shake lose. I am very much my father’s daughter, but where we differ is that he is a very close talker and I am someone who needs their space. He warned me that in Europe, southern countries in particular lacked the concept of personal space.

A few days passed and I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that everyone would always be really close to me no matter where I went while I was abroad. I decided that I should talk to someone who had actually been to Seville instead of my dad who was just assuming rather than telling me based off personal experience. My great aunt had actually lived and taught in Seville for over 10 years, so before I left I gave her a call hoping to find out if I should really be worried or if I was blowing this way out of proportion. Thankfully, she told me I had nothing to worry about and that my dad was just trying to ensure that I was aware of my surroundings while I was alone studying abroad. She said people did have less of a sense of personal space but not like my father described, which made me feel a whole lot better and I quickly brushed off what my dad told me.

This, however, was a huge mistake. I started to notice how much more “rude” the Spaniards were as soon as the flight landed. I happened to sit next to a Spanish woman, I was on the isle and boarded before she did. She sat in the window seat. We were in the middle of the plane but closer to the front, she kept to herself and I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until we landed. The plane landed and she immediately unbuckled and began looking at her other family members sitting around us who were already standing up and starting to gathering their bags and standing in the isle waiting to exit the plane. I was waiting for the rows in front of me to move forward and leave the plane because that is what you do, you don’t cut the people off in the row next to or in front of you to leave the plane first because it is rude. The woman next to me started to move closer to me, I was expecting her to wait just like I was but she stepped over my legs and bag as I was sitting so that she could get into the isle and get off the plane faster. I was shocked and had never seen anything like it before. When we made eye contact I gave her a little bit of a nasty look which she completely disregarded. As the line to exit started to reach the rows directly in front of me I started to stand and put my bag on so I could leave my row.

As we boarded the shuttle from the plane everyone was so close we were touching, I went to a corner where I thought I would have a little space but the person directly behind me stood so close to me that our whole sides were touching. I didn’t know why he was standing SO close to me when there was so much room. I couldn’t even turn my head without touching someone. I felt like we were all breathing on each other and I was the only one who thought it was uncomfortable. This was not the end either, in every line I stood in I felt the person behind me up against my back or backpack. I would try and move forward to give myself a little bit more room and then would keep inching forward. Dirty looks, moving forward, trying to take up more room all did nothing to change the fact that everywhere I went in Seville my sweat was mixing with someone else’s. Whether it was going out to eat, standing on the metro, or talking one on one to someone there was less than an inch of space between us at any given time. I know that it is very normal here but I still can’t help feeling a little violated and that people are being rude when they are getting extremely close to me. I am still trying to adjust when someone bumps into me and doesn’t apologize or doesn’t even try to avoid me at all.