Thursday, February 10, 2011

Love and Other Drugs

 I'm really excited right now because I just went to the pharmacy for the first time and I'm in love.  So this blog is going to be both a story about how I fell in love, and a cultural observation of the medical field in Spain.  I hope both of these are as interesting to you all back home as they are to me :)
So I went to the pharmacy today for the first time and I had quite a few reasons.  **If you don't care about medicine or my current medical conditions skip this section.** The first and most pressing was that I am coming down with a cold.  I was afraid this would happen because this is apparently cold season in Sevilla, but fortunately because I was anticipating this I decided to hit the pharmacy the second I got a symptom.  The second reason was that I got a bug bite on the inside of my elbow while I was sleeping the other night.  See, because it's always between 55 and 65 degrees here there are bugs.  I decided to get something for it because it's sore and swollen.  The third reason was much more pressing and it was that I needed bandaids because I was getting blisters from the shoes I was wearing.  Now the fourth reason I went is something I'd rather keep to myself but for the affect of this story it must be told.  I have a lot of acne here in Sevilla and I'm not sure if it's due to being in a new environment, the oily food, or the fact that I spend a lot of time on busy streets.  But I decided to get medicine for it because the expensive face soap I already bought isn't working.  Now, you might be thinking, don't you need to go to a doctor to get a prescription for those ailments?  Not in Europe, you don't!  So the beauty of all of this is that I didn't have to go to a dermatologist or a doctor, and I still got 3 medicines and bandaids, all for the equivalent of $35.  Beat that US medical system!  So as much as I love the United States with all of my heart, I fell in love with the Spanish farmacia today. 
Now to the more interesting part of the story.  While I was paying for my drugs this cute guy walked into the pharmacy.  Normally I can tell when a guy is American or not based on how he dresses, but this guy was wearing a sports coat plus I had never seen him before so I wasn't sure if he was or not.  That is, not until he opened his mouth and stumbled through asking for allergy medicine just like how I stumbled through asking for my medicine.  So I approached him and asked if he was from CIEE, and he said he was from a different program, and we chatted for awhile about how awkward it is to ask for medicine in Spanish.  But then the pharmacist started talking to him and I wasn't sure whether to keep talking to him or not so I just told him good luck and left...
As I left I was kicking myself for not getting his name but then I realized when I was only about 100 ft. away that I had forgotten my bandaids so I went back and I thought, this is a sign haha.  I'm going to go back and we're going to get eachother's names.  But he was already gone.
Moral of the story is that I think I'm more in love with the idea of randomly meeting my soul mate in Spain than actually loving someone :)  No matter how much I change in Spain I will always be a romantic at heart.

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