When one moves to a new place, regardless of whether it’s off to college freshman year, to a new city for a job, or to a new country to live or study abroad, there are certain elements that remind you that you live there. Things like moving into your new apartment and cooking your first meal there are obvious. But when you live in a new country, sometimes the little things take on an extra dimension. I found out (a little too late in some cases) that finding medication, doing laundry, and cooking are a lot different than what I was used to in the US. This week’s posts will focus on these revelations. First up: getting sick.
Now I didn’t get sick sick, but this past week (my second week in Ireland), I caught a cold – sneezy, runny nose, sore throat, you know the drill. But having just arrived in the country, I had no medicine in my cabinet and when I went to the pharmacy, I didn’t recognize any of the products. After just a few minutes of blankly staring at the wall marked “cold and flu,” one of the nice pharmacists came to my assistance and asked what I needed. I told her my symptoms, and just a few minutes later I was stocked with Strepsil throat lozenges, vitamin C tablets to add to my water, and daytime and nighttime cold medication. For my Irish readers, you should know that my typical visit to the pharmacy at home involves a *vast* selection of brand-name and off-brand cold and flu medicine for every different combination of symptoms that are just on the shelf for you to sort out yourself, and the pharmacist is typically behind a counter dealing primarily with prescription medications. Of course they’ll help you with over-the-counter (non-prescription) medications too if you ask, but I was happy to find the pharmacist so helpful in getting me what I needed for what turned out to be just a 5 day recovery.
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