We all went for a nice 2 hour drive this morning through the French countryside. Trouble is it was broken into 4 - 30 minutes drives to and from the same doctor's office. Audrey and I picked up a chest cold and a nasty cough so after a day or two of hoping it would go away we finally scheduled a visit. Now before you go thinking that our two trips were the fault of more French red tape, let me stop you. We were amazed and a little leary of how easy the French medical system is. Basically a trip the doctor goes like this. Ring the bell, walk in, maybe wait a little in the waiting room (we didn't have to), shake hands with the doc, tell them your name and age, hop on the table, get a diagnosis and a prescription, pay your bill (22 euros per person per office visit), then say "au revoir" and leave. I didn't even pick up a pen during the visit and it took all of 15 minutes to check out both Audrey and myself. The reason for the two trips was our fault. I mentioned that Audrey had been on an antibotic 2 weeks ago, and the doc wanted to know the type so she didn't double up. We forgot to bring the information, so off we went.
The trip to the pharmacy was equally easy and cheap. Nothing to fill out, no insurance card just pay for the drugs and go. Actually, French nationals have a card that make prescriptions really cheap. When you say "Non, je n'ai pas" (No, I don't have), they wince and apologize for the price. 2 rounds of antibiotics and 2 rounds of prescription strength ibuprophen = another 22 euros. Crazy how cheap it is.
Yes you could multiply every euro amount by 1.5 or so and make it seem more expensive, but we try not to do that as it'll make you not want to buy anything. That and it's not really Europe's fault that the American dollar stinks right now. Food is one item that is a little expensive over here, even without doing the conversion. It's worth it though. Gas is another. Ok, it's not a little expensive. It's really expensive. Americans not blessed in the art of unit conversion are bound to think they are getting a deal at first. The signs look good when you see numbers like "1.50". Seems like pre 9/11 again. Then you start to calculate. 1.50 per liter times 3.79 liters per gallon equals 5.69 per gallon. Then if you want to convert euros to dollars, it really gets bad. Somewhere between $8.50 - $9.00 per gallon is where you end up. Be sure to think about this whenever I post pictures of their tiny little cars.
One last thought, if you've got our vonage number, feel free to call. I finally got it working the other day.
And thanks for leaving all the comments.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Matt,
Seems like I remember you mentioning that you can't get Velveeta in France. If you run out of the hundreds of other cheeses to try and NEED Velveeta, be sure to let me know and I'll send an emergency package.
hahaha!!!
i love the part about gaz... in my opinion the prices are just right. there seems to be no other way of keeping mankind off of wasting energy... but i don't wanna start a political discussion here.
i'm back home from belgium and portugal now, having quite some plans for the near future, so grenoble still has to wait a bit. maybe in winter for snowboarding (better get some practice now, or i'll be giving you a hard snow day...).
waiting to see u soon!
I would hate to see those prices here in the US. I paid $3.89 in Newton today then drove to Effingham and it was $3.79. You haven't mentioned what type of vehicle you are driving and how far is it to the town where you're buying the wonderful bread in the morning.
Hope you and Audrey are feeling better. Take care.
Post a Comment