Dealing with it

[donquixote]

You are walking down the sidwalk and ahead of you are a group of people gabbing, blocking the way through. You say "perdon" They look at you like (what the f*** do you want. No one move to make room for you to pass. This is the norm in BsAs. I now just walk through elbowing my way past. I don't understand the mentality. How do Argentines deal with this situation.
DQ

 

[pedroC]

Try saying "permiso", perdon means sorry.

 

[donquixote]

PedroC You just don't get it. I should not have had to say anything, civility would have been enough. Concideration for your fellow citizen shows respect for him and yourself. When respect is a concept that is forign to a culture you get dog shit on the side walk, drivers that could care less if they kill you. Need I say more.
DQ

 

[henryb]

In the States when you are looking at something on a shelf and somebody passes by you 3 times, he is supposed to say "Excuse me!", "Excuse me!" and "Excuse me again!". I am not sure whether it is a civility norm or people are just afraid to be sued. So the difference must be striking.

DonQ, really after you say "perdon" they are waiting for you to ask a question.

 

[Elpanada]

Yes Permiso is definantly the thing to say, them fucking drivers though man they almost hit me a few times, I remember just standing someplace chatting with people a few times and I remember just feeling them cars pass me by missing me by less than an inch. The dog shit well yes okay they don't pick it up but I don't know I don't think that shows that people in buenos aires in general are disrespectfull just that the tradition and legalities of dog ownership in buenos aires are not good.Man this perdon/permiso thing of yours sounds so utterly strange for some reason, that someone would actually be having such a comical misunderstanding, are you trolling here? If you are, nice work.

 

[sergio]

Yes, Don Quixote, the streets are dirty - really bad in the microcenter at night. I don´t think I´ve seen worse even in places like India. On the positive side, I´ve seen a change regarding cleaning up after dogs. I´ve seen a number of people use plastic bags (in Barrio Norte) to clean up after their pets. I hope this catches on. Blocking the street - it´s a weird custom. Very annoying. I agree with others here - say ¨permiso¨and hope they move. if not, say permiso again and just plow through.

 

[malbec]

How do we deal with people blocking the footpath?-If you are young/in a hurry you don't care about them and look for a detour (walking on the street a few metres...yes, don't day-dream when you do that)
-If not possible: go to them and say loud and looking like you know what you are doing: discúlpenme! quiero pasar, por favor (permiso should work fine)
If you stay in front of them and don't make clear what you want...should they say it for you?I can't recommend it more: go out, talk to people, be open and learn that fuc*** language called Castellano! (and maybe that way you'll stop whingeing!)